Discussion on:

10 free tools for admins on a tight budget

One of my personal favorites is RemoteDesktopManager (http://remotedesktopmanager.com). I use it extensively for working with client machines on a regular basis, as well as controlling the VMs at our CoLo. It supports all of the popular connection methods, and has an extensive plug-in seleection. If you're willing to pay a modest fee, it can be used in enterprise mode and its resources can be shared throughout your network. It also supports access and security at the user level.

A great tool for those who do a lot of remoting!

I regularly use Microsoft Security Essentials, CCleaner, Defraggler, 7-Zip, and FileZilla; not because I'm on a budget, but because I really like the tools. They are my first choices for their respective primary tasks.

Very useful addition, thanks. Use or have used most of the others already.

Note: Produkey is a (very) limited evaluation version allowing only the first 4 characters of a key to be seen, so as a 'free' tool (or for that matter if I were evaluating it for purchase) is to my mind something of a 'chocolate fireguard'

Malwarebytes, it just seems to work better than anything else I've found. It's been so useful that we purchased the Corporate version for our SMB network. I use it and CCleaner on every machine I work on.

Spiceworks Network management and monitoring. Free application, really good corporate support for this product and the best help forums of any site I've ever used. Over a million members from around the world and the most helpful people around and many very knowledgeable ones willing to help.

I use more than half the tools Jack pointed out, but of course I miss a few, namely:

• PuTTYhttp://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ SSH suite (I know you know it)
  
• mRemoteNG http://www.mremoteng.org/ (formerly mRemote) All your connections together in one place. A must!
  
• How could you manage the huge amount of user/password pairs? Keepass is my choice http://keepass.info/
  

TightBudget is my first name!

I love their software!
I use it for my little VMWare servers AND for fixing client machines that I cannot remotely reach in other ways!

mRemoteNG looks like good stuff. 'Remote Desktop Manager' is my current tool in this area, but mRemoteNG initially looks like it may be my next preference. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

I learn a lot from all of you, is nice to give something back to the community.

I have to say, I made a comment about Hiren's a few months ago and I was blasted for everyone was saying that it is all pirated software, so I didn't saying after that. As you said, with hiren's it has nearly every tool you might need and I have been using it for a few years now and sometimes it is all I ever need to solve most of my issues. With regards to it being all pirated, that might have been the case a few years ago, but now you can search on Google and find (I think), most if not all the apps on Hiren's, you can find them for free online.

Anyway, just thought I would find out what people are saying these days about Hiren's. I take it that you have mentioned it here, things are all cool now with it?

Yes, it's still an issue, but not as much as it used to be. If I remember correctly, earlier versions of Hirens included proprietary software that required a paid license for legal use. Since much of the software on Hiren's Boot CD is now free or GPL, that problem is mostly eliminated. The problem now is that much of the free software (CCleaner, SuperAntispyware, Defraggler, Spybot S&D, and many others) included on the disc is only free for personal use. The minute you break them out in a work environment without a paid license for each application you use, you're violating the license terms and, in many countries, the law.

WinSCP is also a good choice for FTP client (among other talents). We normally use Filezilla but needed a client for an FTPS, AUTH SSL connection. Filezilla defaults to FTPS AUTH TLS and wouldn't cooperate with using the older AUTH. WinSCP allowed us to specify all the required connection parameters simply and worked great. Excellent tool, and free as well.

At least two of these utilities are in a bit of a gray area for free software. Piriform CCleaner and Defraggler are free for individual use, but should be paid for when you start to use them in an office environment. These also have a business counterpart which includes support and many more features. Just because you don't think you need support doesn't mean you are not in a licensing violation if you use them on 20, 100, or 1000 computers.

I have to point out, I made a new remark regarding Hiren's earlier and also I seemed to be blasted for everybody seemed to be indicating it is most unlicensed computer software, well, i did not indicating next. Because you claimed, along with hiren's it has virtually any instrument you may want and also I've been deploying it a couple of many years currently and also it is sometimes most I ever ought to clear up nearly all of our difficulties. Concerning that becoming most unlicensed, that will has been true a couple of years before, but you will look on Yahoo and google and locate (I think), nearly all in any other case the many programs upon Hiren's, you will find these individuals totally free on the web.
Regardless, simply just considered We would discover what individuals are indicating nowadays regarding Hiren's. I get it that you have talked about that in this article, things are typical trendy currently with it? ......... free antivirus download

Pretty interesting... I may have to check out the remaining four.

Looks great but I hope it is not a joke or something. On their website (link form TR http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd) there is no download link or any info if this thing is free or have to be paid.

Go to "Home" (i.e., http://www.hiren.info/ ) -> "Burn a ISO Image".

Agree with: Hiren's BootCD, 7-Zip, FileZilla.

Diagree with: Microsoft Security Essentials (found it to not be "less resource intensive" on Windows 7), ComboFix (as was infered, this is more a last-resort tool, when you want to take one last stab at cleaning before giving in and re-imaging).

