I have many clients who have placed passwords on their Outlook PST files to prevent family members or employees from accessing their emails. However, if they ever forget that password they have a problem – this is where PstPassword comes in.

PstPassword is a small, freeware and portable application designed to recover the password from a locked .PST file. The password encryption in Outlook is very weak and for each password protected PST file there will be 3 different passwords that could open it. One of them may be the original password that the client entered, or all 3 might be different to the original.
Read the rest of this entry »

“.NET Framework Cleanup Utility” is a small, portable and freeware application designed to remove selected versions of the .NET Framework from a computer. It is intended to be used when the install, uninstall, repair or patching of the .NET Framework will not work correctly.
When this cleanup tool is run, it will remove the files, directories, registry keys and Add/Remove Programs entries that make up the .NET Framework.

This application has some nice features such as allowing you to choose which version of .NET Framework you want to remove. It also has a silent/unattended mode which I am sure the Technibble scripters will enjoy. Be sure to read the readme.txt file as it contains some handy usage information plus the download links for the .NET Framework installers.
Read the rest of this entry »

SUPERAntiSpyware is an anti-spyware/anti-malware product that is well known amongst computer technicians. SAS just got even better by officially releasing a portable version of their product. The portable version is almost identical to the installed version in the way that it deals with malware, except that it exists as a single, portable file.

When you download the portable version from the official website, you will probably notice it has a strange file name like “SAS-4325.COM”. The reason for this is because the last 4 numbers of the file name are random. This helps prevent some of the nastier infections from closing SAS Portable when it runs.
SAS Portable also comes as a .COM file instead of a .EXE file because many infections will try to prevent .EXE files from running, so it has those bases covered.

SUPERAntiSpyware Portable is free, updates easily and is definitely a tool you will want to keep on your USB drive to deal with malware infections.
Read the rest of this entry »

The malware world is changing. It’s getting smarter.
In fact, some infections will detect that you have launched an anti-malware tool such as MalwareBytes and close it down as soon as you open it, which makes your job much harder. This is the exact situation Rkill is designed for.

Rkill is a small, freeware and portable tool designed to terminate active malware processes allowing you to use other removal tools. Rkill is made by a Microsoft MVP “Lawrence Abrams” and is available in 4 different extensions. An .EXE, .COM, .SCR and a .PIF file.
The reason why Rkill comes in 4 different versions is because some malware will block .EXE files in an attempt to prevent you from running other malware removal tools, so this gets around that problem.

I tested this tool on a virtual machine which I had infected with a fake antivirus and Rkill killed the malicious processes without any problems. Of course, I then had to delete the malicious files manually as this is not a malware removal tool, but a malware process killing tool. It just stops the malware from running right now, allowing you work your computer technician magic.
Read the rest of this entry »

Microsoft has tightened up security in Windows Vista and 7 by disallowing access to critical system files using a Unix like permission system. While this is great for the average user because it helps protect them from viruses and themselves preventing them from being able to accidentally delete a critical system file. It isn’t so great for a Computer Technician who may need to access those areas.

Even if your user account is set to be an Administrator, there are many files and folders you cannot access including something as simple as changing the Start Menu under Windows 7. If you try, you will get an “Access Denied” error because SYSTEM owns this folder, not your user account. While there is a round-about way to assign yourself permission of these files, its a little long winded.

This is where Rizone’s “Take Ownership” Extension comes in. It is a small, freeware and portable application that will add a “Take Ownership” option to your right click context menu. Just right click on the file or folder you want to be able to access, and choose “Take Ownership” and it will assign you the necessary rights.
Read the rest of this entry »

This tool is more for the technicians who have the job of looking over a business or school network. However, this could be used to find a single printer on a residential setup.

Page Countster is a small, portable and freeware application designed to scan a network for printers and display the information about them including the IP address, MAC Address, Host Name, Model Name, Serial Number, Total Page Count, Color Page Count and the ink levels.

Some other features that this application has is the ability to send the information to an email address or display it as a HTML report. Another neat feature is that you can right click on the printer and bring up more information including the loading of the printers web interface. You can also send a test page to any network printer without needing a driver.

Note: This application must be “Run as Administrator” as it makes use of RAW sockets. If you don’t, you will get a socket error.
Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever had to backup a clients files to a CD or DVD? I think most of us have at some point and it can be tedious sorting out how many files will fit on a single disk, especially if the client has a lot of data.

This is where Capacity comes in to make the task of backing up to CD or DVD much easier. Capacity will automatically separate the files into different CD or DVD sized folders. It can even create these CD/DVD sized folders based on the file type if you want so you can keep all documents on one CD and pictures on another. There is also other sorting criteria such as by month created, by month modified and by file size.

Capacity is small and mostly portable (requires .NET 3.5) application with a donation-ware license. This means it is free to use but if you like it you should consider donating to the developer.

This application is definitely worth keeping on your onsite USB drive and the backup machine in your workshop.
Read the rest of this entry »

One of the biggest frustrations when installing Windows XP was making sure you had the correct CD for your license key. Windows Vista fixed this problem by having a universal CD that contained all versions (all 32bit versions or all 64bit versions, not both) and simply installed the version that the key matched.

Now that Windows 7 is out, Microsoft have reverted back to needing a separate disk for each version which is annoying for us computer technicians. However, the only difference between each DVD is a small 51 byte configuration file called ei.cfg which tells the installer what version disc it is. If you were to turn your DVD into an ISO, remove this ei.cfg file and write it back to a DVD, that DVD would become a Universal DVD.

ei.cfg Removal Utility will make this easy for you. Just create an ISO with your legitimate Windows 7 DVD, run this tool, choose the ISO and let it run. Once it has finished, just write the ISO back to a DVD again and you would only need to carry one 32bit version and one 64bit version to support any Windows 7 install onsite.

Of course, your client would still need to provide you with a working key for the Windows 7 install to work.
Read the rest of this entry »

The default power settings for Windows is to have the computer go to sleep after about 15-30 minutes of inactivity (such as no keyboard input or mouse movement). This is great for the client because it saves power but not so great for a technician who is working on the computer.

Insomnia is a small, freeware and portable application designed to prevent the computer from going to sleep. As long as the Insomnia window is open, the computer wont go to sleep. This is great for a technician who is running malware or diagnosis scans on a computer which can potentially take hours.

If you are a technician who makes use of .BAT file or AutoIT scripting, this would be a nice addition to your script to keep the computers awake while your script does its task.
Read the rest of this entry »

DeviceDoctor Portable is freeware utility that will scan your hardware and check to see if there are any driver updates. It also has the ability to recognize some of the “Unknown Devices” that appear in Windows Device Manager. At the time of writing this, DeviceDoctor claims that their database currently has drivers for over 13 million devices and they are constantly adding to it every day.

Something I really like about DeviceDoctor is that they host the drivers on their own servers rather than just direct linking to the hardware manufacturers site. I like this because hardware manufacturers often go out of business or don’t provide the drivers for old hardware and then you have to go searching for them on third party sites.

The hardware scan is pretty quick (about 5 seconds in my tests) and it supports Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 including their 64 bit versions. This one is definitely worth having on your USB drive.
Read the rest of this entry »