Ken’s Kool Tekkie Tools

Back in December 2005, I wrote about how to make a thumb drive virus scanner using datapol’s NTFS4DOS, a Kool Tekkie Tool that allows you to read and write NTFS volumes from a DOS command line interface. Now, the good folks at datapol have come up with another winner: CIA DRiVE.net, a very cool remote [...]

(Well, maybe not just a Tekkie Tool; it’s quite a useful tool for anyone to carry on a thumb drive.)
If you have ever had to read a PDF file on a PC that doesn’t have a PDF reader installed, then Foxit Software’s Foxit Reader is for you. At less than 3MB installed (a single executable [...]

My latest Kool Tekkie Tool (KTT, pronounced “kit”) comprises a thumb drive made NTFS-capable with :datapol:’s NTFS4DOS; the latest version (3.16b) of FRISK Software International’s F-Prot Antivirus for DOS is run from the command line. Both of these utilities are free for personal use, but require payment if you plan to use them in [...]

Microsoft could regain much of the computing community’s lost confidence (which may be slowly returning) if it would spend more time on public relations than on marketing hype. Case in point: Tech-savvy users have warned of the dangers of running Windows as an administrator and have recommended various solutions, including running with a limited user [...]

This Kool Tool saved my bacon when a client’s hard disk crashed. While attempting to recover the data, I accidentally used a system partition recovery disk meant for an IBM ThinkPad on the client’s NetVista PC. (Doh!) The MBR was reporting FAT32, but the partition table said FAT16. I was able to recover the correct [...]

Forget your NT/200x/XP admin password? This once meant a reinstall nightmare. No more. This Kool Tool will save your bippie…(remember bippies?) It has saved mine three times in as many weeks. It’s the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor boot disk.
This is a utility to (re)set the password of any user that has a valid [...]

HP has a kool little utility to make your thumb drive into a bootable device. Download it here.
The utililty is designed to work with an HP product, but it works with others. I tested it on my older PNY 64Mb USB 1.1 Attache and also on a 512MB Kingston Data Traveler II+. Both worked [...]

In my February 21, 2005 article “Kernel Rootkits - next bad thing?” I reported that undetectable rootkits may be the next spyware/malware paradigm and that Microsoft researchers had developed a tool, named “Strider Ghostbuster” that can detect them.
A day later, the good folks at Sysinternals released RootkitRevealer 1.4, which I now consider a vital weapon [...]

Belarc Advisor is one of my most-used tekkie tools because it gives you everything you ever wanted to know about the target system in a single report. I found this blurb about it on WilliamAFord.com. His description is a good one:
Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, including Microsoft [...]

Welcome to Ken’s Kool Tekkie Tools!
Well, Dr. Hoiby’s English ain’t too good, but the tool is kool…
Have you ever bored by this Windows message : “Error Deleting File or Folder, … There has been a sharing violation. The source or destination file may be in use.”, when you try to delete, move or rename a [...]

The Free Edition of HDClone is the ideal tool for moving contents of entire harddisk drives onto bigger newer ones. This Edition can be downloaded for free from here and fits easily on a diskette (remember those?).
It ships with its own operating system - Sphere SP - and is therefore not dependent on other [...]