Administration Tools - Power to Change Your World!

Process Explorer

This is a replacement for task manager that provides more information and is more customizable. It took me several weeks to feel comfortable to disable Task Manager but I've completely migrated now. I've been running it for over three years now and it has proven itself to be a very stable program. Process Explorer is a very impressive freeware program and I think most people running XP, that know what they are doing, use this program in place of task manager. I think you will like it, you can change the colors of OS based services vs the services you start so it gives the user more flexibility. It also lists out the complete path and even more information on the dlls of each running process. Everyone should be running process explorer instead of task manager. Consider it a free upgrade from Task Manager!

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml


Filemon

This is another great free product from sysinternals. They have so many different products but I have found the combination of Process Explorer and Filemon to be very effective. If my machine disk is spinning like crazy and my CPU is off the chart I can find out what is going on by utilizing these 2 products. Process Explorer will tell me what is using CPU and ram but filemon tells me what products are opening files on your disk. This is crucial information... After you set up filemon and then open it up you will get a window "on the run" one of the buttons on top, I believe 2nd from the left, stops the scrolling so you can have a good hard look at which programs are causing your disk to spin. This is very useful.

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Diskmon.html


AutoRun

You need to have some kind of window into your “start menu”. When you install programs a lot of them put an executable in your "start menu" and they automatically run when you turn on your computer. The good programs give you an option to place it there but many programs do it without asking you. Even for the programs that ask you if you want to run them on start up you always want to make changes to what runs and what doesn't at startup. This is the best program for looking into all the "start files" on your PC.

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/autoruns.shtml


Sysinternals

A word of thanks to Sysinternals who has put out more quality free utilities than anyone else I know. There are several applications that I have not highlighted here because I personally have not found a need for them. However, I'm sure that some of my readers may find a need for some of them. If you are interested in really digging into things yourself just go to the Sysinternal's website and check out all the administrative tools they have for you!

http://www.sysinternals.com/