Did it ever happen to you that you wanted to move a file and you got the message “This action can’t be completed because the program is opened in another program”? I am sure it did. In most cases you know which application opened the file, but sometimes you are left in the dark. OpenedFilesView helps you to deal with these cases. I reviewed version 1.0 more than two years ago. The current 1.3 release has some useful new features. This is reason enough to write another post and add the tool to the 4sysops free admin tools list.

The main new features are:

• Better Vista support
• Bringing the process to the front
• Hiding system process files, Svchost Files, and files in the Windows folders
• Windows Explorer Context Menu

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Some days ago I reviewed Smart UAC, a replacement for Vista’s UAC (User Account Control). Symantec is working on a similar tool, Norton Labs UAC (NUAC). The tool is currently in beta and I am not sure if this will be its final name. As with Smart UAC, the main feature of NUAC is its ability to suppress future prompts from the same action.

NUAC’s setup asks you if you want to submit UAC prompts. This means that NUAC will send metadata about your actions to Symantec. This metadata contains information such as the filenames and the hashes of the executables and the DLLs involved in the action. Symantec intends to build a white and a black list for UAC prompts. I think this is an interesting idea. This technique works very well for SPAM and I believe it could improve security significantly on Windows PCs. If people know that a UAC alert has never shown up somewhere else, they will be extra careful. Moreover, UAC will be less likely to get on our nerves. Note that the current beta doesn’t use these lists yet.

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Smart UAC is a free tool that replaces Vista’s UAC (User Account Control). It allows you to mark certain programs as safe, so you won’t be bothered with UAC prompts anymore in the future. You can also add applications to a deny list which will prevent them from being executed. Furthermore, Smart UAC has a built-in malware scanner.

One of the features that’s missing with Vista’s UAC is the ability to disable UAC prompts for particular applications. Sometimes you have to configure a Vista feature that requires admin privileges several times because you want to try out something. That’s when UAC can really get on your nerves. Even more annoying are auto-starting apps that initiate a UAC prompt whenever you boot up. Why should I need to confirm that a program is trustworthy more than once?

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As an IT pro, you probably know that deleting data from a hard drive doesn’t ensure that it can’t be recovered with an undelete utility even though you emptied the Windows Recycle Bin. Even if you format a hard disk data it can be recovered. Thus if you take old PCs out of service, you have to wipe all data from the hard disk with an erase tool such as Active@ Kill Disk to ensure that nobody is able to access sensitive data. In particular, PCs that have been used by admins can contain stored passwords or hash codes of passwords which might be in danger once a bad guy gets physical access to the hard drive.

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Superscan is one of the oldest utilities in my toolbox. I still use it every now and then, even though nmap with Zenmap is a much more powerful network scanner. The main advantage of SuperScan is that it is very easy to set up and use. Whenever I am working on another desktop other than my own, and I need a tcp/udp scanner, I always download SuperScan.

If you want to try SuperScan, I recommend changing two of its default settings after you launch it: Disable “Host discovery” and set the “Scan type” to “connect”.

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Revo Uninstaller is a powerful alternative to the Windows Add or Remove Programs control panel applet. It comes with all the necessary tools to clean a system that has been overloaded with tons of useless applications. There is also a portable version, so you can launch it without installing it if you have to clean out a user’s PC of junk. These are the Revo Uninstaller tools, which I will describe below: Uninstaller, Hunter Mode, Junk Files Cleaner, Windows Tools, Auto Run Manager, Browser Cleaner, MS Office Cleaner, Windows Cleaner, Evidence Remover, and Unrecoverable Delete.

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As admin you are probably used to hackers trying to gain access to your servers. Usually you will just try to keep them out of your network without bothering to figure out who is attempting to hack your servers. However, in some cases it is necessary to track down the person behind an attack. Typically, you only have the IP address from which the attack originated. That’s where IPNetInfo comes in. This free stand-alone tool retrieves all available information about an IP address from the Internet.

There are several organizations which provide such information on the Web. But the advantage of IPNetInfo is that it can query all of them, which can save you some time. These are the organizations to which IPNetInfo sends requests: ARIN, RIPE, APNIC, LACNIC and AfriNIC.

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Last year, I wrote a short article that explains what you can do if you forgot your password. Some of those who commented on the article recommended the Trinity Rescue Kit (TRK), a free Linux-based recovery solution. However, TRK can do much more than just reset passwords. Like MSDaRT, which I reviewed some days ago, it can be helpful to recover a Windows installation in offline mode.

TRK comes as an ISO file which you have to burn to a CD. It is also possible to boot from a USB stick. After booting, you have several options for how to start TRK. Most of them are related to possible driver problems you might experience once you start TRK. You can also test the system memory here before TRK starts.

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Submitted by Josh Stephens - Blog: Thwack

SolarWinds free VM Monitor is an ingenious desktop tool that continuously monitors a VMware ESX Server and its virtual machines, delivering the real-time monitoring of ESX Servers that you’ve been missing. With VM Monitor at your fingertips, you’ll be able to track virtual server health at-a-glance and ensure your mission-critical apps never fail you… after all, VM Monitor ensures you are visually alerted in real time to any issues in your virtual reality.

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FREEping is a ping utility that can be used as a simple monitoring tool. There are many free network scanners that are much more sophisticated, but FREEping has a feature that allows you to monitor the availability of an unstable server without much hassle.

FREEping constantly pings a server, but it won’t immediately mark it as unavailable if no echo response is received within the configurable ping timeout period. This is useful because sometimes packets are lost or a server is just too busy to respond in time.

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