WindowsPager is a free virtual desktop manager that allows you to organize your opened application on multiple virtual desktops.

Virtual desktop managers are quite popular under Linux. I wonder why Microsoft never introduced such a feature in Windows. Perhaps virtual desktop managers confuse some users because they forget that an application is already started and is just not visible on the foreground desktop. However, I think that for IT professionals, who are used to working with many different applications at the same time, a virtual desktop manager can be quite helpful.

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WhatInStartup allows you to manage Windows startup programs—that is, programs that are automatically started when Windows boots up.

Some of you might wonder why I review WhatInStartup because the ultimate free Windows startup manager is Microsoft’s Sysinternals Autoruns. There appears to be no room for a competitor. Not so fast! Read on, and you will see that NirSoft’s WhatInStartup is worth a try.

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ABC Deploy is a free software deployment and Windows client maintenance tool. It can distribute all types of management tasks to computers as well as to end users.

Submitted by Flemming Varmer

ABC Deploy allows you to install any type of software to your client systems, and also to create and maintain user profiles for that software. The free tool supports all Windows 32 and 64 bit versions since Windows 2000.

Task definition is made real simple. In most cases installing software like Adobe Acrobat Reader only requires you to name the task, and supply the path to a .MSI file. Error handling and logging activity is fully automated. You can also monitor client activity in real-time.

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ClipX is a free clipboard manager that stores the clipboard history in a file and allows you to access previous clipboard entries easily, clear the clipboard history, and edit clipboard items.

I have always wondered why Windows only allows you to store one clipboard item. On a normal work day, it usually happens several times that I have to access previous clipboard entries that were already overwritten with new ones. Many clipboard managers are available that pick up the slack; this doesn’t really excuse the lack of this Windows feature but it at least offers a solution. I hope Windows 8 will come with its own clipboard manager.

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Joulemeter is a free computer power consumption calculator from Microsoft Research that allows you to measure the power utilization of laptops, desktops, and servers.

Oil prices are moderate at the moment, which explains why people have become silent about green IT lately. Nevertheless, IT certainly has its share in the worldwide CO₂ emissions. Thus, when you are going to deploy new Windows 7 computers in your organization, you might consider leveraging the operating system’s powerful power management capabilities.

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GDism ELDI is a free GUI for DISM of the WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit) that allows you to manage WIM images.

A while back I introduced DISM, the new tool of the Windows 7 WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit) for managing WIM images. I was complaining then that Microsoft doesn’t offer a GUI (graphical user interface) for such an important tool. The nice thing about Windows is that if Microsoft doesn’t provide a function, someone else steps into the breach. ELDI was kind enough to link to his free DISM GUI GDism ELDI in my original post. I’ve taken a quick look at the tool.

Let me start with the tool’s downside. It requires the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). I think it would be more useful if it were a portable application. However, if you use GDism only on your desktop, it is certainly more convenient than using DISM on the command prompt.

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AutoAdministrator allows you to remote change passwords, remote Windows registry editing, remote file copy, and to remote edit the ODBC configuration.

In the last part of this series, I covered AutoAdministrator’s remote execution features. Today’s post will describe the remote editing functions.

Note: 4sysops readers get a discount on AutoAdministrator of $20 USD until the end of 2010, which means that you pay only $49 USD instead of the regular price of $69 USD. indicating that you are a 4sysops reader.

Remotely manage passwords

This is one of my favorite AutoAdministrator features. It allows you to verify, change, and reset passwords remotely on multiple machines. This function is especially useful if you want to change the local administrator password on all your machines. Since managing local passwords on multiple machines is somewhat cumbersome, most admins don’t change local administrator passwords often enough.

With AutoAdministrator, you can perform this important security task with a few mouse clicks. The verify function enables you to check if all computers received the new password.

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AutoAdministrator allows you to remote execute programs, remote execute services, and remote shutdown and reboot computers.

In my last post, I discussed the AutoAdministrator’s functions that enable you to query remote computers. Today, I will cover the remote execution functions: programs (processes), services, and shutdown/reboot.

Note: 4sysops readers get a discount on AutoAdministrator of $20 USD until the end of 2010, which means that you pay only $49 USD instead of the regular price of $69 USD. indicating that you are a 4sysops reader.

Remote execute programs

Remote process execution is another feature that was not available when I reviewed AutoAdministrator a while back. It enables you to execute all kinds of programs against remote computers, which is quite powerful since it allows you to leverage tools such as psexec and plink.

