Tools a Windows administrator cannot live without

Question

As a Windows administrator, what tools do you feel you cannot live without?

score 40 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 03 '12 at 03:53

40

3rd party tools are great, but before I start there, the basic ones you get with the system:

Computer Management
Event Viewer
Services Console
Perfmon
Active Directory Users and Computers
Active Directory Domains and Trusts
Active Directory Sites and Services
Group Policy Management Console (okay, so you download this one)
The command line itself with
- netstat
- nbtstat
- ipconfig
- net
- findstr
- netsh
Internet Explorer/Firefox
Scripting tool like VBScript/PowerShell/Perl
Notepad

Other Tools:

Sysinternals PSTools Suite
Sysinternals Process Explorer
Sysinternals Process Monitor
Joe Richards' free tools for ActiveDirectory
Microsoft Office OneNote

edited Dec 03 '12 at 03:53

Dan Dascalescu

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answered May 03 '09 at 08:55

K. Brian Kelley

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I *love* OneNote. I'm astonished that MS only made it available in Office Enterprise; it should be in every downlevel edition! – dmoisan Jun 03 '09 at 03:20
Notepad itself isn't worth much. Notepad2 or Notepad++ offer greater options and much more possibilities, even for everyday users. – KdgDev Oct 20 '09 at 00:54

score 32 · Answer 2 · answered May 03 '09 at 07:52

32

SysInternals Suite

answered May 03 '09 at 07:52

Click Ok

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score 16 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 05 '10 at 09:12

16

I can't live without PowerShell.

edited Apr 05 '10 at 09:12

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 03 '09 at 08:22

Naseer

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score 14 · Answer 4 · answered May 03 '09 at 19:33

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WinDirStat is great for finding out how all your disk space it getting used.

answered May 03 '09 at 19:33

Mark Amerine Turner

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score 10 · Answer 5 · answered May 03 '09 at 09:07

10

I always post this one, but it remains true. Beyond Compare is the best folder & file diff program. It is so ridiculously useful for maintenance work and updating, plus it does built-in FTP

answered May 03 '09 at 09:07

Glenn Slaven

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I held out against the move to Beyond Compare, sticking with WinMerge for years. Recently I tried an old copy of BC and have been kicking myself for weeks that I didn't change sooner. BC is hands-down the best merging/compare tool I've ever seen. – Chris Porter May 05 '09 at 02:58
Try Araxis Merge. Costs more, but if you can afford it, it's worth its weight in gold.. or it's filesize in gold, at least – Mikeage May 31 '09 at 10:42

score 10 · Answer 6 · edited Apr 05 '10 at 09:31

10

Never underestimate the power of a really good text editor. I've used UltraEdit for years and couldn't live without it. I've tried moving to Notepad++, Editplus, and a few other text editors and I always end up frustrated and back using UltraEdit. You can also get a U3 version that lives on a flash drive.

edited Apr 05 '10 at 09:31

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 05 '09 at 03:01

Chris Porter

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UE is a great text editor plus it includes syntax highlighting, hex editing and diff tools... – Mark Nold May 05 '09 at 03:32
The UE developer is also extremely responsive to requests to add features. Definitely on my list of apps I can't live without. – Helvick Apr 05 '10 at 11:43

score 10 · Answer 7 · answered May 05 '09 at 03:30

10

Robocopy.

Recursive copying with solid reporting and allows you to update changed only. Used to be part of the windows resource kit, but i think it's distributed with Vista now.

answered May 05 '09 at 03:30

Mark Nold

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Just confirming that it is distributed with Vista. – Mike Powell May 15 '09 at 03:01
Try RichCopy, also from Microsoft, but GUI-based and more options than RoboCopy. I've used the fcopy tool on a number of occasions as well to good effect when copying ridiculously large files over the WAN. – Ryan Fisher Jun 12 '09 at 00:29

score 7 · Answer 8 · answered May 03 '09 at 07:52

7

ProcessExplorer
PS Tools
Perl
Perfmon
TextPad/Notepad++
Terminal Services
Cygwin

answered May 03 '09 at 07:52

Moshe

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score 7 · Answer 9 · answered May 05 '09 at 03:10

7

A Linux LiveCD (Knoppix preferably)

And processexplorer

answered May 05 '09 at 03:10

Daniel Huckstep

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score 6 · Answer 10 · edited Jun 21 '11 at 20:22

WMIC lets you do pretty much anything to any networked windows computer.

