{"id":49167,"date":"2022-05-18T13:37:03","date_gmt":"2022-05-18T11:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jotelulu.com\/blog\/the-5-most-useful-free-tools-for-windows-system-administrators-i\/"},"modified":"2022-01-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-01-12T23:00:00","slug":"5-most-useful-free-tools-for-windows-systems-administrators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jotelulu.com\/en-gb\/blog\/5-most-useful-free-tools-for-windows-systems-administrators\/","title":{"rendered":"The 5 Most Useful Free Tools for Windows System Administrators (I)"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the biggest problems for systems administrators is that they are constantly firefighting<\/strong>, solving problems that need an immediate response, and therefore, dedicating less time to more important tasks like improving their IT infrastructure. In fact, there are studies that show that technicians spend around 80% of their time <\/strong>solving recurring problems, whilst just 20% of their time is dedicated to operations, improvements, etc. Here at Jotelulu, we have been thinking about how we can help sysadmin to optimise their time, and we have decided that one way might be to provide some of the most useful tools for Windows system administrators<\/strong>. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Today, we will take a look at some of the tools provided by Microsoft that are not included in Windows. These tools for system administrators can be downloaded from the Microsoft knowledge base, currently called “Microsoft Docs<\/a><\/strong>”, where there are lots of manuals, documents, tutorials and even tools.<\/p>\n

The tools that we will look at today are found in “Microsoft SysInternals<\/a><\/strong>”, a suite of tools and aids for systems technicians created by Mark Russinovich in 1996.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

Image 1: Contents of the SysInternals suite<\/p>\n

Since we don’t have time to analyse all of them, we are going to look at 5 tools <\/strong>that tend to be quite useful on a daily basis. In fact, they are probably the best ones available in the entire SysInternals suite, at least we think so anyway.<\/p>\n

The tools for system administrators that we have selected are: <\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Process Explorer<\/li>\n
  2. Process Monitor<\/li>\n
  3. PsTools<\/li>\n
  4. AccessChk<\/li>\n
  5. TCPview<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Process Explorer<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    Process Explorer<\/strong><\/a> is a really great tool for troubleshooting<\/strong>. It allows you to carry out an exhaustive analysis of system performance, finding problems that could be affecting performance, as well as helping to detect malware or viruses. <\/p>\n

    It shows all the processes running on the system, their process tree and dependencies and how much CPU and memory they are using. It also allows you to see which commands <\/strong>are used to start each process, the file path <\/strong>of the executable file and the system services <\/strong>linked to the process. <\/p>\n

    Just like the Task Manager, Process Explorer allows you to see resource statistics but also provides the name of the provider that created the process and a description of what it does.<\/p>\n

    \"Image<\/p>\n

    Image 2: Process Explorer on Windows 10<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Process Monitor<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    Process Monitor<\/a><\/strong> is the perfect complement for Process Explorer and is designed to monitor and obtain additional information about each system process <\/strong>to provide a clearer idea of what it does. <\/p>\n

    It allows you to see the registry keys <\/strong>for each program and, therefore, where its settings are stored <\/strong>and which are modified <\/strong>each time a change is made. You can also see which processes access different resources such as file systems, the local network, the internet, etc. <\/p>\n

    What makes this such a powerful and effective tool is the ability to apply filters, helping you to search for more detailed information about any process and what it is doing on the system. <\/p>\n

    \"Image:<\/p>\n

    Image: Process Monitor on Windows 10 and the details for a process<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    PsTools<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    PsTools<\/a><\/strong> is not an application but a set of applications that have a similar purpose and background. The background of these applications is that you can run processes in a similar way to Unix System V, in other words, using process snapshots<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    There is a PowerShell<\/strong> version <\/strong>of each application, so many administrators might say that these tools are obsolete or no longer necessary. However, it is much simpler to use these commands than running through PowerShell, and they will work exactly the same on any version of Windows.<\/p>\n

    The tools included in this pack are:<\/p>\n