The Best Free Windows Tools

by Bryon D Beilman

There are alot of tools out there to help users and IT professionals do their job. There are some that are good and then there are some that have become so useful to me that I find it difficult to be productive without them.

Your mileage may vary on the below tools, but for me, having to interact between multiple platforms and manage enterprise networks from just a laptop; the following tools have been valuable.

Putty - Putty is a free telnet/SSH client that can be found here If you download the complete suite, it includes secure copy, secure ftp, and secure key management agent. Why do I like this tool? It basically gives you a nice ssh (encrypted) window into a UNIX/Linux hosts and allows you to manage how you want each of them to look or behave. It can even be used as a pseudo VPN client. If you extensively use port forwarding, you can run applications remotely that you could normally only run while on an inside network.

7ZIP - 7zip is a free replacement for Winzip, or WinRAR or other programs where you need to compress files, directories or even password protect and compress groups of files for efficient transmission or storage. You can get it here. Some people think that Winzip is free, but it is not. 7Zip is a no strings attached, very good compression tool that doesn't continuously prompt you to register or pay after the evaluation period is over.

PassWordSafe -Pwsafe is a very secure password manager and can be obtained here. If you find yourself with numerous passwords (as IT professionals do), then this program could be for you. It was developed by Bruce Schneier who is a world renown encryption expert. This program allows you to store and manage your passwords in an encrypted database file that is protected by a single secure password or pass phrase. If the file is discovered, or your laptop is stolen, this file cannot be cracked, and is secure providing that you took time to use a good password.

VNC - There are many VNC clients and servers out there. A good, but minimal implementation comes from RealVNC and can be obtained here. VNC allows one to remotely manage the keyboard and mouse of another computer. Microsoft Terminal services do a better job of this for windows to windows, but VNC provides something that terminal services does not. If you run VNC servers on your Linux hosts and windows hosts, you can have a single interface to remotely manage a heterogeneous network. On windows, the only reason to use VNC services over Terminal services is if you need to interact with someone where they want to see your mouse movements or some software or licensing option does not work in terminal services. If using over remote networks, it is possible, and recommended to integrate VNC with SSH, so that your VNC traffic (and password) is not easily intercepted by pesky hackers.

Filezilla - An FTP client and server which can be obtained here. FTP is a great way to transfer files and one of the only ways that remote web service providers allow you to get your content to the server. Commercial programs like Dream Weaver provide the proper conduit for FTP, but if you want something GUI and intuitive and free, then Filezilla is a good way to go.

This only scratches the surface of the tools out there. I will expand on this list in the future and perhaps ways to maximize their usefulness at another time.