Clonezilla is a free, open source disk imaging tool that is loaded with features. While it is a little rough around the edges visually, it is very capable. It supports over a half dozen file systems covering Windows, Linux and Macintosh based computers. If Clonezilla does not support the file system, you can still image the hard drive by doing a sector-by-sector copy.
Clonezilla can be run from a Live CD, USB drives or a network drive and has the ability to either create a single image file, or do a direct copy from one hard drive to another.
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Fabs AutoBackup is a small, portable application that allows you to pick and choose what you (or your client) want to back up with simple check boxes. The program does the rest. After the format, you can also use AutoBackup to restore all the files back to where they should be. We have actually covered Fabs AutoBackup about a year ago but it is now Windows Vista and Windows 7 Compatible and had added quite a few new features making it worth mentioning again.
For a list of what AutoBackup supports backing up and restoring, read on.
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Linx is a small, free and portable application designed to benchmark an Intel CPU in GFlops and to test the stability of a CPU.
Linx supports both 32 and 64 bit operating systems and Single, Dual & Quad Core CPUs. While I was reviewing this application to see if its worthy of becoming the repair tool of the week, it happily maxed out all 4 cores of my QuadCore system at 100% to the point where everything loaded very slowly, but my OS remained stable.
There has even been a well known member on our forums writing a few posts (1, 2) about how this application saved him in a few hard-to-diagnose situations.

This application is a great way to really stress test a CPU so it is defnitely worth adding to your toolkit.
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I am sure just about everyone here knows what MSConfig is and use it often when optimising a system or removing a virus.
While working with MSConfig, we untick many of the entries that don’t need to start when the computer boots but now you are left with a bunch of unused entries. This is especially true with virus infections.

This is where MSConfig Cleanup comes in. MSConfig is a small and freeware and application that scans the startup configuration and allows you to remove any item that has previously been disabled by MSConfig.
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BlueScreenView is a small, freeware and portable application that scans all of the minidump files that are created when Windows experiences a “Blue Screen of Death”. It will display the information about all the crashes in one table with the minidump filename, the time and date of the crash, basic information about the crash (as in the BSOD message) and the driver or module that possibly caused the crash.

The main benefit of using BlueScreenView over other minidump reading applications is that it does not require the Microsoft debugging tools (which are 16 – 225mb in itself) which makes this application small, quick and portable. This tool is definitely worth having in your kit to track down the cause of BSOD’s.
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While not technically a “repair tool”, many people believe that Microsoft Offices new “ribbon” toolbar needs to be fixed. “UBitMenu: Classic Menu” brings back the classic menu that users were used to from Office 2003 and previous versions. It actually creates a new tab in the current Office 2007 tabbed system so you can easily switch between the classic menu and the current ribbon menu if you wish. This application is free if it is used in a home enviroment and costs 10 euros if it is to be used in a business enviroment.
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After you do a clean install of Windows, you go to the Device Manager and discover the dreaded question mark next to an “Unknown Device”. You could just download the driver for this device, but you don’t know what it is! This is where PCIDatabase.com comes in handy.
PCIDatabase.com is website to help you identify unknown PCI devices without using any special software.
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RootRepeal is a small, portable and freeware application that is designed to uncover rootkits. This tool has been picking up popularity with security groups like Systernals. This is a tool for advanced users only who know what the normal Windows drivers, processes and services are. If you don’t know what you are doing you can easily render a computer unbootable.

RootRepeal has the following features:
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Xpy is a small, portable and freeware registry tweaker with an emphasis on tweaking privacy and security settings. It has the ability to disable Windows communicating with Microsoft (WGA, crash reports, usage tracking, automatic updates etc..), disable services which are not used in most cases, remove Windows Messenger, tweak Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player and many other settings you would expect in a registry tweaker.

This application comes with a few nice features such as the ability to save and load profiles so you can apply the same tweak setup to multiple computers without having to re-select all the tweaks you wanted to do. The application will also make a Windows Restore Point before it makes any changes in-case something doesn’t go well.

Xpy works on Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003. There is also a Vista/Server 2008/Win7 version called Vispa.
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For this weeks repair tool of the week I am going to be mentioning two applications that compliment each other and manage the attachments in the email application “Outlook”.
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