The Free IT Support Engineers Toolkit

(If you are looking for first-class IT support in London, please feel free to contact us)

We carry around a lot of software on our USB keys these days in order to assist in doing our job. Here is the main selection of the software we keep on it.

Installations for New PC's

Standard to all

• PDF Viewer - Adobe Reader - Standard PDF Reader (or the faster Foxit PDF Reader)
• PDF Writer - PDFCreator - easily creates PDFs from any Windows program. Use it like a printer.
• Zip - built in since XP (or 7-Zip - Supports ZIP,RAR and many others and it's own 7z format is hard to beat.)
• Antivirus -NOD32 - The only antivirus we recommend. (there is also the FOSS ClamWin Antivirus - doesn't provide on access realtime scanning)
• Internet search - Google Desktop - easy access to information on your computer and from the web.
• Diagnosis/Support  - RunPCRun Total Support - Handy to have our support package!
• In place for repair work
  
• Malware - HijackThis and Ad-aware
• Drive imager - DriveImage XML or Acronis True Image
• Background
• .NET Framework  - allows end-users to run .NET applications.
• Java Runtime Environment - allows end-users to run Java applications.
• De-crap "Home" PC's - PC Decrapifier
  

Other common needs

• Images
• Viewing/Managing Images
• Photo management and viewing - Picasa - Useful for people managing a lot of images.
• Quick resize
• Simple - ImageResizer Powertoy - resize one or many image files with a right-click.
• More configurable - VSO Image Resizer
  
• Photoediting
• Light work - PaintDotNet and Photoscape.
  
• Heavier needs -  GIMPshop or GIMP (or buy Adobe Photoshop if you're serious/need CMYK)
• HTML Slideshow - create an HTML slide show of your digital pictures.
• Email
• Anti-spam for Outlook - Spambayes (We offer anti-spam relays for Exchange servers)
• Email client (and Usenet/RSS) - Thunderbird
• Office - OpenOffice - free office suite to use and distribute
• VPN - OpenVPN - full-featured SSL VPN solution
• VoIP -
  
• Proprietary - Skype - Famous VoIP software
• Open - X-lite - Uses the SIP standard for inter-operability.
• Map/Survey - Google Earth
• Defrag - JKDefrag

Special Purpose

• PocketPC Sync (Standard) - ActiveSync 4.2
• CD/DVD burning - CDBurnerXP Pro inc. ISO's etc (Nero or Roxio are often installed by default these days)
• Vector Graphics Editor - Inkscape - similar to Adobe Illustrator(but again no CMYK)
• Encryption
• Individual File Encryption - AxCrypt - with a nice "Shred file" feature
• "Disk" Encryption - VeraCrypt - Create a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mount it as a real disk
• Email encryption - GNU Privacy Guard with email client plug-in
• Thunderbird Plugin
• Outlook plugin
• Outlook Express plugin
  
• Audio
• Copy audio data from an audio CD (with jitter correction) - Exact Audio Copy
• Recording and editing sounds - Audacity
• MP3 encoder - for use with Exact Audio Copy and Audacity - LAME (Free/LGPL)
• Video
• Quicktime - Quicktime Alternative - Play Quicktime files without installing the Quicktime player
  
• Realplayer - Realplayer Alternative - Play Realplayer files without installing the Realplayer software.
  
• Codecs - Codecs All-in-one - pack of "essential" codecs.
  
• Media Player - Media Player Classic
• Media Player - VLC
  
• 3D creation -
  
• Suite of tools - Blender
• Google SketchUp

Diagnostics & Removal

CD's

• Rescue
• Windows bootdisk for PC maintenance tasks - Barts PEBuilder or Ultimate Boot CD for Windows with various plugins (DriveImageXML etc)
  
• Memory Tester - Memtest
• Partion Editor - GParted

Installations

• Network protocol analyzer - for those occasions you need to dig really deep on the network - Wireshark
• Diagnosis/Support  - RunPCRun Total Support 

Monitoring (can be run direct from USB)

• Dependency Walker - scans any Windows module and builds a hierarchical tree diagram of all dependent modules
  
• DiskMon - logs and displays all hard disk activity
  
• Filemon - displays file system activity on a system in real-time
• PortMon - displays all serial and parallel port activity
  
• Process Explorer - shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded
  
• Pstools - SysInternals 'Resource Kit'
  
• RegMon - Real-time Registry monitoring utility
  
• TCPView - detailed listings of all TCP and UDP endpoints on your system. Graphical netstat
  
• TokenMon - monitors and displays a variety of security-related activity taking place on a system
  
• Winobj - display information on the NT Object Manager's name space
  
• autoruns - show all auto-starting locations, like HijackThis.
  
• WinsockXPFix - simple winsock fix. Seems to work a bit better than netsh int ip reset sometimes.

Spyware, malware & program removal

• Spyware/Malware
• Manual (most effective!) - Msconfig/Safe mode/HijackThis or 
• Automatic/Scheduled - Spyware Terminator
  
• RootkitRevealer - advanced rootkit detection utility
• Program removal
  
• Revo Uninstaller
• Norton Removal Tool - Norton can be stubborn to remove at times!
• SmitFraudFix - removes Desktop Hijack malware
  

Engineer workstation

• Autohotkey - hotkeys and keyboard macro program for repetitive tasks.
• Filezilla - fast and reliable FTP client (and server available too)
• Pidgin -  instant messenger client, which can handle multiple protocols, including AIM, ICQ, Yahoo!
• InnoSetup - powerful script based freeware installation builder.
• KeePass - open-source password safe
• NVU - WYSIWYG HTML editor with site manangement features
• WinSCP - SCP/SFTP client
• Notepad replacement
• Notepad2 - notepad replacement
• Programmers Notepad
• HTTrack Website Copier - easy-to-use offline browser utility
• Planner - project scheduling tool
• Tools
• UnixUtils - ports of common GNU utilities
• TightVNC - remote control software
• NT Resource Kit - the original resource kit (not freeware)
  
• 2000 Resource Kit - (not freeware)
• 2000 Support Tools
• Various
  
• eicar - Anti virus test file
  
• pixie - an 8Kb colour picker
  
• rawwritewin - for writing floppy disk images
  
• tftpd32 - TFTP server
  
• UPX - powerful executable packer 
• Tight VNCviewer - just the viewer
• Putty - SSH client
• MySQL
• MySQL ODBC Connector
• SQLyog Community Edition - decent MySQL GUI

Migration Tools

Server

• For copying files - Unstoppable Copier
• POP3 gateway for any SMTP server (useful as a quick'n'dirty POP3 Connector for Exchange) - EFS3 (Email Forwarding System)

Workstation

• Move windows profiles
• 98/Millenium/XP to XP - Files and Settings Transfer Wizard (Commercial software found on Windows XP CD)
• To Vista - Windows Easy Transfer
  
• Export drivers - DriverMax
• Email Backup
• Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora and others - Amic Email Backup (or do it manually by copying the dbx's)
• Thunderbird - Mozbackup (or do it manually by copying the profile)
• Retrieve Product Keys - ProducKey

  * means there is some referral or partnership with these suppliers via the links given. Check out our stance on reviews and recommendations