Some fun things to try:

wmic computersystem get name

What user is currently logged into the system:

wmic netlogin get name,lastlogon

Users who have logged into a system, and when they last logged in:

wmic os get lastbootuptime

When was the last time the machine booted; (do you have a machine not getting updates?)

wmic product get name,verion

Finds applications installed with a specific name:

wmic product where 'name = "%Product Name%"' get name

Also remember you can run these on networked systems:

wmic /node:"computername1" os list brief

score 6 · Answer 11 · edited Apr 05 '10 at 09:13

6

The SysInternals suite, live edition:

http://live.sysinternals.com/

hexedit or another hex editor.

edited Apr 05 '10 at 09:13

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 03 '09 at 13:31

pomarc

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score 5 · Answer 12 · answered May 31 '09 at 09:39

5

I'd throw 7-zip into the pool. Free/Open source and opens most compression formats. I use it often for moving files from one server to another (updates and/or images).

answered May 31 '09 at 09:39

score 3 · Answer 13 · answered May 27 '09 at 07:48

3

Total Commander - Norton Commander look-a-like for Windows. I use this all the time, it's simply the best (!) file manager. Also it's shareware, so if you can live with a startup nag-screen it's free.

Ultraedit - Not free, but nothing beats this text editor. Once you go down the path of ultraedit, there's no turning back.

putty - It just works.

answered May 27 '09 at 07:48

+1 for total commander and utraedit, first thing I install. – Egil Hansen Jun 05 '09 at 10:58

score 3 · Answer 14 · answered May 03 '09 at 09:44

These are more for the desktop/laptop power users:

safarp: small and fast Add/Remove Programs
launchy: keystroke launchyer
console: multi-tabbed cmd.exe, (and then some)
jkdefrag (portable):lite-weight defragger
AnVir task manager: manager for running processes, services, and startup programs (commercial but has a lite free version).
Notepad++: Probably best text-editor available for windows.
WinMerge: visual diff/merge tool

score 3 · Answer 15 · answered May 03 '09 at 22:21

3

Batch files :-)

answered May 03 '09 at 22:21

Christian Specht

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score 3 · Answer 16 · answered May 05 '09 at 00:29

3

shutdown - can shut down a non-responding host remotely

shutdown -r -t 0 -f -m <machine>

taskkill - kill processes from the commandline

taskkill /pid <pid>

psexec - the windows equivalent of ssh (from sysinternals, as previously noted)

answered May 05 '09 at 00:29

Psexec is not the windows equivalent of ssh. It provides no encryption, no interactive session, no arbitrary port forwarding, etc. Useful but not ssh. – Brian Reiter Jul 06 '09 at 22:12
eek, standing corrected... – Jul 07 '09 at 11:32

score 3 · Answer 17 · answered Oct 20 '09 at 00:42

3

TreeSizeFree for figuring out what's using all your storage space.

http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

answered Oct 20 '09 at 00:42

Nic

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How does this compare to [WinDirStat](http://serverfault.com/a/3659/69936)? – Dan Dascalescu Dec 03 '12 at 03:49

score 2 · Answer 18 · edited Apr 05 '10 at 09:30

2

If for some reason you don't want to get and install the whole Cygwin GNU utilities for Win32 are useful. It's nice to fire up cmd and use grep, wget, tail, etc.

sniffer to see what exactly is happening on the wire [ unless you can tap somewhere on the switch with port mirroring].

Far Manager for those like me who still prefer console rather over Windows Explorer. and yeah - it's open source now! Ready to use builds are here.

Notepad++ was already mentioned, but Notepad2 - not. It's very useful Notepad replacement. It has syntax hilight, block operations, different encoding.

edited Apr 05 '10 at 09:30

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 24 '09 at 10:14

pQd

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+1, as I'd just posted (now deleted as it's a dupe) the exact same thing regarding GNU Utilities for Win 32 and not needing Cygwin. – Bryan Apr 05 '10 at 09:40

score 2 · Answer 19 · edited Dec 03 '12 at 03:57

2

Wireshark for sniffing
EditPad Pro for text editing
mRemote for remote connections (no longer developed since 2009)

edited Dec 03 '12 at 03:57

Dan Dascalescu

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answered May 29 '09 at 11:00

score 2 · Answer 20 · answered May 29 '09 at 13:47

2

Windows Installer Cleanup Utility - saved my bacon multiple times.

Visual C# Express - really! The .NET framework has a LOT of useful classes for automating admin tasks, and I've rolled my own small army of useful utilities.

answered May 29 '09 at 13:47

Maximus Minimus

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score 2 · Answer 21 · answered May 31 '09 at 06:45

2

Ultra Vnc SC a free remote desktop tool. Some features: You only need one exe to pass to client, no install, Can be customized and You also can translate this tool, got a file transfer and chat.

answered May 31 '09 at 06:45

adopilot

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You don't even need an exe. Just use your web browser. – John Gardeniers Jul 06 '09 at 21:52

score 2 · Answer 22 · answered Jun 03 '09 at 10:00

2

I find Agent Ransack or its non-free version, File Locator Pro, to be much much more effective than the basic "Search" function of Windows (which was/is broken on XP)

answered Jun 03 '09 at 10:00

Thomas Corriol

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Its broken on Vista, still, as well. – Taptronic Apr 17 '10 at 03:15

score 2 · Answer 23 · answered Jun 10 '09 at 19:05

A new open source to alternative to ProcessExplorer is ProcessHacker.