Other recommendations: VNC for remote console management, Cobian backup for a Windows-based backup solution, LibreOffice or OpenOffice for an MS Office substitute.

I tried the Burn an ISO selection and all I got was a Download Manager with add-ins but no clue for how to get to BootCD.

It just seems to work.

Another great tool is iobit's Advanced System Care. There is a freeware and paid version. The newer paid version includes an anti-virus. This is a great tool for cleaning up your computer, from temporary internet files to privacy issues to defragging your hard drive this is a solid all in one tool

I wonder how often the staff TR staff run out of blog ideas and come out with therse 5 or 10 tools/backups/anti-virus/..... blogs are recycled. Just take a blog from a few years ago, change a few words, remove a few tools, look in to see what people suggested then and add a few to the new list.

Instead of 7 zip I use Pea Zip - Its based on 7 zip but has a couple of use full features built in. (haven't used 7 zip in a while so it might be the same)

Big must for me is Notepad++ - Opens big log files much much faster than notepad and search and text tools are better.

Notepad++ is great, but I deploy in every system I get my hands on a copy of metapad
http://liquidninja.com/metapad/
Single file, tiny size, unix text file support, deals with big text files... and more.

wow lots of nice ideas. will have to check some of them out.

one that i use for mounting iso is magicdisc
http://magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-magicdisc-overview.htm

also install some or all of sysinternals and adinfo

the creator of adinfo has lots of cool tools to play with, some free and some $
http://www.cjwdev.co.uk/Software.html

The tools are great. Some of them i even know in code and internals and they are pretty stable and amazing. Regards and respect to the developers from here! I personally would also recommend Device Remover. I am the developer and please this shouldnt sound like self-advertisement here. Jack Wallen wrote a great article on it a few years ago (thanks again Jack!). Since then, the application evolved and grew in features big time. I always cary it on a usb stick with other tools mentioned here. Its main purpose is to gain access to all areas of the hardware running on the system. It will close the gap on the very basic device management features of the operating system by giving the user a powerful unique tool. Give it a try, its fully freeware, commercial and noncommercial! My additonal recommendation to these wise selection of great tolls by Mr. Jack Wallen.

Another tool that I didn't see mentioned was Slysoft's Virtual Clonedrive. It's a basic Iso mounter just like daemon tools or magic iso, having tried the others I seem to like it the best, it will mount just about everything and its free.

Another good place for some cool tools is Nirsoft.net, I know produkey was mentioned in the article, but there are so many other great tools there.

WinSCP is my top choice

Spiceworks has become a MUST have for Admins on a budget large or small!

It is a bit unfortunate that the writer of the article tags the topics as "free Utilities"...
The app cited above is ONLY useful for a few of MS items. The more inclusive application version is for SALE and the demo/free will recover a partial segment of the IDs and product licenses, rendering this version as rather useless.
It is a bit concerning that the practice of stating that something is free while it is really not is so rampant and smacks as a 'front' for selling products rather than being helpful as far as 'free apps for the IT guy"...
You should CHECK your postings and verify that what you declare them to be is really so...

Awesome thread! One more to add to the mix...

Unitrends is now in Virtual Appliance form, and two free editions are available:

Free Edition
Protect 4 VMs (VMware or Hyper-V)
Instant recovery of virtual machines.
File-level recovery of files and folders.
Rotational archiving to disk, tape, NAS and SAN.
Automated backup scheduling with flexible strategies.
Download Free Edition: http://www.unitrends.com/unitrends-enterprise-backup/download?src=TechRepublic

NFR Edition
Eligibility: VCPs, VCIs, vExperts, MVPs, MCPs
Protect 2 sockets and 2 physical servers
Phone, email and online support
1 year expiration (renewable along with certification)
Download NFR: http://www.unitrends.com/unitrends-enterprise-backup/download?src=TechRepublic

Im a big fan of Ninite (ninite.com, there are paid options also), an all in one updater/installer, for the 'usuals'

I use their System Utilities on my PC and a few others. Its free and will delete more temp files than CCleaner, dig deeper into the registry than CCleaner and also includes a "privacy cleaner" to remove personal information from vulnerable files.

Their anti-virus is also very good, and they have a couple browsers - one based on Chrome the other Firefox - that are locked down and secured far better than any other browser's I've used. And that's just scratching the surface of their free offerings. They also have a firewall, and a whole lot more (even an antivirus for Linux!)

I have to agree with Putty being an excellent tool. For finding unknown DHCP servers, Microsoft's RogueChecker works great. And I use Famtech's Advanced IP scanner to find unknown computers, or to identify what IP addresses are being used.

One of the better threads I've seen anywhere for a while. Thanks for all the contributions. I'll add a few of my own Windows favorites. I'm heavier on the Linux side, but the funny thing about Linux is you have to add a lot less to a standard CentOS or Ubuntu installation in the way of tools - many of the good ones are already there...

Anyways:

Revo Uninstaller (Freeware version) - this is great for digging out stuff that tends to leave a lot of junk behind, stuff that often fouls up reinstalling the same software later.

