Discussion on:

10 must-have freeware tools for IT pros

Great free utility removes all associated files & directory entries as well as the program's built in installer.

You can point the Hunter mode 'sights' at the shortcut to an installed program to un-install. This is great when the program's uninstall file is hosed.

Ninite is great I have used it extensivly since first coming across it!

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You forgot Ccleaner, one of the most useful free utilities around.

Very nice and will certainly download some. However, I find the title of your blog misleading.
???Freeware tools for IT pros??? I was expecting that all 10 would be for ???IT Pros???. #7, 8, and especially #10 won???t be very helpful to do my job as IT Systems Admin. But, still cool freeware.

"must-have" is a stretch for a subjective list like this one -- that was my bad, not Gina's. I'll change the title.
Thanks!
j

I have literately searched for files I can visibly see in the folder, and it couldn't find them. The Windows 7 search is utterly useless. I have resorted to using the DOS FIND command.

I'm not a tech person, but I have found Codestuff Starter to be invaluable in keeping my home PCs running (all WinXPPro SP3). It's free.
Shows all startups, running processes and services, and lets you turn them on and off (or from automatic to manual) very easily - much easier than using msconfig or autoruns..
http://CodeStuff.mirrorz.com

it will just be a matter of time before MS writes this into the OS anyway. Enterprise adoption of Windows 8 will be non-existent until the start-menu is back. The rest of the industry hasn't caught up to Windows 7 yet, so most applications won't be functional without a start menu anyway.
I know the idea is to push for a more command-line driven server OS, but you can't alienate legacy equipment. Some of us (not me) are still running Windows NT.

You also forgot Defraggler that I consider to be the best free defrag programs around.

I like these. Thanks! But the best I've ever heard of or used has to be Spiceworks! A free network inventory and monitoring tool along with a free helpdesk solution. I don't know how I lived without it!

Not to be the grammar police (but I will anyway) I think you mean dessert and not desert - which would be the dry, sandy place with cacti.

Stellarium is a neat little app, played with a several times. Good list too, I had not heard of Ninite or Fing before, have to check them out.

If you want to see exactly what's eating up your HDD space, this is one of the best in my opinion. Not only does it provide per folder/subfolder statistics in ascending/descending order, but it gives you a nice visual representation of your file system. I also used it as an "assessment tool" to plan a backup strategy.

I've been using it for years and love it.

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

Great free tool for encrypting files, taking some insecurity out of email attachment sending.

I'm amazed you didn't mention the mobile version of Fing.
it's one of the first things I open on my tablet when I arrive at a new or existing client.

Also, if this is for IT pros, how could you not mention sysinternals suite? I know its old, but every bit as useful on W7 as it was on XP.

as mentioned earlier, ccleaner - I can't count how many times ccleaher has restored performance on any number of windows systems I've worked on.

use combofix as a last resort before wipe/reload - I've had combofix hose too many systems to consider it a first line of defense.

any program by stardock should not be on an 'IT Pro' list. sure they make nice GUI stuff, but at the cost of system resources and stability.

who is in charge of these lists? you really need me on payroll....

I like NITROPDF, It creates, reads and annotates PDF Files. If you can print a file, you can make it into a PDF file.

Spiceworks is one of the best helpdesk and inventory systems that I've worked with and it is free, http://www.spiceworks.com/referrer/Sosipater. It also has an excellent, helpful, and professional community of people that pitch in and help out when you have a knotty problem on your hands.

I can't count how many times this utility has got my customer PC's up and running - it cleans out malware that others can't.
PDFcreator - for converting any printable image into a PDF file
Freedownload manager - great for managing downloads (I use it to download podcasts into a specific folder which is then sync'd with my phone)
PicPic very handy image editor
+1 Sysinternals Suite

you also didn't mention Glary utilities, my fav.

+1 for Glary

Latest version is 4.1.10, not 4.1.8. It was released on the 13th.

Easily the best online chat program. Mind boggling that it's free! Incredibly well written!

Super article - thanks for the tips (Stellarium and Foxit specifically).

1. Obligatorily Windows 8 related post, all the IT pro's I know aren't ready to jump on that band wagon.
6. After the LastPast snafu last year I detest password managers.
7. Love me some Foxit
8. Android fanboi here
9. Combofix is a stable of my malware removal toolkit. Kudos
10. Why is this here? Unless you are praying to the server gods or working on a NASA pc this is useless to me.

Please don't confuse freeware with Free/Open Source. Freeware does not necessarily include the source, and if it does, it doesn't necessarily allow you to modify that source or redistribute it.

I just tried fing for the first time, and it overwrote my PATH environment variable (instead of appending to it), which broke most of the apps on my machine! (Fortunately System Restore recovered it.) I think there must be a bug in the installer.

i have been using most of them and they are nice but one thing you can compare between foxit reader and adobe reader that adobe has the read a loud option for pdfs but Foxit Dont

Several of my Windows favorites:

IZArc for file compression/decompression
IrfanView for image viewing/simple manipulation
7-PDF Printer (does what the name says - any doc as a PDF)
Got tired of the limitations and watermarks in Foxit about 2 years ago. Switched to PDF-Xchange Viewer and haven't "looked" back.
PuTTY and its associates (PSFTP, Pageant, and PuTTYGen) I use daily now. I know it's not a GUI but it's indispensible for managing a remote *nix server from Windows.
Definitely second iansoady on Revo Uninstaller. Always use it to uninstall now.
Have just started using Free Clipboard Manager and so far so good.

Thanks for Everything. I've just installed it and think I'm going to like it. And will check out Fing, especially on a USB stick. After rpb_'s experience, don't think I want to install to the HDD. Too many custom environment variables to have to recreate. Never thought of it this way, but I think I better back those up as a text file...

1. IrfanView - Fast image viewer and manipulation. Make screen capture. Etc.
2. Ccleaner - cleaning..
3. Universal Extractor - can extract most of compressed file format
4. Foxit Reader - pdf reader
6. doPDF - create pdf file. very small file
7. Firefox - Sync feature is very good to backup website,forum, etc. list..
8. Thunderbird - as email and rss client, calendar, to-do
9. ExplorerXP - can view hidden file and folder size..
10. Ext2Explore - Read ext partition

All except doPDF can be made portable which is become very handy tools for me..

Being a project manager, i think one of the best opportunity that developers offer nowadays is the ability to control and run business remotely. For example, we installed the comindware task management software to the all our ,managers and that's considerably improve their performance and helps avoid delays and mistakes.

Another fantastic utility for finding wasted space on File servers. Visual maps take a bit of getting used to but once you get it you will not find a faster way of locating unwanted files on your servers.

All good stuff. But, the only I used most often is a clipboard extender (nice and simple, just like me). And the one that has saved my butt from long, pointless hassles so many times has been ReNamer.

VNC - handy remote control app - tiny footprint, too!
Spybot Search & Destroy - fanatical spyware removal
UBCD - has saved many virus-infected PC's
VLC (as opposed to finding CODEC's for Media Player)
Pidgin - manages most (if not all) of your IM accounts in one app

I enjoyed your list of free tools and will try some out this week. Here's a list that I created of some of the freeware tools that I use regularly...
http://blog.andersondm.com/web/6-free-online-tools-to-make-you-a-superhero-with-your-web-development-projects/

Thanks for sharing your list!

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