Free Registry Defrag is a simple tool that allows you to defragment a fragmented Registry database, which can significantly speed up a PC. Don’t mix up Registry defragmentation with Registry cleaning. The CCleaner tool, which I reviewed some days ago, can remove unnecessary Registry entries. In contrast, Free Registry Defrag just removes the gaps within the database.

Windows and third party applications constantly write to and remove data from the Registry database. This produces empty areas in the Registry and data become fragmented (scattered) within the Registry file. This process is comparable to disk fragmentation. However, running a disk defrag tool won’t help to reduce Registry defragmentation. Disk defrag tools don’t change the contents of files, while a Registry defrag tool alters the database. This is why Registry defragmentation usually compacts, i.e., reduces, the size of the Registry file.

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The Active Directory Recycle Bin is a great new feature of Windows Server 2008 R2 that allows you to restore accidentally deleted Active Directory objects. If you want to have similar functionality for Windows Server 2008 with a free utility, then you should have a look at the Directory Service Comparison Tool (DSCT). But DSCT can do even more: It not only allows you to restore deleted objects, it also lets you undo attribute changes. The tool requires at least a Server 2008 domain controller, .NET 3.5, and (Microsoft Management Console) MMC 3.0.

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Many believe that Windows is a bloated operating system. However, the truth is that the Windows ecosystem is bloated, bloated like the shopping malls in western countries, allowing you to buy everything your heart desires. Of course, you can always use another operating system if you prefer a “political system” that gives you fewer choices and less freedom. Yet another option is to cleanse your “garage” every now and then from all the junk that you no longer need. And this is where CCleaner comes in.

CCleaner is a famous free optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. I should have added it long time ago to the list of free administration tools, because it is a valuable tool for admins who have to clean a user’s PC that has been cluttered with junk. This usually improves the performance of a Windows PC that has become slow because too many applications have been installed over time, often leaving traces even after they have been uninstalled. CCleaner can also help to free disk space. If you are planning to upgrade your PC to Windows 7, then it might make sense to get rid of all of the deadwood first—although I would always recommend that you perform a fresh install of a new Windows version.

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Unstoppable Copier is a small, free utility that allows you to recover physically corrupt files from a disk that has bad sectors or scratches. Other file copy programs usually just abort or even delete corrupted files, but Unstoppable Copier restores what is left of the damaged files.

You can copy entire directories or, using wildcards (*,?), particular files in a directory. You can also use the tool’s batch mode to configure multiple source and destination folders to copy their contents in one go. You can save this configuration so that the next time you have to perform the same copy operation you can do so with only a few mouse clicks. (This function is also useful for undamaged disks.)

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WinRAP is a nice little freeware tool that allows you to hide applications from view on your desktop while letting them to continue running invisibly in the background. There are a few cases where such a tool may prove to be useful. The first thing that probably comes to mind is the hiding of programs that are unrelated to your work from your boss and colleagues. However, there are other uses that could also make this utility valuable for your work.

For instance, if you have started an admin tool on a user’s desktop and want to leave the place for a while. You can then let the tool finish its work while the user continues working with the computer. This way, you don’t have to worry that the user will interfere with your work. Another way to use the tool is to reduce the number of icons in your taskbar if it is cluttered with too many apps.

WinRAP is a tiny standalone tool which doesn’t have to be installed. It displays all running applications in the upper pane. You can hide each of the applications with a mouse click which moves the app’s name to the lower pane. The application’s interface will then disappear from the desktop. Of course, you can also unhide an application, if you want to access its interface.

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Submitted by Mobateam – Blog: Mobatek free software

This is post was updated by Olivier from Mobatek. The new features MobaXterm 2.2 can be found at the end of the article.

MobaXterm (formerly known as MobaXVT) is an enhanced terminal with an X server and a set of Unix commands (GNU/Cygwin) packaged in a single portable exe file.

MobaXterm includes a great multitab native Windows terminal, a new X server based on X.Org for easily export your Unix/Linux display and a lot of new GNU Unix commands. You can also use some of the free plugins for extending MobaXterm capabilities!

• The “split-mode” allows SysAdmins to monitor 4 servers at the same time
• The “save history” features allows them to easily keep some logs of their commands
• The ssh/telnet/rlogin/rsh/ftp/scp/sftp/rcp clients allow them to easily interact with remote Unix/Linux computers.

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Last week, you couldn’t hardly find an IT-related blog that didn’t announce this new free Sysinternals tool. Disk2vhd copies the contents of a physical disk to a virtual disk in Microsoft’s VHD format. Since Disk2vhd uses Windows’ Volume Snapshot capability, you can use the tool while the physical machine is online. In theory, it is possible to convert a physical system drive to a VHD.

