Ten Free Tech Support Tools - Comments Page 1

Bob: As usual you have given your readers quality info. As a non-technical person I want to thank you for removing the anxiety I used to feel when confronted with the inevitable problems that come with owning a computer. This batch of portable tech tools is another example of the excellent work you do.

Gratefully yours

Bruce

Hi, Bob. Just to inform you that you may like to rename the title of this article to "ten nearly free tech support tools."
The reason is that "The Windows 7 Recovery Disk" is no longer free.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Yes, it's a shame that NeoSmart had to start charging a "licensing fee." I still ask... why doesn't Microsoft make these files available on THEIR website?

Bob: You are a godsend! I never cease to be amazed at how much REALLY USEFUL information you provide to "your public" on any given day! These tools will make life so much less frenetic. Thanks for all your hard work.
You are truly a blessing!

Bob,
I've never used Wise Registry Cleaner Free Portable edition. Is it better than the portable version of CCleaner? Otherwise, excellent list. Thank you very much for pulling them all together.

For some reason, when I tried to download any of the ZIP files, my Norton util prompts Run/Save/Cancel... I've hit 'Run' and windows goes crazy, flashing screen after screen and I have to turnoff my tower to get it to quit... and another bummer is when Explorer came back up,when I hit 'restore session' then windows kept flashing on my screen... Are we suppose to save the file(s) and extract them? Really slowing me down...

Thanks, Bob! Per Daniel, CCleaner works (I think) and has never crashed my computer. How about Glary Utilities or toni-arts' Easy Cleaner? Similarly, no crashes, but each finds different trash cluttering the system.

Always have a file recovery program on your USB flash drive. I use Piriform's Recuva (http://www.piriform.com). Very useful!

Fabulous article! I will put all these programs on a USB drive, as I am the Girlie Geek for my circle of friends, and the resident geek at work. Great resources, Thank You so much!

Good list Bob. Would you consider a similar list for the Mac crowd which is hankering for the same info because we are not immune to bad stuff either.

Thumbs up Bob!

Thanks for the excellent tips.

Supun

You have not mention SUPERantispyware any way
Thanks.

Bob, how much space do these 10 items take up?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Only about 334 MB, installed!
ClamWin 35MB
SpyBot 151MB
TDSSKiller 3MB
TestDisk 38MB
Ultimate Defrag 4MB
Wise Registry Cleaner 2MB
PC Decrapifier 2MB
Revo Uninstaller 7MB
Firefox 77MB
AbiWord 15MB

As usual once again very helpful article thank you Bob.

Regarding AVG free rescue kit, I wonder if it will also work on computer with Japanese Windows installed?

Bob - Thanks for all these "recovery" programs. I am downloading to thumb drive as suggested. I have been looking for something like this which lists the programs I needed for repair and backup, and on a thumb drive yet.

It must be in the fine print: you can't install the disk defragmenter, apparently related to my having an encrypted hard disk...

These are mostly very useful tools. HOWEVER - Be aware the the Ultimate Disk Defragger is loaded with Crapware!! Even if you carefully opt out of everything you see, it still installs items you won't want, and some is very hard to get rid of. Be aware!

EDITOR'S NOTE: Not true, in my recent test. I downloaded the software from CNET, and although it took some care, I managed to opt out of all the "extras" that CNET wanted to foist on me.

Bob, I have a problem and I hope you can help. I have an XP system with Asus Motherboard and AMD Chip. Insalled WD 1Tb Caviar Black Hd in a removeable enclosure. After installing everything was fine. Wrote a coouple of backups to it and all was still fine. Removed the drive shut down the computer and then put the drive back in and all was still fine. I decided to change the drive letters with the tools in XP and everything seemed fine. I shut down the computer and removed the drive. I reinstalled the drive and the system will not recognize the drive. Bios knows it is there but XP does not. WD Data Lifegard does not find it either. Any ideas as to what I might do to correct the problem.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Does switching the drive letters back to the original fix the problem?

SpyBot Search and Destroy must be given "Run as Administrator" permission on Win 7 Computers, or it won't do a proper job of fixing spyware.

Right click on the Icon, select properties, hit the 'Advanced' button, select "Run as Administrator"

Spybot may be old and funky but it FINDS and cleans things others won't!

It is very good and helpful information and tools for windows.

Tool #11: Microsoft Windows Profiler... "bootvis"
Reboots windows number of times to optimise the boot up sequence of startup services and .DLL files.

Tool #12: Sysinternals Pagefile defrag.
The tool that noone ever uses, and should.