This page contains links to programs that may be used to enhance, diagnose, or maintain your computer. Links to password managment utilities are also included.
Backup utilities are also included here for now. The plan is to make a new page for such tools.
This program will enable you to organise all our passwords if a safe manner. It protects the date with a password that you must be able to remember but that is the ONLY one. All others are held in an encrypted datastore and are only accessible via the master password.
The program will store the URL of a webste (or the field can store a shortcut to a program) and open the site or run the program. It can store a Username and password for access to sites where registration is required and it can then automatically tyle the username and password into the login fields on the login form. Furthermore it can store any number of custom fields and can type those in as well.
As it is so easy to make the program type the password there is no excuse to use weak or short passwords. KeePass can generate strong random passwords. Via a plugin it can generate passphrases that can be remembered.
The passwords can be organised into folders and these can be searched. What more you you wnat. In fact there is a chance that it can do it! It has some other tricks up its sleeve!
SpiderOak will synchronise selected files and folders on one computer with a copy on an area of cloud storage. SpiderOak provides 2 GBytes of free network storage. Unlike its better known competitor, DropBox, the data transferred to the cloud is encrypted before it is copied to the cloud. SpiderOak claims to minimise bandwidth by only transitting changed blocks in the source file.
More than one computer can access the same cloud storage and the files will be sychronised with all of them
Password reset utility for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.
This link is actually to a page describing how to use the password reset utility. The download link site can be accessed from this page - just follow instructions.
The program will allow a password to be cleared. It claims to be able to change a password but there are caveats. Try this at your own risk!
This is an early version of a utility that assists in setting up Windows 7 computer accounts (should also work for Vista) for use following creating a new partition to hold User data.
Download and expand the zip file. Use "RunAs fro Windows Explorere to run the program using an Adminstrator account
This is an alternative Partition Manager that will work with Windows 7 and also claims to work with 64 bit systems. This application is provided as a Windows installer but is also available as a bootable CD which requires no installation
The free version of the program supports partition resizing, moving, creation and deletion.
When running it behaves rather like Partition Magic. Everything can be controlled through a GUI. Some operations, such as moving or shrinking the C drive require a reboot. It does this automatically.
The program works with Windows 7 but the free version does not support 64 bit computers. Note that when an earlier vesrion was used with Vista it produced an alarming error message but Vista recovered and the partition was created
Macrium is a free utility for backing up a running XP, Vista, Windows 7 computer.
Unlike Driveimage XML Macrium can generate a bootable disk that can be used for system recovery.
Entry created 11 July 2010
This site provides a Bootable Linux CD or USB download. The beauty is that it's self-contained, no extra software to install, and has a lot of other good utilities.
Its downside is that you need to type in the image file name rather than browsing it, so you need to know 3 simple Linux commands:
If you want to image a partition and are not comfortable with linux commands then consider using Macrium.
Entry created 11 July 2010
This program will backup a complete partition, or a set of partitions, to another drive. This might be another partition on the same drive, an external USB drive, or a Network share on another computer or external drive.
The program will backup XP or Vista computers while they are running. The program takes an image of the drive. It is not a file by file copy but the program does keep an index of the files and will enable single files or folders to be extracted from the archive. It can use a feature of XP and Vista called Volume shadow copy which is how it can copy open files.
The program will also restore an existing partition from an archive. If recovery is required to an empty disk e.g. a new disk drive then the partition must be created first and DriveImage XML run from a bootable CD or USB. As Drive Image needs XP (or Vista) this requires a special runtime disk. A suitable disk is the Ultimate Boot for Windows disk which runs XP of a bootable CD. DriveImageXML is available in a format that can be incorporated in the Ultimate boot disk. This disk can also create the necessary partition(s) on a new disk.
Entry created 29 August 2008
It's purpose is to monitor the boot process and show where the time is going. The results are interesting but it still takes time to understand what is going on and to identify the culprit for delays.
Entry updated 9 August 2008
This application is a new version of JKDefrag. It provides a simple GUI giving all the required options.
MyDefrag is a disk defragmenter and optimiser for Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista/2008/X64. Completely automatic and very easy to use, fast, low overhead, with several optimisation strategies, and can handle floppies, USB disks, memory sticks, and anything else that looks like a disk to Windows.
Entry added 29 December 2009
Quote from web site: CCleaner is a freeware system optimisation and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware! :)
The program provides an uninstaller which populates MUCH faster than the standard one. It can also remove temporary files of one sort or another. Its primary role (at least for me) is its registry cleaning functions. It can successfully clear out junk from the registry.
Have you ever deleted files by accident! Transferred pictures from your camera and then deleted them from your card only to find they were corrupted on the computer?
Undelete gives a good chance of recovering these files provided you act quickly enough. I recently recovered 320 pictures from a camera card where the unfortunate owner had copied the pictures to her computer, deleted them from the camera, and the her computer hard drive crashed
I have been looking at Cobian backup and recommend it in preference to other backup utilities.
The main advantage of this program over Syncback and Karen's Replicator, and the reason I am now using this program is that is can copy open files. This applies to XP and Vista only.
A number of backup jobs can be created and run on a schedule when this is combined with the versioning feature it can provide a totally automated backup regime.
Versioning is very useful. A backup cycle can be created where it will take a full backup periodically. In between it can take differential (all changes from the previous full backup) or incremental (all changes from last backup). You can configure how many backup cycles to retain.
Entry updated 9 August 2008
This is an excellent backup utility. It continues to be improved so return from time to time.
I use it for backing up directly to DVD from my computers.
I also use for updating my web pages as it will synchronise the local web site copy with the version on the web site. It includes a full FTP facility.
Another backup utility that is worth a look. It can schedule backups in a similar way to Cobian.
This application handles versions in a different, and possibly more initiative, way than Cobian.
Entry updated 23 June 2008
Compares one set of files with another set performs a backup operations or the differences. Not as powerful as Syncback however and I no longer use it personally.
A set of useful utility programs that are too numerous to mention individually.
A comprehensive set of monitoring and diagnostic tools. These tools have now been taken under Microsoft's umbrella and are now available as part of Technet. They are still free however!
Regmon and Filemon are particularly useful for diagnosing problems associated with running programs as a Limited User on XP that were not designed for use in that way. They can be found under Utilities: Processes and Threads.
A free program for backing up Outlook Express files.