The size of the standalone tool is only 670KB, so you shouldn’t expect wonders. I tried Disk2vhd on a Windows 7 system. I encountered my first problem with it when I had to decide which partition to convert. My boot and my system partition are separated. I selected them both and Disk2vhd packed them in one VHD file without complaining. The result was that neither Virtual PC 2007 SP1 nor the successor Windows Virtual PC was able to recognize the VHD. I didn’t try it with Hyper-V, but, I guess, the result would have been the same. Perhaps, it would have worked If I ran the tool twice to create two separate VHD files. But I didn’t explore this path because I have a 64-bit system and Virtual PC doesn’t support 64-bit guests.

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Shortly after I finished my series about the new Active Directory Recycle Bin feature in Windows Server 2008 R2, I stumbled across the Active Directory Recycle Bin PowerPack for PowerGUI. As I noted in my review, restoring Active Directory objects via PowerShell or the LDP.exe GUI is quite cumbersome. I recommended using Quest Object Restore for Active Directory or ADRestore.NET instead. But this PowerGUI PowerPack is an even better solution because it has some useful additional features to offer.

Since Active Directory Recycle Bin PowerPack is an add-on, you have to import it manually once you installed PowerGUI. This will add a new folder to the PowerGUI tool which lists all deleted AD objects. I like that it preserves the hierarchical structure of deleted objects. This is useful if you deleted an organizational unit that contained other objects.

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Submitted by Howard Jares

Notepad++ is a free (as in “free speech” and also as in “free beer”) source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.

Feature list:

• Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
• WYSIWYG
• Auto-completion
• Multi-Document
• Multi-View
• Regular Expression Search/Replace supported
• Full Drag ‘N’ Drop supported
• Dynamic position of Views
• File Status Auto-detection
• Zoom in and zoom out
• Multi-Language environment supported
• Bookmark
• Brace and Indent guideline Highlighting
• Macro recording and playback

Notepad++

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Submitted by Peder Vendelbo Mikkelsen

NetworkMiner is a free tool to collect information about hosts “speaking” to the network.

From the publisher:

NetworkMiner is a Network Forensic Analysis Tool (NFAT) for Windows. NetworkMiner can be used as a passive network sniffer/packet capturing tool in order to detect operating systems, sessions, hostnames, open ports etc. without putting any traffic on the network. NetworkMiner can also parse PCAP files for off-line analysis and to regenerate/reassemble transmitted files and certificates from PCAP files.

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The Windows Explorer is a comfortable tool with which to manage your files. Although it lacks some features, most users would rather live without those features than install a third-party file manager. One way to improve the functionality of Windows Explorer is to enhance the context menu. This has already been achieved by many applications, but Microsoft has yet to come up with an easy way for the average user.

The program FileMenu Tools fills this gap. It creates a new item in the Context Menu of Explorer and opens up various possibilities for customizing it. If you choose the item FileMenu Tools Configuration in the Context Menu of the tool, a GUI will pop up where you can comfortably make your personal adjustments.

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Submitted by Howard Jares

KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in a database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish).

KeePass

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Submitted by HealthMan

• Keep an eye on nearly every aspect of your system with 60 different checks for system and network (connectivity, database, e-mail, performance, SQL Server, Exchange, and others).
• Decide how you will be alerted about problems and what actions should be taken (send e-mail, sms, open a ticket, launch a script).
• Define suspend/shutdown intervals for your workstations and have HealthMonitor turn them off when they are not used
• Track power savings over time and increase your system energy efficiency

HealthMonitor

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It appears that I’ve never reviewed an undelete tool on 4sysops. I will make up for this omission today. Piriform’s Recuva is a free and easy-to-use file recovery utility. It has to be installed, but if you then copy its executable (Recuva.exe) from its Program Folder to another computer, it will work there without problems. It therefore qualifies as a standalone tool. I think, every admin needs such a tool on a USB stick. How often does it happen that a user tells you an extremely important document has disappeared in mysterious ways and can’t even be found in the Windows Recycle Bin?

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Product Key Finder is a very simple tool that allows you to retrieve product keys from a Windows computer. Its publisher claims that it supports more than 200 Windows applications. The tool displays the licenses keys it retrieves from the registry in a small window, but it can also be launched on the command line. Thus, you can use it in scripts. Furthermore, it is possible to remotely retrieve license keys with Product Key Finder.

The tool only supports two command switches: /CSV and /remote. “/CSV” will create a text file in the CSV format. The file name is just the computer name with the extension .txt. You can use multiple computer names with the /remote switch. Product Key Finder will then create multiple CSV files.

It appears that Product Key Finder has problems with Vista x64. It failed to retrieve the Microsoft Office 2007 product key on my test machine. In contrast, it had no problem exporting the Office license key on Vista x86. I tested Product Key Finder 2.0.9

Product Key Finder

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