Day #4 of the 'Five Days of Free Tools'

Today is the second to last day of 'Five Days of Free Tools'.  I am sad to see it end but I am also grateful in one sense because it has been crazy trying to blog every night for 5 days straight...  I don't see how other people can do it.  Maybe I'm just not of the blogging caliber yet... Anyways, on to Toolset #4...

TROUBLESHOOTING

This toolset consists of a tool which gives a very detailed look at all of the processes actively running on your system called 'Process Explorer' and a system analyzer which has proved very helpful in determining Brand and Model of internal devices making researching drivers that much easier.  That tool is called 'Everest Free Edition 2.20'.

Tool #1 Toolset #4 - Program Analyzer - Process Explorer


- Process Explorer is a more detailed version of 'Task Manager' which is a built-in tool in Microsoft Windows. Microsoft actually bought the Sysinternals (developer of Process Explorer and other tools) some time ago and I've only recently caught up with the news of that.  I am very excited for the developer because he has proved that there are still people out there that can grow great things on there own from something small.  Much like how YouTube and Microsoft once were.

- When you download the application it will download only an executable file which does not do any installation it will just straight run.  The tool provides a visual of all of the processes running on the system as well as which processes made calls to start other processes so you can see if there is one process (virus or malware) which is starting other processes which could potentially be harming your system.  With that information you can use Process Explorer to 'halt' those processes in an effort to keep them from degrading your systems performance while you can use items from Toolset #3 to help remove them.












Tool #2 Toolset #4 - System Analyzer - Everest Free Edition 2.20


- Everest Free Edition 2.20 is a wonderful tool if you are trying to get an older (or a newer) system up and running and are unable to find drivers available on the manufacturer of the computers website.  This application will read through all of the embedded devices (VGA, USB, LAN) as well as added devices through PCI, PCIe, etc.  It will show you a much cleaner visualization of the devices than what can be provided by Device Manager.

- Everest has also changed names to 'AIDA64' and I am currently uncertain to the future of a free version of the newer application but I am remaining hopeful.

- Again, I apologize for making another fairly brief, and probably super technical post for some, but I wanted to provide you with (what I consider to be) valuable information and tools and leave a little bit of the learning to you.

- Tomorrow marks the final day of 'Five Days of Free Tools' and I hope you return for the final installment which will cover the 'Performance' toolset.

~KHaleTech