The Ultimate Freeware Toolkit

It's been said that a mechanic is only as good as his or her tools. In this recipe I'll tell you about little-known freeware and shareware utilities that can help system builders do a faster, better job of diagnosing and repairing ailing computer systems. All of these tools are completely free of any spyware or adware, and none require any registration whatsoever. Together, these tools will equip your toolkit to fix a dozen common PC problems.

I personally carry a CD with many software tools designed to expedite PC diagnosis and repair. From this CD, I've selected a dozen of my favorites. Here's what I recommend:

1. When Good RAM Goes Bad

Trying to repair a computer with memory problems can become an exercise in futility. While a professional hardware-memory tester is handy, it's too expensive for most system builders.

On the other hand, a free software memory tester called MemTest86 is more than adequate for diagnosing bad RAM.The MemTest software is an amazingly small download as a bootable CD or diskette image. Once you boot a PC to your MemTest86 disk, the software automatically starts to run. There are no buttons to press or settings to configure. MemTest86 begins to examine the system's RAM using 10 unique testing techniques. One "pass" has been completed after all 10 tests have been run. Allow the test to conduct several such passes to allow any heat-related problems to surface. Should MemTest86 find bad RAM, you'll most likely need to replace the memory module, since RAM can be repaired only by its manufacturer.

Here's a look at a sample MemTest screen:

By the way, if you can afford a hardware memory testers, check out the professional units offered by Innoventions. Also, the $700 R.S.T. Pro 2 from Ultra-X is a great tool for a deep-pocketed PC technician or professional PC repair center.2. Recovering Lost Installation Keys

Customers who lose their software installation keys -- also known as product IDs and serial numbers -- frequently expect a technician to provide them one whenever the software needs to be reinstalled.

If the software in question is Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Office, then download a free copy of the Magical Jellybean Keyfinder. This software, only 251 K in size, requires no installation and can be run directly from a CD or USB flash drive. It will display the software key that was previously used to install the current version of Windows or Office on a given PC. Magical Jellybean Keyfinder runs on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Office 97, and Office XP.

Here's a look at the results given by Magical Jellybean Keyfinder (the CD key is intentionally blurred for security and privacy reasons):

What about other software keys? AIDA32 Enterprise addition comes to the rescue! Unfortunately, Lavalys Consulting Group, the Canadian company that created AIDA32, no longer offers or supports it. But you can find this tool archived on several public FTP libraries, including Major Geeks. And it's free.

Just like the Magical Jellybean Keyfinder, AIDA32 requires no installation. The software can be run directly from a CD or USB flash drive. When run, a menu of system information is offered. Click on the plus symbol next to Software; then click Licenses. Any software that AIDA32 recognizes will be displayed, along with the serial number used for installation. AIDA32 also offers many other features you may find worthwhile. Here's a look (with product keys intentionally blurred for security reasons):

3. Open Sesame: Recovering Windows Passwords

Windows XP/2000 logon passwords are extremely secure. So much so, that when a user loses or forgets their logon password, the only solution was to reinstall Windows.

But this is no longer necessary, thanks to a pair of utilities. Both offer free limited demonstration downloads. For full functionality, they must be purchased, though the first is quite inexpensive.

Of course, before using either application, the first step is to boot the PC in Safe Mode. The password-protected user account will be offered as a logon choice, along with an additional Administrator account. Many people fail to password-protect this separate Admin account, which means that, by default, this account has no password. If that's the case, you can boot to Safe Mode as an administrator, then remove or alter the passwords of all other user accounts. But should the administrator account be password-protected as well, you'll find either of these two utilities extremely helpful:

The first, SamInside, is an application that can examine the Security Account Manager (SAM) files of any XP/2000/2003/NT PC and decrypt the user logon password. The software costs only $40, and that includes technical support.An alternate utility, LOphtCrack 5 (LC5), provides essentially the same functionality, plus CDs with commonly used passwords that can speed the process of auditing and recovering logon passwords. This tool is offered by @stake, which was recently acquired by Symantec. LC5 is offered in four versions: professional, administrator, site, and consultant. Prices range from $450 for a professional version upgrade to nearly $14,700 for the 10-user consultant version. Is the high price is justified? It depends. The vendor claims the administrator/site/consultant version of LC5, which includes CDs with trillions of pre-computed password tables, can crack most passwords in seconds. By comparison, cracking a cryptic password using brute force -- not available with the free version of LC5! -- can take several hours. For more details, see: Which edition is right for me?

Another common problem is forgotten or otherwise unknown e-mail passwords. I often hear about this while migrating a customer's data to a new PC and need their password so I can set up their e-mail account on the new PC. Many of these customers have instructed Windows to save their password, and they've long since forgotten they even have a password, let alone remember what it is.

To the rescue: Snadboy's Revelation is a free download that will display any Windows password that is hidden behind a mask. Revelation must first be installed on the system. Then you simply click and drag the Snadboy Revelation 'target' over the masked area of the screen to see what's behind it.

Here's a screen-shot example. Notice that the target icon has been dragged over the masked password area of Outlook Express, revealing the password "mypassword" in the Snadboy's Revelation window:

4. Take PE (not phys. ed. -- Windows Preinstalled Environment)

In the old days (that is, up until the era of Windows Millennium), every technician had a basic tool for repairing PCs: a boot diskette. But with NTFS, boot diskettes are no longer useful for repairing the OS. Instead, meet the Windows Preinstalled Environment (PE) bootable CD. If you're familiar with Knoppix -- a fully working version of Linux contained on a bootable CD -- then the concept of the Windows PE CD will seem familiar.

