- free Putty
- free Winscp
- Webresearch (personal knowledge base)
- Microsoft DaRT from MDOP, former ERD disk (very easy to add to WDS, or replacing boot.wim on USB with Win7 or win8) For repair, locksmith to reset built-in administrators password, to backup files from not booting disk and so on. To prevent non-authorized access by ordinary users during booting, place pxelinux with password before WDS network bootloader.
- Acronis tools (usually on USB, or as WDS image) mainly for cloning, partitioning, backups
- Hiren tools (mhdd, victoria, memtest to diag freshly purchased HDDs, RAM)
- Separate tiny Memtest (i prefer as a pxelinux option in WDS)
- R-studio (to restore data even from damaged RAID disks)
- free “Windows 7 usb tool”; unetbootin; yumi. Instead of having pile of installation DVD disks or USB disks, just iso files and 3-4 usb dongles for all Windows versions, esxi, acronis, hiren tools, memtest, diagnostics tools and so on.
- free Notepad Pro to compare for example cisco config changes.
- free Faststone viewer
- faststone capture (much better than Snipping Tool)
- Camtasia Studio
- or maybe at least just Windows 2012r2 Step Recorder.
- free Nirsoft Mail PassView – to see forgotten Outlook passwords (http://www.nirsoft.net/)
- free Nirsoft CSVFileView (to analyse for example RDP access files https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Remote-Desktop-Connection-3fe225cd )
- free PsTools
- free Bulk Rename Utility (http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Download.php)
- aida64/everest; free hwinfo, Speccy
- free hdtune for surface scans, hdd SMART, sometimes for average hdd benchmarks.
- free DaemonTools (since win8 not so useful)
- free Bullzip pdf printer
- free RealVNC viewer, free tightVNC
- free Intel® AMT Configuration Utility
- free gawk, grep for Windows
- TMAC
- Elcomsoft tools
- free sysinternals tools
- Netwrix free tools, mainly Netwrix Disk Space Monitor and Netwrix Bulk Password Reset (for larger companies with AD, better thru GroupPolicy, and SCOM)
- free AD info (free AD reports)
- free AD Photo Edit (add photo of end-users for Lync, Sharepoint, Exchange and so on)
- free DBF Viewer
- Log Parser Studio
- free Malwarebyte, free Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool
- 5nine Hyper-V Manager (useful for sporadical access to Hyper-V host from not domain computers)
- Excel, Inquire, Compare files. To compare excel files.
- Dameware mini remote control
- free calibre reader (to read ebooks and convert them for my iphone – almost all mobile formats – very useful for manuals and tech. books)
- Lastpass password manager. Must have sort of program for any system administrator.
- Google authenticator on my iphone for 2fa of lastpass, google apps, microsoft, facebook, linkedin and others.
to be continued and re-designed. Pls send me your own list of