Adobe Flash Uninstaller is a small, portable application designed to forcefully remove all versions Adobe Flash. While this tool isn’t particularly exciting, it has come in handy a few times on computer repair jobs. The last time I had to use it I had a client who couldn’t play Youtube videos because they got the message:
“Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Macromedia’s Flash Player. Get the latest Flash player.”

I checked to see that Adobe Flash was installed and it had been installed. I suspected it was corrupt or something so I removed it using Add/Remove Programs and reinstalled it, same problem. So I used this application to forcefully remove Flash. I then reinstalled Flash and it worked like a charm.
Read the rest of this entry »

VirtualBox is a free virtualization product which allows you to run another operating from within your current one. While this is technically not a “repair tool”, it is very useful to computer technicians for testing and training purposes. For example, I used virtualization software to create a Windows XP virtual machine and infected it with a virus so I could show Technibble readers via video how to manually remove a virus. Once I was done creating the video I rolled back the virtual machine state and it was a fresh copy of Windows XP again. I also use a virtual machine to test all of the Repair Tools of the Week I recommend.

Computer Technicians can do the same and break or infect an operating system to learn how to fix it without the concerns of damaging live operating systems. VirtualBox is one of the easiest virtualisation software to use since all you really have to do is install the software, press New and follow through the prompts such as what OS you want to install and how much hard drive space you want to give it. You can tell it to use your real CDRom drive to load an operating system on it or you can even mount an ISO which will emulate a CDRom disk.

If you want to learn how to remove viruses, fix certain problems, experiment with other operating systems such as Linux without the fear of messing up your current operating system, this is a great way to do it and increase your skillset.
Read the rest of this entry »

In past “Repair Tool of the Week” articles I have posted about a few of the removal tools for the most common antiviruses like Norton, AVG and McAfee. Of course, there are many more antiviruses than these and it wouldnt make sense to have a post for each one so I have compiled a single large list of antivirus removal tools. This makes it easier for you to download them all at once to carry around with you on your USB drive.

I have also included a “More Information” link for most of them that takes you to the tools page in case the download link becomes broken in the future or you want to make sure you get the latest version. As of the date of this post, these are the most recent versions of the removal tools.
Read the rest of this entry »

Camstudio Portable is a small, free and portable application designed for recording what is happening on the screen including any mouse movements. While this isn’t exactly a “repair tool”, its highly useful when you are teaching a client how to do certain task and want them to remember the steps after you leave. I personally like it because I don’t have to write the steps down for my clients and show them multiple times. The clients like it because they can refer to it any time if they forget the steps.

The application has the ability to record the entire screen, a region where you specify the size and can move itabout, or a fixed region. It also has the ability to highlight the cursor in the recordings so the client can see the cursor in the video better. By default, the application will export the video to .AVI but you can also convert the video from AVI to SWF (Adobe Flash) so the file is much smaller but still maintains its video quality.

If you teach clients how to do certain tasks on the computer (getting photos off cameras, putting music on portable devices etc.) then this is a must have.
Read the rest of this entry »

I have decided to release a side project I have been working on. It is designed to identify what version of Windows a computer is running, identify what version of Windows exists on a CD and identify the version based on the license sticker.

For example, its easy to tell that a computer is Windows XP Professional, but its hard to tell whether the version is OEM, Retail, Corporate, Volume License or something else without the license sticker (all but OEM don’t actually put the sticker on the case).

This tool also has the ability to detect whether the currently installed version is known to Microsoft as a pirate version (nothing to do with WGA). Basically, it’ll let you know before hand whether Windows SP2 or SP3 will install as those two service packs check the product ID with Microsoft before installing.

It does detect the Vista and Win 7 version (which is less useful since they are all on one disk) but the main intention for this is to make identifying Windows XP easier. This should work on most modern mobile browsers so you can use it while onsite as well.
Read the rest of this entry »

SmartSniff is a small, freeware and portable application that allows you to capture TCP/IP packets that pass through your network adapter. You can view the TCP/IP conversations that go through your network in both ASCII mode or as a hex dump.

We have featured other packet sniffers here before such as Wireshark. Wireshark portable was even featured in our Computer Repair Utility Kit. However, both these versions needed to install the WinPcap capture driver first in order to work. Smartsniff captures data using the Raw sockets method which means this application is a truly portable packet sniffer as it doesnt need to install anything. Of course, using the raw method does have some limitations and problems such as it not working correctly on XP Service Pack 1, but other than that its a

For those of you who haven’t experimented with packet sniffing before and may be wondering why you would want to do this as a technician. Packet sniffing allows you to see what a system is sending out so you could see if there is a virus on the system sending out data to its home base, and if so, what it is sending. You can use it to capture unencrypted passwords leaving the computer (in case you or your client forgot the password but its still in the application in the **** form). You could also use it to see what legitimate applications are up to such as which update server they are using or what information they are sending back to base.
nice small, portable packet sniffer.
Read the rest of this entry »

Outlook is a fairly indepth program that stores a lot of data and it can occasionally become corrupted to the point where Outlook cannot be launched. Since many people use Outlook to organise their lives you can imagine how much they freak out when their information becomes corrupted.

This little tool called ScanPST has allowed me to save many stressed out clients in the past. It only does one thing but its a very important one, ScanPST will scan a Outlook data file (.pst) that you choose for corruptions and attempt to repair it.

Read the rest of this entry »

EnableDisable is a small, freeware application designed to allow you to enable or disable Microsoft Office add-ins. This comes in handy when an addin is causing an Office product (like Outlook, Word or Access) to crash and you cannot get into the application to switch it off. Of course, you could always use the /safe switch for the product, find the add ins menu and disable it that way,. However, this way shows the installed addins for all of the Office products installed at once so this method is faster.
Read the rest of this entry »

Video Memory Stress Test is a small application that is free for home use (but paid for commercial use) and is designed to test the RAM on your video card. Similar to Memtest86+, it will read and write data to each part of the video cards RAM and log any errors found.
I used this application on a machine a few months ago that would get artifacts when playing World of Warcraft, but not during general use. I suspected the video card was dying so I ran this tool and it instantly came up with pages and pages of errors. I swapped the video card and everything was working again so it definitely did its job.

This application comes with both a Windows version and a bootable DOS based ISO which is handy if you cannot get into Windows because of suspected video card problems.
Read the rest of this entry »

While ImgBurn isn’t exactly a “repair tool”, it does come in handy in the repair environment. ImgBurn is a small, freeware application for creating CD/DVDs and reading/writing image files.
Its small, simple and does the job well unlike Nero which is massively bloated now days. It also boasts great support for all the Windows OS’s and many different burners including HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. There is also the option to download a portable version of ImgBurn which makes it handy for backup work on a clients PC before a format.
Read the rest of this entry »