Compilation of 40 must have system admin tools for system administrator or power users to fight those nightmarish situations and save lives!
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| Tool Name & Description | URL |
|---|---|
| 7-Zip is a very good free file archiver with a high-compression ratio. | 7-zip.org |
| Belarc Advisor audits installed software, license keys, details about hardware, list of Microsoft patches and generates a report. | belarc.com |
| Clonezilla is a OpenSource clone system with unicasting and multicasting. It is a good Norton Ghost alternative. | clonezilla.org |
| CPUz shows correct motherboard, RAM, graphics card details and more. | cpuid.com |
| cURL is a command line tool for transferring files with URL syntax, supporting FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, SCP, SFTP, TFTP, TELNET, DICT, LDAP, LDAPS and FILE. | curl.haxx.se |
| Darik’s Boot and Nuke (DBAN) is a self-contained boot disk that securely wipes the hard disks. | dban.org |
| Desktop Restore is a tiny shell extension that records the position of your desktop icons and lets you easily restore your favorite desktop layout. | midiox.com |
| ExamDiff is a good freeware visual file comparison tool. | prestosoft.com |
| GParted is the GNOME partition editor for creating, reorganizing, and deleting disk partitions. | gparted.sourceforge.net |
| InfraRecorder supports many DVD and CD drives that are available, burn ISO images, CDs and DVDs. | infrarecorder.org |
| Iometer is good hard disk I/O subsystem measurement and characterization tool. | iometer.org |
| Kdiff3 is a free file-comparison tool that does Unicode, editing, directories and 3 way merge. | kdiff3.sourceforge.net |
| Kon-Boot is the ultimate Linux/Windows hacking tool. Log into any local or domain account on a pc without knowing the password. Use with caution! | piotrbania.com |
| Lansweeper is a network inventory tool that performs hardware scanning, software scanning, and reporting on Active Directory (AD) users. It requires SQL. | lansweeper.com |
| LUA BugLight is a nice tool for finding out where a program hangs or program bugs. It runs under restricted mode so you can make system changes. | msdn.com |
| MyDefrag (formerly JKDefrag) is a flexible free Hard Drive Defragment program with a scripting language. | mydefrag.com |
| Nmap Security Scanner – Nmap (“Network Mapper”) is a free and open source utility for network exploration or security auditing. | nmap.org |
| Notepad++ features a tabbed interface, syntax highlighting for all popular programming and scripting languages, bracket matching, and macro recording. | notepad-plus.sourceforge.net |
| Offline NT Password & Registry Editor is a Boot CD that can change local account passwords. | home.eunet.no |
| Paint.NET is a huge improvement over Windows’ built-in Paint program for image manipulation. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a variety of useful and powerful tools. | getpaint.net |
| Password Safe allows you to safely and easily create a secured and encrypted user name/password list. | passwordsafe.sourceforge.net |
| PING is a live Linux ISO, based on the excellent Linux From Scratch (LFS) documentation. PING makes a sector-based image copy of a disk partition. The bootable PING ISO tool copies a full system disk to on a bigger disk. | ping.windowsdream.com |
| Superscan is a powerful TCP port scanner, pinger, resolver. | foundstone.com |
| Sysinternals is the sysadmin’s best friend! It is the must have tool for any sysadmin out there. It is now also available as Sysinternals Live. | technet.microsoft.com |
| TrueCrypt is a free open-source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux. | truecrypt.org |
| UBCD4Win is a bootable recovery CD that has software used for repairing, restoring, or diagnosing almost any computer problem. | ultimatebootcd.com |
| Ultimate Boot CD is a free bootable recovery CD and has over 100 tools for diagnostics and repair. | ultimatebootcd.com |
| UltraVNC is a powerful, easy to use and free software that can display the screen of another computer (via internet or network) on your own screen. | uvnc.com |
| UltraTech’s list of must have tools for Windows users/admins that needs some updating but has dozens of popular tools and their links. | KB.UltraTech-llc.com |
| USB DeviewView lets you view all installed/connected USB devices on your system. In fact, most of the Nirsoft utilities are pretty good and useful. | nirsoft.net |
| The VIPRE Rescue Program is a command-line utility that will scan and clean an infected computer that is so infected that programs cannot be easily run. | live.sunbeltsoftware.com |
| VirtualBox is a powerful x86 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems. | virtualbox.org |
| Voidtools is an everything search engine! It helps find files and folders by name instantly. | voidtools.com |
| WinDirStat is a very good disk space usage visualization and cleanup tool for Microsoft Windows. | windirstat.info |
| Windows Installer CleanUp Utility is used to clean leftover windows installer files of failed or partly installed software. | support.microsoft.com |
| Wireshark is a popular network protocol analyzer (sniffer), used in many industries and educational institutions. | wireshark.org |
| XML Notepad 2007 is a specialized MS XML editor with a small footprint. It has a Tree View and a Node Text View and a built-in XML Diff ability. | microsoft.com |
| ZoomIt is screen zoom and annotation tool for technical presentations that include application demonstrations. ZoomIt lets you magnify portions of your screen while doing demos and presos, as well as draw on and annotate the screen. | technet.microsoft.com |
| Bart’s PE Builder helps you build a “BartPE” (Bart pre-installed Environment) bootable Windows CD-Rom or DVD from the original Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 installation/setup CD, very suitable for PC maintenance tasks. | nu2.nu |
| Ethereal is a network professionals tool. It is used around the world for troubleshooting, analysis, software and protocol development, and education. | ethereal.com |
| MTPuTTY (Multi-Tabbed PuTTY) is a small freeware utility that enables you to wrap unlimited number of PuTTY windows in one tabbed GUI interface. (Thanks to Tim for suggesting it.) | ttyplus.com/multi-tabbed-putty/ |
| TheSearchMan is a freeware utility to do very quick searches of files on your hard disk. (Thanks to Roger for suggesting it.) | ethereal.com |
40 Must Have System Admin Tools For Your System Administrator Toolkit Bag is originally published on My Technology Guide