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This part of AutoAdministrator series covers the functions online status, remote wmi query, remote query of file attributes, and Who is logged on

In my last article, I gave a general introduction to AutoAdministrator, an easy-to-use tool that lets you automate all kinds of Windows administrator tasks. Now let’s have a closer look at AutoAdministrator’s functions. Today I will cover all of AutoAdministrator’s query functions.

Note: 4sysops readers get a discount on AutoAdministrator of $20 USD until the end of 2010, which means that you pay only $49 USD instead of the regular price of $69 USD. indicating that you are a 4sysops reader.

Monitor online status

Before you perform a particular action, it is advisable to check whether the relevant computers are available. With AutoAdministrator, you can ping any number of computers with just two mouse clicks. You can configure the packet count, the packet size, the required success rate, and the maximum roundtrip time. The latter two options determine whether a machine is flagged as available or whether you receive an error message. Note that every AutoAdministrator feature can do a ping before it actually performs the action, to make sure that there are no unnecessary timeouts.

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AutoAdministrator 2.3 supports remote program execution, editing services, password management, WMI query, Registry editing, copy files to multiple computers, and many more.

NETIKUS.NET, the publisher of EventSentry, released AutoAdministrator 2.3, a nifty Windows admin tool that allows you to automate quite a few common administration tasks. 4sysops readers get a discount on AutoAdministrator of $20 USD until the end of 2010, which means that you pay only $49 USD instead of the regular price of $69 USD. You only have to email to indicating that you are a 4sysops reader.

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Time Freeze is free software testing tool that combines the sandbox and virtual machine approach of software testing.

Software testing is an important part of an administrator’s daily routine. There are various tools and different approaches for making this task easier and more efficient. Some use virtual machines as test environments, and others prefer sandboxes for software testing. Time Freeze Free is kind of a hybrid. It combines aspects of both approaches, which makes it a perfect software testing tool.

Time Freeze expands the sandbox approach. Rather than launch the software you are testing in a sandbox, the tool turns your whole Windows installation into a sandbox. Every change that is made to your Windows installation is logged. As soon as you turn Time Freeze off, you have exactly the same system as before you started testing the software. So it works more like the snapshot feature of virtual environments such as Hyper-V. The difference is that you can only have one snapshot, but on the other hand you have better performance than in virtualized environments.

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In my last post, I gave an overview of the advantages of a P2P OS deployment. Today, I will outline how OS deployment works with DistriBrute. More information about this contest can be found at the end of this article.

If you are already familiar with Windows deployment, then you will have no difficulty understanding how DistriBrute works. Even though P2P deployment is technically quite different compared to the centralized approach of conventional OS deployment solutions, the steps you have to perform to prepare an OS image and distribute it to desktops are quite similar.

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4M88 ICT Solutions, the publisher of DistriBrute, a P2P desktop deployment solution, is raffling two 250-seat licenses worth 3750 euro (ex. VAT) each. More information about this contest can be found at the end of this article.

Note that 4M88 ICT Solutions also offers a software deployment solution called DistriApps that allows you to use the P2P network to deploy and install MSI packages. Although the DistriApps functionality is included in DistriBrute, I will mostly focus on the OS deployment features in this review.

Also note that DistriBrute is not a desktop management solution; that is, it has no inventory or remote management capabilities. However, you can use DistriBrute’s P2P functionality together with desktop management software such as Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager. I will say more about this in my next post.

Since you’re an IT pro, you are most likely familiar with peer-to-peer (P2P) technology. BitTorrent and Skype are currently the most prominent P2P solutions. BitTorrent is used by many big companies for offering large downloads. DistriBrute is desktop deployment software that works in a similar way.

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PDQ Deploy is a free software deployment software from Admin Arsenal. The freeware tool allows you to remotely deploy MSI, MSP, MSU, EXE, and batch installers to multiple Windows computers simultaneously.

A wizard guides you through the configuration process of the very easy-to-use tool. First, you have to configure the installer where you specify the installer file, the return codes, and the command line parameters.

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A 4sysops reader recommended the freeware tool Windows System Control Center (WSCC) as an alternative to NirLauncher, the portable free launcher. I tested WSCC and it is indeed an interesting tool, not only as an admin utility but also as an example of how Windows could morph into a cloud operating system.

Even though WSCC isn’t delivered with the Sysinternals or the NirSoft tools, you can use all these great free admin tools immediately without the need to download because WSCC just launches them through the web. For the bigger tools, this can increase the time it takes for the tool to start. However, if you launch the utility a second time while WSCC is still open, it will be loaded from a local cache. Of course, the launch speed depends on your available bandwidth.

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