Filling in the gaps in Windows Vista/Server 2008

We all have them. Those favorite tools and utilities that help make our Windows environment just a little bit more comfortable. For me, the following eight utilities aren’t so much conveniences as they are life preservers for my sanity. Each one has become an integral part of my day to day, Windows Workstation 2008 experience, to the point where the thought of life without them leaves me contemplating a nice stroll out an 18th story window. Simply put, they’re must-haves — for me and, frankly, for any sane IT professional dealing with Windows on a daily basis.

Note: Unless otherwise noted, each one of the following tools and utilities is available, in some form, as freeware or open source downloadable. And they say all the great free stuff is only available on Linux – meh!

Daemon Tools – With Microsoft distributing much of its product catalog via downloadable ISO images, it’s simply unforgivable that the company continues to ship its various OS without a basic means for mounting and/or burning such files. Fortunately, the excellent Daemon Tools utility fills the first part of this gap, providing an easy to use, well-integrated solution for mounting ISO images via a virtual CD-ROM driver.

ImgBurn – For those rare instances where I actually need to burn an ISO to disk (for example, to create an OS boot CD for a new hardware install), I use the wonderful ImgBurn utility. Chock-full of options and features, ImgBurn makes creating new CDs and DVDs trivial, and it also does an excellent job of duplicating and creating new ISO images of (non-copy-protected) disks.

FileZilla – By far, the best of the free Windows FTP clients, FileZilla 3.x got off to a rocky start on my PC, but the revised UI eventually grew on me and I’m now a huge fan. Works great with the sometimes finicky passive mode of Windows Server 2003/IIS 6.x’s FTP service.

Free Download Manager – My savior in a bandwidth-challenged world (I live on a tropical island where “broadband” means 512Kbps ADSL with high latencies), FDM integrates seamlessly with Internet Explorer 7/8, providing much needed coaxing for my sluggish connection. Particularly useful for pulling down large files (it has a robust resume feature), I use it for grabbing ISO images from non-Microsoft sites and any other circumstance where the ability to pause the transfer or modulate bandwidth consumption is desirable.

Vista CODEC Pack – Not so much a utility as a collection of essential multimedia components, the Vista CODEC Pack — and its x64 variant — is a collection of audio/video extensions for Vista that allow you to play back almost any kind of media, from AC3 to MPEG-4 to XViD. It’s a great supplement to Vista’s bundled CODEC set and a must-have for anyone running Windows Workstation 2008 (Server 2008 configured as a desktop), which has almost no CODECs installed by default. Also, the x64 version of the pack makes it possible to play a variety of media types using the 64-bit version of Windows Media Player. It even includes some “switching” utilities that will automatically patch the Registry so that Vista x64 uses the 64-bit Media Player by default. Definitely worth the download.

SysInternals Suite – The legendary collection of utilities from the equally legendary Mark Russinovich (and friends), the SysInternals (now part of Microsoft) Suite of tools and applications should be standard equipment for any serious IT professional. The Autoruns utility, by itself, makes the suite worth the download, and Process Explorer leaves Windows Task Manager looking like amateur rubbish.

Script Elevation PowerToys – This collection of shell and command line extensions makes working with UAC much more pleasant. Working much like the “sudo” or “su” commands under Linux, the “elevate” command line utility allows you to launch any new application with elevated privileges directly from a CMD.EXE window. Likewise, the various shell handlers add useful elevation options to the context menus of Windows Script files, PowerShell commandlets, MSI packages, and so on.

Crap Cleaner – What can I say about Crap Cleaner? It does the job, cleaning-out all of the usual Windows “crap” culprits (temp files, cookies, history entries, cache files) and checks the Registry for the most obvious broken associations and orphaned keys. The tool is highly configurable and integrates neatly with the Windows shell via context menu options on the Recycle Bin and elsewhere. Good stuff!

Of course, the above list is by no means exhaustive or complete. There are a variety of tools I use in passing, and I’m always on the lookout for new utilities to make my life easier. One of the places I check-in on regularly is the FileForum Web site and its sister site, BetaNews. Both provide a vast catalog of Freeware, Shareware, and Commercial Demo programs, with the latter focused on prerelease versions and incremental test builds. Definitely worth a visit — I check-out BetaNews at least once a week and use FileForum to hunt down new utilities if/when I have an unmet requirement. Enjoy!