Sysinternals Autoruns

autorunsWhen Erik Eckel needed an accurate, effective tool for tracking down DLLs, services and applications that automatically load at system startup, he found SysInternals Autoruns. Autoruns provides a simple but powerful graphical user interface for tracking down and eliminating wayward services, processes, programs and more. Best of all, this highly effective monitoring and administrative tool that most Windows administrators could justify purchasing is provided free by Microsoft. Read Erik’s review.

Check out some of the other tools we reviewed (and liked) in 2007:

DownThemAll

DownThemAll is a Firefox extension that lets you download the links or images contained on a Web page. You can download all links and images, manually choose individual or multiple items, or select links and images through a variety of preset and customizable filters. DownThemAll also contains a download manager and download accelerator that the creators claim “increases speed up to 400%”.

DriveClone Pro 3.5

Frequently, IT professionals must prepare identical hard disk images for duplication and deployment to other systems. Drives may need to be cloned to simplify new equipment rollout, or such drive images may be required to assist in rescuing a failed or failing hard disk. DriveClone Pro software creates exact copies of hard disks to enable instant recovery following system crashes. And it makes the process easy.

Spybot Search & Destroy

Spybot Search & Destroy is an outstanding spyware and adware remover. Best of all, it is available completely free for home and non-commercial use.

Bryce

Bryce is a 3D illustration and rendering program intended to create realistic 3D landscapes and animations in a fairly intuitive way, using a drag-and-drop interface on a real-time canvas. It allows users to create attractive 3D images within minutes, while offering powerful functionality as well. This makes it a good option for curious beginners as well as seasoned 3D artists.

Popims Animator

Even if your budget is non-existent, morphing is not out of reach: several free programs are available to help you accomplish your goals. A professional designer evaluates the next generation of SmartMorph. Is Popims Animator really better than the program it “evolved” from?

VitaMem Pro: The Right Tool for the Job?

Managing memory efficiently and cleanly has always been a difficult task, and not just for Microsoft. We need a way to easily free up memory when Windows is done using it. VitaMem Pro is a simple little application that solves this problem.

SmartDraw 2008

Professional graphic designers charge a lot of money to make business presentation materials look great. But what if there’s no room in your budget to contract a designer? SmartDraw 2008 grants anyone the ability to create top-notch business graphics in minutes.

nComputing L200 PC Expanion

In some organizations, multiple PCs are deployed when only the computing capacity of a single workstation is really required. But, because other users must simultaneously access e-mail, the Internet or other data, additional systems are required. A computer terminal, such as nComputing’s L200 PC Expanion, enables users to connect to a single system using only an existing LAN and their own PC Expanion

Servers Alive

When managing a cluster of servers or simply hosting a single crucial application, uptime and response time monitoring is important. So you need a tool that is effective and reliable. Servers Alive gets the job done, but prices itself well outside the market.