Some essential Windows tools for sysadmins. Well, anyone really

If you're only going to use a few tools on Windows pick these from sysinternals, they're free, they are extremely good and, I'll say it again, they're free.

Autoruns:

This utility, which has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor, shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them. These programs include ones in your startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. You can configure Autoruns to show other locations, including Explorer shell extensions, toolbars, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications, auto-start services, and much more. Autoruns goes way beyond the MSConfig utility bundled with Windows Me and XP.

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/autoruns.html


Process Explorer: (this one's brilliant for us geeky types ;0))

Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html


Regmon:

Regmon is a Registry monitoring utility that will show you which applications are accessing your Registry, which keys they are accessing, and the Registry data that they are reading and writing - all in real-time. This advanced utility takes you one step beyond what static Registry tools can do, to let you see and understand exactly how programs use the Registry. With static tools you might be able to see what Registry values and keys changed. With Regmon you'll see how the values and keys changed..

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Regmon.html

There's loads of stuff on the site http://www.sysinternals.com. Makes essential reading if you're into this sort of thing! Oh yes, did I mention that it's all free, yes maybe I did. Yes I do like this site lots and no they're not paying me