How To Become a Tech Support Superhero

Your Tech Support Toolkit

When writing this article, I was reminded of an old friend at IBM who was an avid spelunker (cave explorer). He always wore boots to work, because, he said, "You never know when a cave might pop up in the machine room!" It's also true that you never know when your laptop, or a friend's computer, may start acting up.

All of these handy programs are free, but they also share another important common factor. They don't require any installation, because they're designed to be portable. The ability to run them directly from the USB drive is important for several reasons. First, on a badly infected system, sometimes you can't even install new software. A virus may be blocking the introduction of new software, or the Windows installer may be broken. Also, some programs require administrator privileges to install, which presents a hurdle if the admin password is unknown.

#1 -- Malware infection (viruses, spyware and other nasties) is one of the most common problems. Some malware even disables the security software found on the infected hard drive. In such cases, a portable antimalware program stored safely on a USB drive is a lifesaver. Emsisoft Emergency Kit Portable is a free malware scanner and remover for Windows 7-11 that can be run from a USB drive without installing it on the target system. Emsisoft Emergency Kit will scan your computer for viruses, spyware, adware, keyloggers and other malicious programs.

#2 -- If you run into a problem that Emsisoft Emergency Kit can't fix, check out my article Offline Malware Scanners for details on a class of anti-malware tools that will clean up malware infections on systems that won't even start Windows.

#3 -- One form of malware that's particulary difficult to detect and remove is the rootkit. On infected systems, it can't hurt to use a dedicated rootkit removal tool such as Kaspersky's TDSSKiller Portable. Just remember this isn't a substitute for a full anti-virus tool.

#4,5 -- If your hard drive appears to be mangled, don't give up hope before trying TestDisk. This powerful portable utility can recover lost hard drive partitions, and fix problems with drives that won't boot up. TestDisk will analyze your disk, partitions, boot sector, and can help you recover deleted files, and even rebuild scrambled file systems. Another file recovery program I've found useful is Recuva.

#6,7 -- Some programs cannot be uninstalled by the Windows "Add/Remove Programs" function. For those stubborn clingers, try the Revo Uninstaller program. If you are trying to rid a brand-new system of all the unnecessary junk programs that came installed on it, try the free Bulk Crap Uninstaller utility.

#8 -- In cases where Internet Explorer or Edge is not functioning, and no other browser is installed, the portable version of Chrome or Mozilla Firefox will help you get access to the Web, so you can find diagnostic information, updated drivers, or any additional software you may need. Since they run from your flash drive, the portable browser won't leave anything behind (cookies, history, cache) on the machine where you run it. You can also customize the portable version with your bookmarks and extensions.

#9 -- In a similar vein, if Microsoft Word or Excel is totally hosed (or no office suite is installed) the portable Libre Office will do very nicely as a substitute. Libre Office is drop-in replacement for MS Office, including a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool and other utilities. It can even read and write MS Office files.

#10 -- I can't count the number of times I've been away from my computer, and needed to edit a photo or other type of image file. IrfanView is a handy graphic viewer and editor, supporting many file formats, basic editing (crop, resize), effects (sharpen, blur), screen capture and other image management features.

#11 -- CCleaner helps you cleans up unused files, settings, resource-hogging applications, and out-of-date drivers which can make your PC faster.

#12 -- TeamViewer is an app for remote support, remote access, allowing you to assist friends and family members remotely.

#13 -- Speccy Portable is a helpful system information tool that can tell you what's under the hood of your computer. Knowing the specs of your processor, RAM memory, video card, hard drive and more can sometimes help with diagnosing a problem.

#14 -- And just for completeness, I recommend that you add NirLauncher to your tech support arsenal. It includes over 200 portable freeware utilities, such as AppCrashView (Displays the details of all application crashes), BlueScreenView (Shows information about blue screen crashes), CurrProcess (Displays a list of all processes currently running), WhatInStartup (disable/enable/delete programs that are loaded at Windows startup), and many more.

Hit the Reset Button

For badly borked systems, you may be tempted to just hit a big red Reset Button and start from scratch. It's possible to restore your computer to that shiny just-out-of-the-box condition, but I recommend caution. See my article [RESET BUTTON] Restore Your PC To Factory Defaults? for details on that process.

So what's in your tech support toolbox? Post your comment or question below...