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Sysinternals Suite

Joined
Mar 10, 2024
Messages
138
I came upon thhis Sysinternals Suite when researching for Windows maintenance...
If someone with experience in this software could help me using it or other maintenance software, would be of great help...
 
Nothing groundbreaking. Fellow named Mark Russinovich wrote them and had his own website NT internals way back when. Microsoft bought him up a while back. If I recall, some handy stuff. I recall using his little utility that listed startup programs and allowed you to modify them.
Perhaps Microsoft didn't want him publishing too much, like other folks have since done, i.e. turning features off in Windows that MS didn't want you to. Mark is still around but as far as I know he isn't contributing to this project, in fact I don't know if anyone has anymore. I do remember MS snatching him up to get control of his project.
 
The readme file from my copy of Sysinternals. Some of these don't work anymore.

The Sysinternals Troubleshooting Utilities have been rolled up into a single Suite of tools. This file contains the individual troubleshooting tools and help files. It does not contain non-troubleshooting tools like the BSOD Screen Saver or NotMyFault.
For more information about Sysinternals and these utilities, please visit the website - http://technet.microsoft.com/sysinternals

The Suite is a bundling of the following selected Sysinternals Utilities:



AccessChk - AccessChk is a command-line tool for viewing the effective permissions on files, registry keys, services, processes, kernel objects, and more.

AccessEnum - This simple yet powerful security tool shows you who has what access to directories, files and Registry keys on your systems. Use it to find holes in your permissions.

AdExplorer - Active Directory Explorer is an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor.

AdInsight - An LDAP (Light-weight Directory Access Protocol) real-time monitoring tool aimed at troubleshooting Active Directory client applications.

AdRestore - Undelete Server 2003 Active Directory objects.

Autologon - Bypass password screen during logon.

Autoruns - See what programs are configured to startup automatically when your system boots and you login. Autoruns also shows you the full list of Registry and file locations where applications can configure auto-start settings.

BgInfo - This fully-configurable program automatically generates desktop backgrounds that include important information about the system including IP addresses, computer name, network adapters, and more.

CacheSet - CacheSet is a program that allows you to control the Cache Manager's working set size using functions provided by NT. It's compatible with all versions of NT.

ClockRes - View the resolution of the system clock, which is also the maximum timer resolution.

Contig - Wish you could quickly defragment your frequently used files? Use Contig to optimize individual files, or to create new files that are contiguous.

Coreinfo - Coreinfo is a new command-line utility that shows you the mapping between logical processors and the physical processor, NUMA node, and socket on which they reside, as well as the cache’s assigned to each logical processor.

Ctrl2cap - This is a kernel-mode driver that demonstrates keyboard input filtering just above the keyboard class driver in order to turn caps-locks into control keys. Filtering at this level allows conversion and hiding of keys before NT even "sees" them. Ctrl2cap also shows how to use NtDisplayString() to print messages to the initialization blue-screen.

DebugView - Another first from Sysinternals: This program intercepts calls made to DbgPrint by device drivers and OutputDebugString made by Win32 programs. It allows for viewing and recording of debug session output on your local machine or across the Internet without an active debugger.

Desktops - This new utility enables you to create up to four virtual desktops and to use a tray interface or hotkeys to preview what’s on each desktop and easily switch between them.

Disk2vhd - Disk2vhd simplifies the migration of physical systems into virtual machines (p2v).

DiskExt - Display volume disk-mappings.

Diskmon - This utility captures all hard disk activity or acts like a software disk activity light in your system tray.

DiskView - Graphical disk sector utility.

Disk Usage (DU) - View disk usage by directory.

EFSDump - View information for encrypted files.

Handle - This handy command-line utility will show you what files are open by which processes, and much more.

Hex2dec - Convert hex numbers to decimal and vice versa.

Junction - Create Win2K NTFS symbolic links.

LDMDump - Dump the contents of the Logical Disk Manager's on-disk database, which describes the partitioning of Windows 2000 Dynamic disks.

ListDLLs - List all the DLLs that are currently loaded, including where they are loaded and their version numbers. Version 2.0 prints the full path names of loaded modules.

LiveKd - Use Microsoft kernel debuggers to examine a live system.

LoadOrder - See the order in which devices are loaded on your WinNT/2K system.

LogonSessions - List the active logon sessions on a system.

MoveFile - Allows you to schedule move and delete commands for the next reboot.

NTFSInfo - Use NTFSInfo to see detailed information about NTFS volumes, including the size and location of the Master File Table (MFT) and MFT-zone, as well as the sizes of the NTFS meta-data files.

PageDefrag - Defragment your paging files and Registry hives.

PendMoves - Enumerate the list of file rename and delete commands that will be executed the next boot.

PipeList - Displays the named pipes on your system, including the number of maximum instances and active instances for each pipe.

PortMon- Monitor serial and parallel port activity with this advanced monitoring tool. It knows about all standard serial and parallel IOCTLs and even shows you a portion of the data being sent and received. Version 3.x has powerful new UI enhancements and advanced filtering capabilities.

ProcDump - This new command-line utility is aimed at capturing process dumps of otherwise difficult to isolate and reproduce CPU spikes. It also serves as a general process dump creation utility and can also monitor and generate process dumps when a process has a hung window or unhandled exception.

Process Explorer - Find out what files, registry keys and other objects processes have open, which DLLs they have loaded, and more. This uniquely powerful utility will even show you who owns each process.

