Windows utilities required for 20 essential tasks (Last part)

In the previous article, we have provided a number of utilities for file management and improved performance with files. This article will help you strengthen your system security and maintain your computer more efficiently.

Security

Security tools are the most important thing on a computer. However, a secure computer is not stuffed with a lot of security software versions to reduce wasted machine performance. Find small and lightweight software that still gives you the highest security.

Firewall

There are some competitors with Windows Firewall, most of them are also free. One of the software mentioned must be ZoneAlarm with free version and Pro version ($ 40). However, a competitor has not been widely praised but there are many good features in the protection and completely free of charge is Comodo Firewall Pro. It's not like the free version of ZoneAlarm, Comodo allows strong protection against threats to your computer.

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Comodo blocks both threats to and from computers

Antivirus

Eset's simple software that also gives Eset's highly effective anti-virus Nod32 will protect you with an annual fee of $ 39, with 30 days for the trial version. This program runs quite fast and uses less memory.

Another antivirus product to mention is that AVG Anti-Virus Grisoft includes both free and paid versions. For most single users, the free version is perfectly appropriate. (If you are looking for an open source software, ClamWin Free Antivirus is a good choice but its weakness is not real-time scanning but only scanning the files you require).

Antispyware

Many antivirus products now come with spyware protection, but there are specialized antispyware programs that can clean up all existing spyware on your system and prevent them from re-entering later. One of the best options for this product is the free product Spybot Search & Destroy currently has a trial version 1.5. Some other competitors, including free and paid, include Ad-Aware of LavaSoft.

Some people don't like having many programs, but the best way is to have both - they can be installed on the same system and each one specializes in tasks that others don't.

System maintenance

Backup backup

Windows has never really had a strong backup tool. The most recent one we have is NTBackup in Windows 2000 and XP - a program is not that bad, but it is still not a popular program. If you use Vista, new backup tools seem to be more advanced than those found in Vista Ultimate.

The amazing thing is that one of the simplest and most effective programs for normal file backup is a free Microsoft SyncToy product. They were originally thought of to synchronize files from external devices such as cameras or mobile devices. Its highlight is a number of folder synchronization options, support for UNC paths such as folders for synchronization on a network, and the ability to preview synchronized actions before executing them. However, its disadvantages are not working well with system folders or files.

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To backup quickly, SyncToy is the first

With stronger - larger backups - including Windows' system folder backup, we have three competing competitors: Norton Save & Restore ($ 50) first, Symantec's This tool can create a file and system backup to another drive in either raw or on demand and allow you to perform a restore from a full system backup if necessary.

Save & Restore is a version of Norton Ghost ($ 70). Ghost adds some other professional features such as remote management (you can control other Norton Ghost settings on the same network), and the ability to convert backups to virtual disks for use by VMware and Microsoft Virtual PC.

A more basic but still effective tool, Terabyte Unlimited's Image for Windows full disk backup tool, can create an image file for a partition and store it anywhere on the network. share to hard drive. This program includes Image for DOS, which you may need if you want to perform a full system restore. Image for DOS boots from a drive (such as software, CD or USB), while Image for Windows runs inside Windows and can create system images and use files transparently. Run a 30-day trial so you can feel its difference, the full version costs $ 39.

Manage the drive / partition

Consider Terabyte Unlimited's BootIt Next Generation for $ 35, allowing you to manipulate the entire drive, partition and boot management tools - all in one. Version 1.81 adds Vista BCD support (so you can compose Vista boot options without using Microsoft's command line tools and has many other great features compared to previous versions).

BootIt is a program that runs in DOS mode. For better integration in Windows, Acronis has released Disk Director Suite, which can perform both disk management and restore other operations from within Windows itself. The commercial version available on the market is $ 50.

System cleanup

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Ccleaner

The product introduced in this section is Piriform's CCleaner, a utility that has been used for the past 3 years with many outstanding features: when you delete the Registry, any deleted items can be saved to a file. .reg before, so you can restore it if the system has a problem.

Defragment the drive

Windows Defrag application based on Diskeeper 's disk defragment program has never been rated as good, although it has had some improvements recently. After Microsoft started file-defragmentation API in Windows (starting in Windows 2000), many programmers have independently created their own defragmentation tools.

The commercial version Diskeeper may be the best-selling commercial tool on the market. It has many features that are not available in Windows versions such as the ability to defragment folder structure and immobile file systems. Many versions are available for workstations and servers; Regular user versions cost about $ 30.

Some of the free programs also have friendly functions, including Jeroen Kessels' open source JkDefrag. It can run in graphics mode, from the command line or even as a screen saver.

System information

Microsoft's MSInfo32 tool does not give you all the details you need, the free Belarc Advisor can give you more information about the system. Just run it and you will get HTML-formatted reports in your default browser to view system information, installed hot fix, software registration and more.

Another program that we found does not require installation but still returns a fairly large amount of information about the computer and Windows installation, which is the free utility of System Information Viewer (SIV) of Ray Hinchliffe. One major obstacle, however, is that it represents a difficult-to-navigate interface.

Other components

Virtualization

People use virtual computing to achieve compatibility with older versions of Windows or DOS, to test programs or the entire operating system installation. The Microsoft Virtual PC utility is free, but it has some limitations in the functions that perform tasks - while VMware Workstation has more functions, but the price is also expensive, about $ 189 (except for the free version). VMware Player fee, but this version will not allow creation of virtual machines but only run them).

However, there are some new competitors: Innotek's open source VirtualBox utility. This tool contains some outstanding features of both Virtual PC and VMware: USB device emulation, integrated clipboard and pointer, folder sharing between client and server, command line control options and full SDK enough,…. The current version is 1.4 running on Windows XP faster than Virtual PC.

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VirtualBox

Password management

If you want to create passwords so that security is safe (passwords must be long and complicated, generally difficult to guess), we can hardly remember, especially when there are multiple passwords - and last You often have to write them down. If you choose a password and use it with all sites and applications, there will be a big problem.

KeePass Password Safe by Dominik Reichl can solve many problems at once: you can save all your passwords in a safe place, encrypted and generate random passwords for each application or site; automatically insert necessary passwords into form fields; Protect them with a master password. You can take the program (and, of course, include the password) with you on a USB drive, the appropriate version without installing on the host computer.

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KeePass tool is used to control all passwords

You also need to check out KeePass's extensive library, including the ability to import password files from other password-protected applications like Firefox.