You can install it or just run it off a thumb drive. If you install it you can take advantage of some of the special features. On such feature is a kernel mode driver that acts as a proxy to query process information. This is apparently to avoid UAC prompts in Vista. Another feature is the ability to launch ProcessHacker instead of task manager from the ctrl+alt+delete menu. Finally, you can set ProcessHacker to run at login.

score 2 · Answer 24 · edited Dec 03 '12 at 03:50

2

I have been testing Spiceworks for IT management (inventory, monitoring, reporting, tracking). So far, made my life easier, so let's toss it on the pile.

edited Dec 03 '12 at 03:50

Dan Dascalescu

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answered Jul 06 '09 at 22:15

Skaughty

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score 1 · Answer 25 · edited Apr 05 '10 at 09:18

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Well I'd say http://ratsauce.sourceforge.net/ but then I would say that, wouldn't I :-)

edited Apr 05 '10 at 09:18

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 24 '09 at 09:22

John Rennie

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Lots of those tools seem like reimplementations of consecrated tools. For example, how is httpgrabber different from wget -S? `reconcile` seems like a particular case of BeyondCompare. Etc. – Dan Dascalescu Dec 03 '12 at 03:55

score 1 · Answer 26 · answered May 28 '09 at 14:12

1

testdisk - saved my ass a when my raid screwed up, was able to copy the data off it to another drive even though it wasn't showing up in windows. now i can't live without it.

answered May 28 '09 at 14:12

Charlie Bear

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score 1 · Answer 27 · answered May 29 '09 at 11:54

1

Logparser is a must.

answered May 29 '09 at 11:54

Ivo Looser

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score 1 · Answer 28 · answered May 31 '09 at 10:09

1

Remote Desktop / Terminal Services

answered May 31 '09 at 10:09

Jonas K

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score 1 · Answer 29 · edited Apr 05 '10 at 09:20

1

A couple of things that make my life easier:

Terminals - multi tab terminal services/remote desktop client.

and

Nmap - network scanner extraordinaire

edited Apr 05 '10 at 09:20

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jun 02 '09 at 22:39

jhayes

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score 1 · Answer 30 · answered May 03 '09 at 15:00

1

I live by TaskInfo, an integrated utility that beats Task Manager and Systems Information hands down.

answered May 03 '09 at 15:00

Vincent Buck

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score 1 · Answer 31 · answered Jul 06 '09 at 21:58

1

RD tabs http://www.avianwaves.com/Tech/Tools/RDTabs/ is a great RDP replacement. It allows saving connections like bookmarks, tabs, pop-outs, screen capture! Works really well!

answered Jul 06 '09 at 21:58

Fishwalker

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score 0 · Answer 32 · answered May 27 '09 at 06:53

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Apart from the regular Windows MMC tools and OS native support tools, these are a few I use regularly. Sysinternals, Resource Kit tools, WinDBG, WMI scripts, Performance & reliability monitor and PowerShell scripts

answered May 27 '09 at 06:53

ravikanth

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score 0 · Answer 33 · answered Apr 16 '10 at 21:50

0

For Sysadmins that have a laptop, I would add NetProfiles .

Also, the website http://portablefreeware.com is absolutely awesome.

answered Apr 16 '10 at 21:50

djangofan

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score 0 · Answer 34 · edited Dec 03 '12 at 03:59

0

TextPad is great.
VirtuaWin is fantastic if one is a fan of virtual desktops.
PuTTY
UltraVNC (because VNC will need to be used eventually, even despite RDP)
I personally like using Cygwin over cmd/command for console
Definitely Wireshark
All of the Administrator Tools that come with Windows

edited Dec 03 '12 at 03:59

Dan Dascalescu

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answered Apr 17 '10 at 01:56

Carlos Nunez

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score 0 · Answer 35 · edited Dec 03 '12 at 03:58

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Heh... Norton Comander.. I like console (since DOS/Windows 3.x) and i use FAR Manager (farmanager.com) as my file manager for a long time.

Now new version (2.0) with Unicode support(!) is availible. And this version not shareware, it's FREE (BSD-like license). It's still in "alpha" and a bit tricky to install but fully working (even x64).

edited Dec 03 '12 at 03:58

Dan Dascalescu

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answered May 28 '09 at 14:59

Sergey

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score 0 · Answer 36 · edited Apr 05 '10 at 09:27

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More votes for PowerShell, Notepad++, PuTTY, pscp, Cygwin, sdelete, WinDirStat, and System Internals.

