8 More Absolutely Cool, Totally Free Utilities

About a year ago, Windows IT Pro published my "8 AbsolutelyCool, Totally Free Utilities" article (InstantDoc ID 50122)—acompilation of handy tools I'd gathered in my IT travels. I usethese kinds of tools on a daily basis, carrying them around ona portable USB drive so that I can grab them at a moment'snotice. They make me a happier administrator, and they helpmake my clients even happier, too. Best of all, every one of the tools iscompletely free.

That article received a generous amount of positive feedback, so forthe past year, I've been keeping an eye out for other free utilities that arenew or that I might have missed the first time around. Without furtherado, here's my second collection of eight terrific, completely free utilitiesthat will make your job easier.

Inventory and Monitoring Tools

The modern enterprise network contains a ton of data to manage—notjust user or company data, mind you, but data about how everything isput together, how it's performing, and so on. Let's start by looking at a fewutilities for keeping tabs on your environment and getting the information you need when you need it.

WinDirStat

The goal of WinDirStat—probably my favorite utility in the bunch—issimple: Determine how space is being utilized across your disks andrepresent it visually in multiple ways so that you can easily find wastedspace. This utility does a great job of ferreting out directories or files thatare taking up too much space in your network. Figure 1, showshow you can display disk utilization in three ways: a traditional directory list (i.e., upper left), a graphical and interactive tree map (i.e., bottom),and an extension list (i.e., upper right).

But the figure doesn't portray this utility's interactivity. As you move yourmouse over large blocks in the lower portion of the display, the names ofthe files represented by those blocks appear in the status bar at the bottomof the window. When you click an item, the upper-left tree list expands tothe individual file in question. Through this interface, I quickly discoveredabout 10GB worth of PST files hidden in a Norton Protected Recycle Bin onmy desktop. The large files stood out on the map, so I instantly knew whatwas going on. (I'd uninstalled Norton several months earlier.)

Another interactive aspect of this utility letsyou click a directory name in the upper-leftside of the display, producing a white framearound the objects in the graphical display atthe bottom. This display gives you a visual representation of how much space each directoryon your system consumes. You can start at thetop-level directories or navigate down to lower-level directories in the tree, and the behavior isthe same.

WinDirStat is available for every flavor ofWindows released in the past decade, fromWindows 95 to Windows Server 2003.

System Information forWindows

Quite frankly, System Information for Windows(SIW) knocks my socks off. This simple, standalone utility can tell you nearly anything aboutan individual system—and I mean anything.Figure 2 shows SIW's main interface. Onceyou use this tool, you'll rarely ever go to MyComputer and select Manage again.

The sheer amount of system information thatthis utility can extract is amazing. Need to knowyour original Windows installation serial numberand product keys? Want to see CPU or otherambient temperatures currently reported by yourmotherboard (assuming it's capable)? Need tofind application license keys for a wide range ofcommon off-the-shelf applications, above andbeyond Microsoft products? Need to recover apassword? SIW can accomplish all these tasksand report on a huge amount of data:

SIW also offers password-recovery tools forrevealing passwords hidden behind asterisks,product keys, and serial numbers, as well asreal-time CPU, memory, page-file-usage, andnetwork-traffic monitors. SIW is available forevery version of Windows since Win98, including 64-bit versions and Windows Vista. Manythanks to Gabriel Topala for providing such agreat free utility to the world.

OCS Inventory NG

Another project available at SourceForge,Open Computers and Software Inventory (OCSInventory NG) has a larger architecture thanour first two utilities do, but its goal is loftier: to provide detailed inventory data and package management across an entire network ofsystems. Compatible client systems for OCSInventory NG include Windows 2003/Vista/XP/2000/Me/NT 4.0/98/95, HP-UX, IBM AIX,Linux and BSD, Macintosh OS X, and SunSolaris. The utility's modular and scalablearchitecture makes it suitable for both smallnetworks (of a few dozen devices) and largeenterprise networks (of tens of thousands ofdevices). Figure 3 shows the main interface.

The OCS Inventory NG architecture is comprised of five major components: agents thatreside on target devices, a database server tostore collected information, a server to handleall communications between agents and the database, a deployment server to store anypackages that require network deployment,and a Web-based administrative console. Youcan install each component on its own serverfor high scalability, or you can place them allon the same system in smaller environments.