Every PC technician should have a Windows PE CD in their toolkit. A PE lets you create a bootable CD that will load Windows XP, along with any useful utilities. This is a great help when repairing a Windows XP system. By giving you access to the hard drive, PE lets you delete viruses, remove or add files, edit the registry, and even run System Restore on the affected, "unbootable" PC. Sound too good to be true? All the details and instructions can be found on Bart's Preinstalled Environment page.

5. Fix what ails your registryI normally don't recommend registry cleaners. Experience has taught me that they often cause more problems than they cure. But I'm making an exception with a tool called Registry First Aid (RFA) from Rose City Software. For this task, RFA has proven both reliable and accurate.

Incorrect registry entries, typically caused by software installation and uninstall snafus as well as by spyware, can cause Windows to crash and other software to either lock up or load slowly. The problems typically occur when a software installation or un-installation does an incomplete job, leaving behind file references in the Windows registry that point to now-nonexistent files. Over time, a system can accumulate hundreds, even thousands, of these troublesome file references, adding unnecessary registry bloat.

Registry First Aid helps by first scanning the Windows registry for any orphaned file/folder references. Next, it finds files or folders on the drives that may have been moved from their original locations. Then it corrects the registry entries to match the located files or folders. In addition, if a registry has links to files of one or more deleted applications, RFA finds these invalid entries and removes them from the registry. The result: the system's Windows registry is leaner, cleaner and more accurate, allowing programs and the overall system to load and run faster and more reliably than before.

A limited evaluation copy of RFA is free. But since the software costs only $21 and includes a 30-day money-back guarantee, you might just buy it outright. I'm betting you'll find RFA more than pays for itself after just one use.

6. When Viruses AttackEven if your customers already run antivirus software, there's no harm in getting a second opinion. Trend Micro offers a free online virus-scan called Housecall that doesn't interfere with antivirus software already on the PC. In fact, Housecall often detects trojans and worms that manage to sneak past the installed antivirus software.

To run this handy utility, simply follow the on-screen instructions. I suspect you'll be surprised by how much Housecall finds!

If, for any reason, you have trouble with Trend Micro's Housecall, an alternative is Panda Active Scan from Panda Software.

7. Call the Start Up Police!

Determining which files are necessary for PC startup, as well as maintaining those files, are tasks typically handled with the aid of the Windows' built-in MSCONFIG utility. However, this process is made much easier using a utility from PC Magazine called Startup Cop Pro.With all the possible software your customer may have installed, it can be difficult to determine whether an entry that starts automatically with Windows is really needed. Disabling the auto-loading of all but essential software can drastically improve Windows' boot times and overall reliability.

Startup Cop Pro not only takes the guesswork out of some of those cryptic MSCONFIG entries, but it also makes the optimization process much easier and faster. And you can't beat that price: just $5.97, or $19.97 for a one-year license to PC Magazine's complete file library.

8. Stopping Stubborn Spyware

Some spyware is so stubborn, even the most trusted spyware-removal software can't eliminate it. But you can remove these malicious programs manually -- and quickly -- using a great freeware utility called HiJackThis.

HiJackThis is a tiny program that requires no installation. Simply double-click on the file, and it runs.If you are uncertain of the legitimacy of the some of the items displayed by HiJackThis, you can save a HiJackThis log file and then analyze that log file using the free HiJackThis log file analyzer.

9. Lost Your (Win)Sock?

Spyware often damages a PC's Winsock file. Typically, this happens either when spyware has taken over the PC's Internet settings, or when spyware has been forcibly removed by spyware-removal software. Symptoms include a PC that can access a LAN but not the Internet, an Internet Explorer home page that cannot be changed, and stubborn toolbars in Internet Explorer that refuse to be removed.

Completely rebuilding a system's Winsock manually is an arduous process. But this task is made quick and easy by using freeware utilities mentioned on these pages:

For Windows XP: WinSock XP Fix 1.2For Windows 95/98/ME: LavaSoft Support

10. Use the (XP) Patch

Although SP2 for Windows XP is alive and well, a great utility called AutoPatcher contains every Microsoft update to XP. It also contains common registry tweaks, freeware enhancements and modifications. All can be customized by you, then applied to any WinXP system with the click of a single button.

Unlike the updates direct from Microsoft, no reboot is necessary until everything has been applied. This tool is constantly updated to keep up with the patches being released from Microsoft. And it's free.

11. Gspot finds the Media Player codecHelping a customer determine what codec they need to play a video file in Windows Media Player is a common technical headache. The free Gspot codec information appliance takes the guesswork out of this frustrating problem

Gspot displays such useful information as which codec is needed, and whether the codec is installed. It also can isolate any problems with installed codecs. Did I mention that Gspot is free?

12. Stream on!

Whenever I have to reinstall a Windows XP/2000/2003 operating system, I always prefer to save time by using a slip-streamed version of the OS. Slip-streaming is the process of combining the latest service pack directly into the original installation files from the original installation CD. This lets you create a new XP installation CD that, once installed, already has SP2 integrated. Using a slip-streamed copy of WinXP can easily shave at least one hour off the installation time, compared with installing SP2 separately.

Even better, there's a software tool that can automate and walk you through this CD-creation process. It's called AutoStreamer. It works, and it's free.

CAREY HOLZMAN is president of Discount Computer Repair in Glendale, Ariz., and the author of The Healthy PC: Preventative Care And Home Remedies For Your Computer (McGraw-Hill Osborne, 2003). He has no commercial interest in any of the products or companies recommended in this Recipe.

What do you think? Do you know of other useful freeware/shareware utilities? Start or join a discussion thread in the TechBuilder Recipes Forum.

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