Also some sort of Remote control software be it UltraVNC, RDP, or whatever.

edited Apr 05 '10 at 09:27

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 28 '09 at 15:52

steve.lippert

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score 0 · Answer 37 · answered May 11 '10 at 00:51

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smsniff from NIRSOFT. The quick network sniffer.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/smsniff.html

Fiddler a good HTTP debugging porxy with really good SSL support http://www.fiddler2.com/fiddler2/

answered May 11 '10 at 00:51

ggonsalv

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score 0 · Answer 38 · answered May 29 '09 at 07:53

0

nircmd.exe

Invaluable command line tool I primarily use for killing programs and processes although it does allow a fairly high degree of control over hardware.

answered May 29 '09 at 07:53

Marko Carter

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score 0 · Answer 39 · edited Apr 05 '10 at 09:27

0

SciTE for text editing and Servant Salamander as file manager. Unfortunately, Salamander is a commercial product, but it is exceptionally good for working with files and folders.

edited Apr 05 '10 at 09:27

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 29 '09 at 07:59

grigoryvp

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score 0 · Answer 40 · answered May 29 '09 at 12:23

0

XCopy (although RoboCopy is more capable) and Ping (cmd), along with .bat files for scripting.

answered May 29 '09 at 12:23

Lazlow

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[This answer](http://serverfault.com/a/16080/69936) says RichCopy is even more capable. – Dan Dascalescu Dec 03 '12 at 04:02

score 0 · Answer 41 · edited Dec 03 '12 at 04:01

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Richcopy, a released tool that used to be used internally in Microsoft. It's a ultimate copying tool that is much better than robocopy.

edited Dec 03 '12 at 04:01

Dan Dascalescu

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answered May 31 '09 at 07:09

kentchen

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score 0 · Answer 42 · answered May 31 '09 at 10:01

0

RDtabs from Avian Waves for managing and organising RDP connections

answered May 31 '09 at 10:01

Arcass

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score 0 · Answer 43 · answered Jul 24 '10 at 23:40

Remote Desktop Manager is awesome, It centralize all my remote connections (Including RDP, Putty, SQL Server, HTTP Interfaces, (S)FTP, CIFS shares, OpenVPN connections...

It's really a must have, all this for free, but the enterprise edition allows you some nice thing like storing connections settings in a database to push modifications to the others admins)

http://remotedesktopmanager.com/

score 0 · Answer 44 · answered Jun 02 '09 at 22:24

0

Terracopy or Richcopy. Quick file transfers. Scored points at my new job by mentioning this to my boss!

answered Jun 02 '09 at 22:24

Fishwalker

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score 0 · Answer 45 · answered Jun 02 '09 at 23:48

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Ant or NAnt to run some kind of operations with easy way to check if the tasks runs ok or not, parallelize, and so on.

answered Jun 02 '09 at 23:48

FerranB

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score 0 · Answer 46 · answered May 03 '09 at 07:26

Active Directory - if you manage a domain this is your best friend. It centralizes all control over users/computers/printers/groups in your organizational unit into one program.
gpedit - the group policy editor, allows you to easily manage registry entries for groups of users at a higher level.
regedit - Great for making lower level tweaks to the system not available through the group policies.

score 0 · Answer 47 · answered Jul 06 '09 at 21:07

0

Notepad2
Executor
BgInfo (on all servers)
LPD.exe
NirCmd
Blat

answered Jul 06 '09 at 21:07

KennetRunner

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score 0 · Answer 48 · answered May 03 '09 at 19:35

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I still find myself firing up Sequoia View to spot the massive temp files/caches that can otherwise lie unnoticed on a volume.

answered May 03 '09 at 19:35

Lunatik

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score 0 · Answer 49 · answered Jul 06 '09 at 21:55

Bart PE, with a large assortment of plug-ins. Not so much for day-to-day use but for all those times when things go wrong and normal tools won't help or when something can't be achieved while the regular OS is running.

Perl. Tools such as logparser might be OK for some jobs but Perl has no limits.

Robocopy. In my opinion the best readily available copy utility for Windows. If you have a copy/move/sync operation that you can't do with Robocopy it's time to read the manual again.

[This answer](http://serverfault.com/a/16080/69936) says that RichCopy is much better than RoboCopy. — Dan Dascalescu, Dec 03 '12 at 04:02

score 0 · Answer 50 · answered Jul 06 '09 at 22:02

0

Joeware tools and Sysinternals

answered Jul 06 '09 at 22:02

benPearce

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Tools a Windows administrator cannot live without

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