Digital Home Thoughts: Tools For Tinkering With Windows

"The Sysinternals site hosts some of the most powerful Windows utilities you can find. Yet surprisingly, not too many people know about them, since TechNet is primarily a System Administrator resource. Whether you're looking for more powerful ways to find out what's under the hood of Windows, need help creating VHD images for use with virtualization hosts, or just wanting to play a joke on your co-workers, these little-known utilities have you covered."

I have been aware of SysInternals for quite a few years now, since before they were bought by Microsoft. ProcessExplorer and Autoruns are some of my standard tools for troubleshooting and cleaning up computers. SysInternals offers a great wealth of handy programs that cover things from monitoring TCP connections to managing the file system that work on most any version of Windows. Maximum PC cherry picks some of their favourite tools with more of an eye as a power user, than one that does system administration. If you want to try everything that SysInternals has to offer, they offer an all-in-one download directly on their site which contains almost all the tools they've developed over the years.