The level of inventory data that OCS Inventory NG can collect is comprehensive (althoughnot as comprehensive as that of SIW) and wouldmake any systems administrator happy. All thatdata is easily available and up to date in a centralized database. But in addition to providingcapable network-inventory functionality, OCSInventory NG includes package-deploymentcapabilities on client computers that are in theinventory system. From a Web-based administration server, you define packages that clientswill download via HTTP/HTTPS. An optionalOCS Inventory NG agent on client computersperforms package execution.

A deployment package has four primarycomponents: priority, action, payload, andan optional launch command. The priority component defines which packages takedeployment precedent over others, and the action component describes what happenswith the payload itself: simply copy it to thetarget system, copy and execute it, or use thelaunch command (external to the payload) tolaunch it on the system as a part of the deployment. With enough time and creativity, you'llfind OCS Inventory NG's package-deploymentcapabilities extremely useful.

PRTGTrafficGrapher

Paessler's PRTG Traffic Grapher takesmuch of its historyfrom the original,open-source multirouter traffic grapher(MRTG) project,adding a considerable amount of userfriendliness to thesolution. In this freeware version, you canenumerate only threesensors, but given thesimplicity of PRTG'ssetup process andthe useful data it canprovide, most administrators will find thetool valuable evenwith only three interfaces.

PRTG offers advanced capabilities thatsimplify the logging and graphing of performance data over time. Performance datacan include bandwidth utilization, anySNMP-instrumented data, end-to-end LAN/WAN latency monitoring, and traffic utilization per protocol type. PRTG collects theinformation on a set interval and logs it toits data stores so that you can easily monitorcurrent and over-time network performance. Figure 4 shows PRTG's main screen while thetool is running and collecting data.

PRTG's sensors have varying capabilities. Forexample, you can use SNMP—a low-overheadsolution on the monitoring station and ontarget devices—forlightweight WAN-bandwidth monitoring or for monitoringa number of othereasily obtained SNMPcounters (e.g., CPUutilization, memoryutilization). However,if you need moretraffic data, packetsniffing lets you logutilization data andbreak it down by protocol type. Outside ofthe bandwidth, PRTG can also collect data from any SNMP-basedcounter and log it over time. PRTG also supportsthe concept of an "aggregate sensor," which youcan use to aggregate data for multiple individualsensors (e.g., measuring bandwidth utilization,but only across switch ports 2-7 instead of theentire switch).

The installation process is quick and painless. Within five minutes, you can have theapplication downloaded and plotting data inyour network.

Security Tools

Obviously, security of data and assets isvital to any IT organization. The free utilities I discuss here certainly don't representa complete set of solutions to tackle all thedata- and asset-protection complexities thatorganizations face today, but they're helpfultools for solving specific problems you mighttypically face.

TrueCrypt

Back in my consulting days, I usually managedsimultaneous projects across a half dozenactive clients. Plus, I needed to retain data andfiles for numerous additional clients. I hadall this information on my laptop, and muchof it was confidential. But even if it wasn't allconfidential, it was my obligation to protect myclients' data if I took copies of it beyond theirwalls. I turned to TrueCrypt, another open-source project at SourceForge, as the answer formy data-encryption needs. The tool remains arock-solid solution that I depend on today. Figure 5, shows TrueCrypt's interface.

TrueCrypt, which is available for Windowsand several flavors of Linux, offers two typesof encryption. First, TrueCrypt can create avirtual encrypted disk on your system that'sstored in a .tc file somewhere on a file system.To Windows, the TrueCrypt disk image lookslike just another file on the drive. You can backit up, copy it around your network, or carry it ona USB thumb drive. But once TrueCrypt is running, you can mount and dismount these filesas new volumes within Windows, then seamlessly work on the files as easily as manipulatingfiles on your C drive. All encryption occurs onthe fly, with no other prompting or tweaking necessary. You can even format theencrypted volumes with NTFS sothat you can hold large files in anencrypted volume.

The second type of encryptionis to have TrueCrypt automaticallyencrypt an entire device (e.g., harddrive, floppy drive, USB thumbdrive)—although all data currentlyon the target device will be wipedout. In this scenario, all data onthe target device will be encryptedand decrypted when TrueCryptis running, and unusable when itisn't running.

TrueCrypt supports a number of advanced encryptionalgorithms, including some algorithms that are approved for USgovernment classification levels—all the way up to Top Secret.The tool offers several helpful dialog boxesin each of its interfaces, removing a lot of themystery and guesswork involved with encryption. TrueCrypt is an extremely well-designedWindows application, supporting both 32-bitand 64-bit Windows, Vista User Access Control(UAC), and is digitally signed and certified byGlobalSign.