All the SysInternals tools - while I liked them more before they adopted by Microsoft, these tools are still huge. PageDefrag and Process Explorer are the biggies, but many of the others can be very useful in more defined circumstances.

Back|Track - hacker Linux tools collection on a bootable ISO. Like money, it's not what it is, but what you do with it, that defines it. I hope you will go the 'white hat' route.

WireShark - amazing network monitoring tool, and very useful when you're trying to figure out where your connection from client to server is hanging / freaking out / freezing / what-have-you.

There are others, but these are the ones I've got off the top of my head.

best regards - Mike

I use Unitrends Enterprise Backup Free Edition - gives me 4 VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V VMs (I use this in my lab at home) and *automated* backup and archiving - the automated is key - it lets me set and forget. I plan on getting a VMware VSP certification just so I can get the NFR one mentioned above that will let me do unlimited VMs and protect a terabyte of data.

I stumbled upon this company called unitrends while on spiceworks a few months ago, and they actually have some of their enterprise backup software for free. Granted, it can only backup VM's, but I have a total virtual datacenter here, so as a proactive measure this is perfect. =P

On the reactive side of things Hiren Boot CD has been my fav since high school and it still is now, especially when I get lazy with finding passwords lol.

And in terms of general security, for personal and work use, MS Security Essentials has been FANTASTIC in terms of AV/Firewall protection.

These three make my life soooo much easier.

Hi
I use some of these tools and more: Windows Repair (good and portable), (Sysinternals Suite and Nirsoft Tools with the WSCC interface to manage all in one place), Iobit Toolbox and many others I also use often "Parted Magic", a linux based rescue cd with a lot of great tools, to clean machines infected with viruses or malware and backup/recover files without permission restrictions.

...is handy, and a small download. Not nearly as many utilities as Hiren's, though.

I cannot survive without:
Q-dir--multiple Windows Explorer app
Pathtoclipboard from 12noon--copies the paths of a file or folder
Open With args or File Menu Tools--provides the abilities open and provide the commands for an exe directly from a GUI
USSF--extracts the silent command swtiches
PDQ Deploy and PDQ Inventory--Deploy allows you to deploy various file formats for updates, installs and other stuff. Inventory--reports applications and other data for clients.MakeMSI-msi editor and installer
WICU-Windows Installer Cleanup utility--removes programs that hard to remove or have broken uninstallers
IOBit Uninstaller-Removes hard to remove applications and cleans old registry junk
Registry Jumper or RegJump-jumps directly to registry selected from input text
Specops GPUpdate-allows GP updating remotely for several clients simultaneously plus other admin features.

DriveXML
GParted
LupoPen suite (I like lite and customize it)
SeaMonkey
Miranda
Pidgin
etoolz
Angry Port scanner
wireless netview
netwatcher
Netscan
NetMeter
ProcessMonitor
Current process
Vispa
7Plus
Quick config
RegScanner
Bart's tools
Linux live disk
Mac Bootcamp
Wine
Dariks wipe disk
A humungous USB drive not only with these tools (and more), but that will boot to Linux as well.

PrimoPDF is great for creating .pdf files. You can fill in and sign forms easily.

Crimson Editor - for when you need to repeat a command about 100x in your batch file, SQL script, etc.

I recently read that #4 MS Security Essentials, didn't pass some recent "certification" tests, and that it was more effective keeping a clean system clean, than anything else and miserable at cleaning an already corrupt system. Anyone else hear something similar?

Produkey, a good tool from the Nirsoft collection, is limited to a bunch of MS Products (Windows, Office, SQL, Exchange). The product able to collect IDs and keys for +1000 products is not free. The Produkey page shows a link at its top pointing to Recover Key, which is a product NOT free of charge.

I use Opsview (free version) for network monitoring. Some of the power features are missing but it does the job for my test environment: http://www.opsview.com/technology/downloads/opsview-core

Treesize free also works well for scanning hard drives when they start to get full. We use it on all of our servers. Also synctoy for moving files around. Makes migrating data very easy and you can stop and start anytime. Two great tools that should be mentioned!!

Another good remote control software that is free for personal use is TeamViewer.

I did not see any good tools to read server logs on multiple servers. Any suggestions? some business have more than one server and having the ability to pull logs from both machine and compare would be nice.

Would appreciate also if TR could provide the list for Mac users, see, we have both environments to manage.

Cheers!

I also liked the Unstoppable Copyier that gives you a possibility to just copy and no overhead of counters etc.

CC Cleaner is undoubtedly a great way of cleaning registry but their free version is not up to mark. So instead of adding it to your list, i would suggest you to add other freeware like registry recycler or safe reigstry cleaner.

I just have to say that I think Spiceworks is a tremendous resource. If you don't use it for anything else the user forums are awesome. I've never seen a site with more helpful people and as an admin tool, free is a very good price. More and more corporations are sponsoring Spiceworks so you can often get help there that isn't available for free on the corporate site, either from an employee or someone who is using that product or tool.