MusthaveCD.com The Must Have programs for your computer.

Yo - March 2007: So the world of Vista has descended upon us, and I'm sure it will keep me pulling my hair out for months to come. It will be interesting watching what applications will rise to the top on this new operating system from Microsoft. As for me, I've been exploring the world of Freespire lately, it seems excellent. Your going to have to jump to a new operating system soon anyhow, why not a Linux? ;) Got a suggestion for software I shouldn't live without? Want to offer your two cents? I usually reply to the real emails I get. Honest! Drop me a line

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Must Have is a collection of utilties and apps that I use on a daily basis repairing computers. I have been a computer technician for overt a decade now and during that time I have narrowed down the best of the best applications, utilities, and programs. These are the ones to use to get the job done. I keep this list updated to, so it's always the best tools for today's challenges.

Ad-Aware

Adaware SE Personal freeware by Lavasoft.
This is the first spamware / spyware / scumware / adware/ malware removal tool I started using way back when and it is still one of the best. It has regular updates and I consider it an essential tool to have on your computer.
TIP: make sure you scan each individual user profile on XP and 2000 so it can detect and remove all the malicious files.

Adobe Reader

Adobe Acrobat Reader freeware by Adobe.
Acrobat Reader allows you to read .pdf files, which, like it or not, are a standard format for documentation. I use this a lot for viewing motherboard manuals. The advantage of an acrobat file is that unlike a webpage it will look the same universally on any platform and it is formatted for printing.
TIP: When you install Adobe Reader, it always puts Speed Launcher in your startup group. Unless you are running Adobe Reader every time you boot up, delete that waste of RAM!

Avast! AntiVirus

Avast anti virus freeware by ALWIL Software.
ALWIL makes their Avast! virus protection package free for personal use. I've found some tough to find trojans with this thing. I especially like it's scan on boot function. It has a single excutable scanner that works fast, and appears to be a full featured protection package.

AVG AntiVirus

AVG AntiVirus freeware by Grisoft.
Grisoft has a free version of their anti-virus software, complete with lifetime virus signature updates and realtime scanning protection. It has a low memory footprint so it won't slow down your system while it's running in the background. It doesn't catch every virus, but honestly no single virus proctection software package is foolproof these days.

Bazooka

Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner freeware by Kephyr
Bazooka is a spyware scanner that works a little differently. It scans your system then provides a web link to instruction guides on removing the scumware. I like to use Bazooka if I have already cleaned a system with several utilities and am still having problems like popups or home page hijacking. The author is working on another program called FreeFixer, and I'm looking forward to testing it.

Belarc Advisor

Belarc advisor Free Personal PC Audit freeware by Belarc
This is a handy little tool for examing your system and telling you all its specifications in one page. We sometime use this to find out exactly what product keys the customer is using for his Windows and Office. It also comes in handy if you need to share your system specs with a friend, just run Belarc advisor and print it out.

Beyond Compare

Beyond Compare trialware by Scooter Software
What a great little piece of software, I'm amazed something like this didn't come along sooner. Copying the complete contents of drives in Windows sucks. You'll get about half way through a 40gb copy, and the windows copy feature will error out on a file. Of course Windows doesn't copy the files in order, so you have no idea what's missing. Beyond Compare solves that problem. Very, very handy.

BootIt Next Generation

BootIt NG trialware by Terabyte Unlimited
As you may be able to tell from it's name, this is a boot menu system for running multiple operating systems on your PC. However, that isn't Boot-Its most useful function. It also includes powerful disk managment software that I use to copy, resize, and convert partitions. Very handy when you're upgrading to a new hard drive.

Drive Fitness Test

Drive Fitness Test freeware by Hitachi
This is a handy scanning utility for determing if your hard drive has physical problems with it, like bad sectors. It works on all types or hard drives including SCSI and SATA, and it is for all brands of hard drives, not just Hitachi.
Note:I'm actually looking for a better free hard drive tester than this, if you can recommend one that is able to boot from a CD, let me know.

Firefox

Mozilla Firefox freeware by the Mozilla Foundation.
In my opinion, the best browser available today. It's small and fast and has some nifty features. You want to protect yourself from spyware/spamware? You need Firefox. It has very effective pop-up blocking built in and unlike Microsoft Internet Explorer, you computer is not exposed to unsecure ActiveX controls, a favorite exploit of the spam and virus creators. This mozilla based browser is a relatively small download and install, so there's no reason not to have it on your computer.
TIP: If a computer has been infected with a Start Page trojan or is getting so many popups when it gets on the internet that Windows crashes before you can download something to clean it up, I install Firefox to get around these hair pulling frustrations

HijackThis

HijackThis freeware by Merijn.org
This is a very powerful tool that creates a list of items loading in your system and gives you a means to remove them. Warning: It's possible to remove the wrong thing and damage your system, so I only recommend this utility for experienced users. Hijack this is often used on message boards and support forums to let the community help analyze a problematic computer.