LocatePC

I often wonder why I never thought of writing the LocatePC utility myself. It's a simpleapplication with just one purpose: to emailyou whenever any privateor public IP address inyour system changes andto otherwise remain quietand hidden.

Why is that functionality so useful? You woulduse LocatePC primarilyto aid in the recovery ofstolen systems. BecauseLocatePC simply sits inthe background and sendsout email whenever an IPaddress changes, it canbe beneficial if you're trying to track down a laptopthat has been lost or confiscated from one of youremployees during a business trip. The faster you getthat asset back, the less risk of exposure you have.

Every time Windows detects a possible change in a system's IP information,LocatePC—which you can see in Figure 6—sends a detailed email message to an addressthat you predefine. This message includesinformation about every IP address in thesystem, the resolved public IP address of thesystem (which the tool gets by sending atest query to a public Internet site), a trace-route mapping to that same public system,logon details for any dial-up networking connections on the system (including phone numbersand usernames), and any hard-coded identifying information you configure for the host.

You need to understand a few caveats.First, if a thief is smart enough to completelywipe out Windows before hooking up tothe Internet, you're out of luck. Second, if thethief doesn't connect to the Internet or doesn'tconnect to a location that permits outboundSMTP connections, you're also out of luck.No solution is guaranteed. But consideringLocatePC's simplicity and small size, it's a greatsecurity measure that takes only two minutesto set up.

My only complaint is that LocatePC is neverabsolutely sure that something has changed.In my testing, I've determined that my homerouter has a tendency to blink offline for aminute every so often. When it does, as soonas the Wi-Fi interface comes back up, Windowsthinks it has a new connection (even thoughthe IP address is the same) and LocatePCsends me an alert message. I get a few of theseper day. My simple solution to this annoyancewas to create a custom mailbox on my mailserver for all my LocatePC notices from all my PCs and laptops. Hopefully, I'll never needto look through all that information to try torecover a stolen system. However, if misfortunestrikes, I'll have a good chance of discoveringthe computer's location when it comes backonline and LocatePC emails me.

SyncBack

For years, I'd been looking for a reliable file-synchronization utility to help me performautomated backups of my data across my network. After all, who needs tape or CD backupsif disk space is so cheap that you can simplyhave one system back up to another? I've trieda number of solutions over the years—fromopen-source to commercial—but SyncBack isthe only solution I've stuck with.

SyncBack helps you easily back up (orsynchronize) files to another location on thesame drive, a different drive, a different storage medium (e.g., CD-RW, CompactFlash,USB thumb-drive), an FTP server, a networkshare, or a Zip archive. Unlike other utilitiesin this space that try to accomplish too much,SyncBack really nails its interface—which Figure 7 shows—with an approach that's simpleenough to follow but doesn't skimp on featuresor configuration options.

I use this tool for daily, weekly, and monthlybackups on my home network. By setting upthree target directories on a removable 300GBUSB 2.0 drive and using SyncBack's built-inscheduling capabilities (which populate theappropriate commands into the Windowsscheduler service), I've created three backupprofiles: one to run nightly at 5 p.m., one to runweekly at 3 a.m., and one to run on the first dayof every month at 1 a.m.. I've selected a backup profile and instructed SyncBack to delete anyfiles in the destination that aren't in the source. Now, I rest easy at night knowing that my datais backed up every single evening. These backups have saved me on more than one occasionwhen I've accidentally wiped out developmentcode. By simply going to my always-up-to-datebackups, I'm ready to go again. For absolutelycritical files, I also have an offsite backup profilethat delivers my files to an FTP server on theother side of the country.

SyncBack also supports a sync profile (i.e.,changes on both sides are replicated to eachother), as well as the use of direct UNC pathnames. The tool also supports the use of FTPservers as destinations. SyncBack can ensurethat certain applications are closed before running its profiles and can email you the resultsof each profile it runs—or email you only whenan error occurs while executing a profile.

If you have file synchronization needs onyour network that you haven't figured out aworkable solution for, I would suggest you takea look at SyncBack and see if it will meet yourneeds. The amount of functionality availablein the freeware version is impressive, and itsexecution is rock solid.

Expand Your Toolkit

I hope some of the utilities I've described canhelp you reduce the number of hours youspend every day on inventory/monitoringand security tasks. For one more fantastic utility—which didn't fit into this article's categories—check out the "Screencasting with Wink"sidebar. Download all these tools and givethem a try! In the meantime, I'll be keeping myeye out for more great free utilities. Check backnext fall for a new batch.