Essential tools

Essential tools


It's worth the effort and time to get yourself some freeware tools for everyday tasks,
and aid you, if you get into trouble.

Use a piece of clear tape to protect your user Microsoft serial number sticker.

First thing is a anti-virus Rescue CD OR FLASH DRIVE a must-have toolkit to assist with the rescue and repair of infected machines.

A good Antivirus program and a Anti-malware program for every day tasks. It's good practice to run these programs first after a clean install even before you connect to the internet.

A partition manager Aomei partition assistant this will help you scan for faulty sectors. It can also detect a separate partition that a virus may have wrote. Partitioning a hard drive, moving over to a
larger hard drive or SSD drive. correctly formatting a SSD DRIVE

Ccleaner to keep your internet history free and clear.

Malwarebytes anti-malware.

One program Worth considering Aomei backupper. Harddrive backup/clone program

If you use Firefox then some addons you may wish to consider.

Adblockplus: this will help in two ways stopping most adverts,and reducing your download allowance.

Ghostery: helps stop website trackers etc.

Noscript: helps in stopping a hidden script from performing

Better: stops L.S.O. Cookie.

I am sure other members will wish to add to an essentials list.

 

Good advice, especially if your computer totally bombs on you. You can easily pick up a 32GB USB memory stick and just keep some essentials on there, like the basic drivers your system needs, serial numbers, and other important files, to have on hand. Perhaps even a copy of Windows too (you can download them from Digial River, legally, you just need a valid serial to activate them once installed).

Personally, I prefer to just back up my important files, and do a clean install whenever my computer crashes. If it's a software issue or conflict, I don't want to be recreating it all over again by restoring from a corrupted backup.

 

Personally, after doing a clean install, and updating all files, I then clone a spare harddrive using ACRONIS TRUE IMAGE I restore this image to the working machine once a month update all files, re-clone the image to the spare harddrive.

The prices have come down so much it's now cheap enough.

 

One FREE tool missed is actually built into Windows 7...
Create a System Repair Disk (Startup > Maintenance)

OK you need an actual CD to burn it on to... so it is not exactly free...

THAT tool alone, has got MANY of my relatives computers back up and running in so short a time, I feel guilty for charging them for my time... (NOT)

 

Brian, thanks for mentioning that. I actually had to create a system repair DVD, two actually, because you never know when you will need it!

Another good tool I would like to add to this list is the Freemake converter! This software is free and capable to handle a very wide range of file formats. This software has helped me a lot.

 

This is some good advice. Thanks for sharing! I use CCleaner religiously and have found it to be very useful. Everyone should use it.

 

What a great, concise list of "must haves" for your computer. I recently purchased a laptop after relying on an iPad Mini for everything so having this checklist available helps me retrain my brain to think about all of the things than can go wrong if we don't take care of our computers and guard against the things that are lurking in cyber space.

 

I must say that is a good list that you have highlighted there. I will be checking it out to make sure that my operating system does not lack any of these tools. Thanks for sharing the list.

 

Another vital program is a strong password maker

Here's one that has a good editors rating. From a trusted site.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Security/Password-Managers-Generators/Password-Inventor.shtml

 

Really good advice, I really appreciate it because I have been neglecting my laptop a lot more than I used to.

 

Aomei PARTITION ASSISTANT STANDARD

Now contains a windows to go function.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/Partition-Assistant-Home-Edition.shtml

 

Self-distructing cookies firefox addon​

 

Another useful program to have in your arsenal is Active KillDisk

A Powerful and compact piece of software that allows you to destroy all data on hard disks, USB drives and floppy disks completely, just think how handy this could be if you are selling or just moving on a computer to someone else.

Just download the program and after installation choose a platform to store the program to
these include, a cd drive, usb stick, or a floppy disk.

Once installed onto the other drive I.E. a usb stick you can then run the program on
any netbook, computer or laptop.

Here's a link,

http://www.killdisk.com/

 

A small useful program is “USB DISK MANAGER” will write protect/read only a usb flash drive.


If you only require the usb flash drive drive to read from this
small program will protect your usb drive from being over written
or being invaded by viruses.

NOTE: YOU WILL NEED TO REMOVE AND RECONNECT THE
DRIVE FOR BOTH WRITE PROTECT AND AGAIN REMOVE
WRITE PROTECT FUNCTIONS.

http://www.syedgakbar.com/products/usb/

 

I would recommend this as a great FREE alternative
to ACRONIS TRUE IMAGE which I have been using for years.

Aomei Backupper will do disk cloning, backing up a complete system
or just a single partition.

http://www.backup-utility.com/free-backup-software.html

 

“Winscan2pdf” is an easy program to scan to a pdf format. You can adjust the scan quality then save it to pdf.

http://www.freewarefiles.com/WinScan2PDF_program_59387.html

AFTERWARDS Manipulating the pdf through adobe reader is so easy just enlarge
the portion of say the diagram/schematic and print out that enlarged diagram section.

For recovering text from a scanned document then a small program called “ freeocr “
is the program for you.


http://www.paperfile.net/download.html

 

Easy to use system backup and recovery



Aomei one key recovery, it takes the hassle out of backing up and recovering your
Windows system.

The program will automatically create a new partition on your hard drive,it will then
allow you to make a recovery image to the new partition.

From within the program you are only presented with two choices one key system backup button and one key system recovery button.

Aomei one key recovery can be located here:

http://www.backup-utility.com/onekey-recovery.html

or

http://www.downloadcrew.com/article/32512-aomei_onekey_recovery

 

Google Earth Pro

Google Earth Pro has now become free,here's a link,at the bottom of the page you will see the License Key

This enhanced version includes an automatic street view, plus the ability to
print the on screen view, etc.


http://betanews.com/2015/01/30/the-...ro-is-now-zero-get-your-free-license-key-now/

 

Drive booster2

It will update your drivers,can not find any problems,or viruses related to this program

http://www.iobit.com/en/driver-booster.php

 

Fantastic list and advices! I have read somewhere that CCleaner contains bloatware that can actually damaging for your computer. I use it on my HP laptop for the last year, and now it is dying of a slow dead.

I only wish I have known this forum way before I purchase my laptop so I have enough knowledge in keeping it great and running.