Useful Apps thread

[mostly]

just started using a defrag tool from the makers of ccleaner, http://www.defraggler.com/ seems pretty tidy. It defrags files rather than doing the whole disk. Site seems b0rked at the mo, try filehippo instead.

[arowley]

Originally Posted by mythuk

I'm trying to remember the name of a program I used a couple of years ago - basically it would scan your system and output a simple HTML file telling you about every aspect of your PC. It listed everything from the number of RAM slots used to the type of windows running.

I can't remember the name of it, any suggestions?

I suggest Cpu-z! Just google the name, there are loads of sites offering it for download.

Great piece of freeware, it has been a life saver on many occasions.

Aidan.

[driver8]

2 more (freeware) system scanning tools -

Belarc Advisor - Free Personal PC Audit (Version 7.2x) - http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

System Information for Windows - http://www.gtopala.com/index.html

[driver8]

More free PDF software -

Microsoft's official SAVE AS PDF for Office 2007, direct link - http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...sPDFandXPS.exe

PDF-XChange Viewer is offered as both a FREE product or with extended functionality - http://www.docu-track.com/downloads/users/

Bullzip Free PDF Printer - http://www.bullzip.com/products/pdf/info.php

[vaderag]

Anyone know of any free/open-source Defragmentation tools that work in Vista?
I've been trialling Diskeeper, but for my needs it has too many features - the only thing i really want is to be able to see how much defragmentation there is before and after and tell it to do the work!

[Guest 54525]

AusLogics Disk Defrag is the one I use dunno if its what your looking for.
It shows you as it's defragging how much your disk is fragmented.

http://www.auslogics.com/en/software...efrag/download

[Steve Jackson]

That's the one I use too. Seems to work fine in Vista.

[vaderag]

Looks good to me Thanks!

[Guest 18642]

Anyone know of a free program that i could use to configure my network cards so I dont have to keep re-entering the IP's etc every time I take it to use at my parents and when i get home again please?

[soggs]

Originally Posted by euro

Anyone know of a free program that i could use to configure my network cards so I dont have to keep re-entering the IP's etc every time I take it to use at my parents and when i get home again please?

You can do this with a batch file, you can set one up for when you're at your parents and one for at home, eg

netsh interface ip set address name="Local Area Connection" source=static addr=0.0.0.0 mask=0.0.0.0 gateway=0.0.0.0 gwmetric=1

Just replace the 0s with the right range of addresses for each location and change Local Area Connection to whatever your network connection is listed as under My Network Places.

[KeyserSoze]

Wish you had Quicksilver but don't have a Mac?

http://www.launchy.net/

[vaderag]

How does that differ to the vista start menu search for those of us with that?

[Guest 18642]

Originally Posted by soggs

You can do this with a batch file, you can set one up for when you're at your parents and one for at home, eg

netsh interface ip set address name="Local Area Connection" source=static addr=0.0.0.0 mask=0.0.0.0 gateway=0.0.0.0 gwmetric=1

Just replace the 0s with the right range of addresses for each location and change Local Area Connection to whatever your network connection is listed as under My Network Places.

Thanks for that

[KeyserSoze]

Originally Posted by vaderag

How does that differ to the vista start menu search for those of us with that?

No idea, I don't use Vista.

It has one then? Cool!

[vaderag]

Yeah, you can configure what files it searches and where, and then you type something in the search bar and it'll give you a list - looks very similar to this!
Good suggestion for those without vista tho

[Guest 20598]

Originally Posted by soggs

You can do this with a batch file, you can set one up for when you're at your parents and one for at home, eg

netsh interface ip set address name="Local Area Connection" source=static addr=0.0.0.0 mask=0.0.0.0 gateway=0.0.0.0 gwmetric=1

Just replace the 0s with the right range of addresses for each location and change Local Area Connection to whatever your network connection is listed as under My Network Places.

is there an undo for this batch file so we can take it back to 'automatically assigned'?

[driver8]

SpyBot S&D released 1.6 beta (up from 1.5.2 official) yesterday - http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=29109

plus there's a whole host of definition updates from 3-4 days ago (I'm just running the beta now, but presumably they're available for 1.5.2 too)

beta looks & feels the same as 1.5.2 (ie: clunky !) but is apparently a bit quicker at scanning

[Karl]

Originally Posted by minstap

is there an undo for this batch file so we can take it back to 'automatically assigned'?

netsh interface ip set address "Local Area Connection" dhcp

[Anthony.S]

Just 'found' jkdefrag from http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/
It's free and works with Vista including x64.
The download includes GUI, cmd line and screensaver versions. It is really small and resource light and offers no configurable option so is easy to use.

[Guest 13881]

Originally Posted by Anthony.S

Just 'found' jkdefrag from http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/
It's free and works with Vista including x64.
The download includes GUI, cmd line and screensaver versions. It is really small and resource light and offers no configurable option so is easy to use.

Tis great. Have to disagree that there are no configurable options ... there are stacks!

There are a bunch of 3rd party GUIs as well that may the options less opaque and add other functionality (such as easy scheduling and the ability to clear out temporary type files before running).

I use this one but just stumbled upon another too (and another ... but doesn't look as complete).