Process Monitor - Monitor file system, Registry, process, thread and DLL activity in real-time.

ProcFeatures - This applet reports processor and Windows support for Physical Address Extensions and No Execute buffer overflow protection.

PsExec - Execute processes on remote systems.

PsFile - See what files are opened remotely.

PsGetSid - Displays the SID of a computer or a user.

PsInfo - Obtain information about a system.

PsKill - Terminate local or remote processes.

PsList - Show information about processes and threads.

PsLoggedOn - Show users logged on to a system.

PsLogList - Dump event log records.

PsPasswd - Changes account passwords.

PsService - View and control services.

PsShutdown - Shuts down and optionally reboots a computer.

PsSuspend - Suspend and resume processes.

RAMMap - An advanced physical memory usage analysis utility that presents usage information in different ways on its several different tabs.

RegDelNull - Scan for and delete Registry keys that contain embedded null-characters that are otherwise undeleteable by standard Registry-editing tools.

RegJump - Jump to the registry path you specify in Regedit.

RootkitRevealer - Scan your system for rootkit-based malware.

SDelete - Securely overwrite your sensitive files and cleanse your free space of previously deleted files using this DoD-compliant secure delete program.

ShareEnum - Scan file shares on your network and view their security settings to close security holes.

ShellRunas - Launch programs as a different user via a convenient shell context-menu entry.

Sigcheck - Dump file version information and verify that images on your system are digitally signed.

Streams - Reveal NTFS alternate streams.

Strings - Search for ANSI and UNICODE strings in binaryimages.

Sync - Flush cached data to disk.

TCPView - Active socket command-line viewer.

VMMap - VMMap is a process virtual and physical memory analysis utility.

VolumeId - Set Volume ID of FAT or NTFS drives.

Whois - See who owns an Internet address.

WinObj - The ultimate Object Manager namespace viewer is here.

ZoomIt - Presentation utility for zooming and drawing on the screen.
 
Startup Utilities generally keep them to a minimum. And of course make the most of the feature allowing for fast access to your favourite programs to be on your desktop when you boot your machine.
 
hmmm.. okay...
Any suggestion for a light maintenaince software?
I'm currently using JV16 Power Tools, from Uninstalr author...
 
Honestly I really believe those "all in one" system tune-up programs should avoided. Most importantly there is no way that the program's author(s) could envision what exactly was installed and installed from your system. Just about every windows program has dependencies on existing programs. to employ a bulldozer to go in and clean all the leftovers up, when in reality these clean-up programs can make a real mess. On top of that, why does a program like these make your system run dramatically faster.

Here's what I do:
Most important install and use Revo. If you have any question or trying out an application, install the program with Revo as well.
Practice good housekeeping. Try to keep duplicates at a minimum. WinDirStat does a good job of looking at your file system, just about any view you need at the time.
Run your favorite Internet junkware informer/removal program. Make sure this program takes a hard look at the browser extensions that you installed (or didn't) and remove them. I like MalwareBytes, some here do not.
Finally rely on the goold old Microsoft hard drive optimizing program. Don't go nuts doing this too often, it can decrease HD/SSD life and it's of questionable value to warrant it's frequent use.
1. Press the Windows Key and type defrag.
2. Select Defragment and Optimize Drives.Choose the drive you want to optimize and click Optimize.

Note: For HDDs, this rearranges scattered file fragments into contiguous blocks. For SSDs, it issues a TRIM command to clear unused data blocks, improving speed and preserving drive health.
Click Change settings to ensure scheduled optimization is turned on (weekly is recommended).

Lastly if things really get too slow, who the heck knows what you may have done or allowed to progress, and things get really slow, you can try rolling your system back to an earlier time, I don't bother. It's time for a fresh install. Nothing is more rewarding that a fresh install. If only we could keep a system running like that.
 
Honestly I really believe those "all in one" system tune-up programs should avoided. Most importantly there is no way that the program's author(s) could envision what exactly was installed and installed from your system. Just about every windows program has dependencies on existing programs. to employ a bulldozer to go in and clean all the leftovers up, when in reality these clean-up programs can make a real mess. On top of that, why does a program like these make your system run dramatically faster.

Here's what I do:
Most important install and use Revo. If you have any question or trying out an application, install the program with Revo as well.
Practice good housekeeping. Try to keep duplicates at a minimum. WinDirStat does a good job of looking at your file system, just about any view you need at the time.
Run your favorite Internet junkware informer/removal program. Make sure this program takes a hard look at the browser extensions that you installed (or didn't) and remove them. I like MalwareBytes, some here do not.
Finally rely on the goold old Microsoft hard drive optimizing program. Don't go nuts doing this too often, it can decrease HD/SSD life and it's of questionable value to warrant it's frequent use.
1. Press the Windows Key and type defrag.
2. Select Defragment and Optimize Drives.Choose the drive you want to optimize and click Optimize.

Note: For HDDs, this rearranges scattered file fragments into contiguous blocks. For SSDs, it issues a TRIM command to clear unused data blocks, improving speed and preserving drive health.
Click Change settings to ensure scheduled optimization is turned on (weekly is recommended).

Lastly if things really get too slow, who the heck knows what you may have done or allowed to progress, and things get really slow, you can try rolling your system back to an earlier time, I don't bother. It's time for a fresh install. Nothing is more rewarding that a fresh install. If only we could keep a system running like that.
@DVDR_Dog
As a Windows newbie, I thank you very much for this guidelines!
 

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