System Tools
Program Picks
System Tools |
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Last updated on 16th August, 2000
If you find some utility that is worth featuring on this page, you can mail me with the following details : Name of the Program, Version, a brief description, download site, download file size.
4Dos
If you need to work in the Command Prompt, get yourself 4Dos (or 4NT if you use Windows NT/2000). It features Auto-completion of file and folder names, maintains the history of commands for the session (no more DOSKEY), enhancements to all commands, enhanced batch language, even a text browsing command, list. If you prefer a GUI shell, you can download their GUI command processor, Take Command/32 (2.02B Build 131) which does almost all the things 4Dos does.
| Site | File Size | Version | Type |
 http://www.jpsoft.com/download.htm |
762 KB | 6.02B Build 131 | 21 day trial. $ 69.95 |
Desktop Architect
Desktop Architect can create or install themes. Besides that, it can change the Logo screens, the images in the web view (never minding that it takes ages to load) and the general appearance (The options you get in Control Panel -> Display -> Appearance and beyond). You can play around with the 3D slider to set the "Flatness" of your Windows.
| Site | File Size | Version | Type |
| http://home1.gte.net/fosterk/da |
1.9 MB | 2.0 | Freeware |
MicroAngelo
The suite contains an Icon Editor, Icon Library Manager, System Icons Manager and Animated Icons Editor. MicroAngelo offers extreme flexibility and great features to work with Icons. You can change Desktop Icons to your heart's content. You can even assign different icons for each folder with a simple right-click on the folder.
By the way, I have my own set of Icons, but no way close to being featured on this web page. If you have a strong will to put it on your desktop, mail to me.
| Site | File Size | Version | Type |
| http://www.impactsoft.com/muangelo |
1.32 MB | 4.77 | 30 day trial. |
Notetab Light
A replacement for the Notepad. The program has a tabbed interface and support for large files and many unique features like the Clipbook, Favorite documents collections, outline documents (only reading is supported by the Light version). It also has two more flavors : Notetab Standard and Notetab Pro both at a decent price. Just for the note, this site was designed entirely using this editor.
| Site | File Size | Version | Type |
| http://www.notetab.com/snt.htm |
1.26 MB | 4.82 | Freeware |
SiSoft Sandra
Sandra stands for System Analyzer, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant. If you want to dig a little deeper into your system, turn to Sandra. It provides Benchmarking modules for Drives, CD-ROM/DVD, CPU and Network, loads of information from Motherboard summary to CMOS dumping. All of these are not enabled in the free Standard version. You have to buy the professional version for complete functionality.
| Site | File Size | Version | Type |
| http://www.sisoftware.demon.co.uk |
2.74 MB | 2000.7.6.49 | Freeware |
Startup Manager
If Windows takes a long time to load, it is due to the long list of programs it loads at Startup. These programs may be started from several locations, the registry, win.ini file, Startup menu etc., While it's not a big deal to hunt down and kill those programs, this little utility just makes it easier. The best part is you can disable a program from startup and re-enable the program any time without deleting the shortcut to the program permanently.
| Site | File Size | Version | Type |
| www.delphifreestuff.com |
613 KB | 1.5.2 | Freeware |
System Internals
With so many great utilities SysInternals has come up with, it'd be cumbersome to list each and everything here. Suffice to say that they have a great collection of Utilities and some even with source code for Windows 9x and Windows NT/2000 that no hard-core system tweak freak should be without.
TClockEx
Are you not bored of the tiny clock that sits up in the corner of the tray. This program can spice up it's appearance using any font, color, background and the clock can have multiple lines. You can customize the Tooltip format, the format of the text copied to the clipboard (yes, you can now paste Date and Time in any program). You can even have CPU usage and Memory usage bars if you are running Windows 9x.
| Site | File Size | Version | Type |
| http://users.iafrica.com/d/da/dalen |
466 KB | 1.4.2 | Freeware |
The Font Thing
This thing (pun intended) can manage all your True Type Fonts. You can view the installed fonts either one by one or in groups, find out what the Font creators wrote to the font files in those property pages, Install or Uninstall groups of fonts.
| Site | File Size | Version | Type |
| http://www.ozemail.com.au/~scef |
1.15 MB | 0.80 | Freeware |
TreePad
Treepad is an editor with a difference. It can store hierarchial data. There are some examples of how to use the capabilities of this editor in the Utilities section of this web site viz., PIM, Schedule Management.
| Site | File Size | Version | Type |
| http://www.treepad.com |
275 KB | 2.6.9 c | Freeware |
WinZip
There is the Classic PKZip, which is faster than WinZip, Better Multimedia compression is available with WinRAR, but WinZip still rules the Windows Desktop. WinZip supports many compression file formats from the Classic PKZip compatible to the tars and cabs. With Version 8.0, WinZip's interface has improved with customizable toolbars, IE style buttons and finally, space for comments. The Right-click menus of Explorer are available within the program. New features include added support for installation of Screen Savers and Theme files, E-mail option available on right-clicking the zip file in Windows Explorer.
| Site | File Size | Version | Type |
| www.winzip.com |
1.25 MB | 8.0 | Nagware |
X-Setup
X-Setup offers tweaking power to the limit and beyond. Since, it is implemented as plug-ins, it can be easily extended to include any missing functionality. Before you can find the missing part, you can drown yourself to tune the system from the ones every tweaking utility can offer to Hardware tuning for Modems, specific (and famous) Video cards, Zip drives to Software tweaks for Office 97/2000, Money to the tuning of OS performance to the extreme. If you are a power hungry tweaker, you can write your own plug-ins using the X-Setup SDK. With all those features, would it hurt that you should have Visual Basic Scripting support installed in order for X-Setup to work ?
| Site | File Size | Version | Type |
| http://www.xteq.com/products/xset |
2.6 MB | 5.6 | Freeware |
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