Mcafee Stinger

Mcafee AVERT Stinger freeware by Network Associates
Overall, I'm not a big fan of Mcafee Antivirus, it seems to miss a lot of viruses, most likely because it's so high profile, viruses creators design their code to defeat it. The Stinger program, on the other hand, does it job fairly well and is small, quick, and handy for cleaning off specific viruses.

Norton Removal Tools

Symantec Security Response Removal Tools freeware by Symantec
Like Mcafee AntiVirus, Norton is often vulnerable to new viruses because the virus writers make it their target. Not to mention, it likes to get munged up installing and uninstalling. So, I don't really recommend it. On the other hand, it has a collection of individual virus removal tools which are often the easiest way to clean off a specific virus infection.

Offline NT Password and Registry Editor

XP Password blanker freeware by P. Nordahl
This is very handy utility I have used on several occasions. How it works is you create a boot cd, then follow the onscreen instructions to blank out the XP user password. Sometimes this is a last resort and it's saved the day more than once.

Passmark BurnIn Test

PassMark BurnIn Test Shareware by Passmark
We often get systems that only lock up intermittently, which can make it hard to track down the problem. Running BurnIn test puts a load on the various components in the computer and helps in the process of elemination. You can also specify which components to test and adjust the amount of load they place on the system. I like computers that just flat out break, not this "work fine for hours and offer no clues" garbage.

SiSoft Sandra

SiSoft Sandra Lite shareware by SiSoft
I've been using Sandra since way back in the day, the utility has a lot of nice functions built into its easy to use interface. This program gives you a wealth of information about your computer and has some nifty utilities to benchmark your individual hardware components, such as CPU, RAM, etc. I use this program often to benchmark a system if the customer complains it is running slow to narrow down where the performance bottleneck is coming from.

SmitRem

SmitRem freeware by Noahdfear
What a nasy piece of scumware! Smitfraud is pretty bad. It takes over your desktop and puts a fake spyware removal program on your system. Even worse, it trys to sucker you into paying them money for this fake utility. We have had several client who did purchase the full version and no, it did not clean up their systems. It was just a fraud. Removing this attack is very difficult and the best tool I have found to really get rid of it is Smitrem.
TIP: The names of Smitfraud variants as are as follows: AlfaCleaner, AntiVirusGold, BraveSentry, PSGuard, Search Maid, Security IGuard, Security Toolbar, SpyAxe, SpyFalcon, SpyHeal, SpySheriff, SpyTrooper, SpywareQuake, SpywareSheriff, SpywareStrike, Trust Cleaner, Virtual Maid, VirusBurst, and Winhound.

SpyBot Search & Destroy

Spybot-S&D freeware by Patrick M. Kolla
I use Spybot on almost every system I work on that's infested with scumware. Sadly. this is pretty much every computer nowadays.) It's very thorough at cleaning and also provides information about what nastiness has found its way onto your system. SpyBot S&D Also includes a nice feature that adds a list of malicious sites to block into your HOSTS file.

Windows Defender

Windows Defender freeware by Microsoft
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not a big fan of Microsoft. However it can never hurt to have another spyware cleaning program available. I typically use Windows Defender after I have first scanned with Ad-Aware and SpyBotSD, and it works to offer some resident protection.

Windows Memory Diagnostic

Microsoft Windows Memory Diagnostic freeware by Microsoft
This is a straight forward memory utility that creates a boot disk or CD then simply runs a pattern of tests on your RAM, looking for bad addresses. Easy to use and straighforward, it's an important part of the diagnostic process.

Winsock Fix

Winsock 98/ME fix freeware by Boston Univeristy's PCSC
Winsock XP fix freeware by Option Explicit
A common software problem with computers is corrupted internet settings. We used to have to fix these by hand in a 15 step process, but we now use these utilties to save time repairing messed up winsock settings in the registry. Can't get online and everything is checking out? Run one of these utilities.

WinRAR

Winrar Trialware by RARLab
I used to use Winzip for for my archive compression needs, but WinRAR handles more file types. Not to mention, Winzip did the irritating "feature" of putting unnecessary junk in your taskbar! What is with all the different file formats anyway? WinRAR supports: RAR, ZIP, CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, TAR.GZ, BZ2, TAR.BZ2, ACE, UUE, JAR, ISO, 7Z, and Z.

XCleaner

X-Cleaner Freeware Edition Freeware by Xblock
Formerly Known as X Cleaner Micro Edition, this is a quick and small utility with a lot of functionality. I'm really picky about what scumware removing utilities I add to this list, and XCleaner Freeware version is undeniably handy. It consists of a single application that runs really fast and seems to be very good at removing browser hijacks.