What's On Your Thumbdrive?

Broue Master asks: "Nowadays, we need to support not only people at the office, but friends, family, friends of the family, family of the friends... you name it! They all run Windows to a degree and there are many tools to help you when assisting. Personally, I have a thumb-drive with removable memory cards. One of them has a small bootable Linux, the other one is filled with ready to use Windows utilities (CPU-Z, Ultra-Edit32), DOS utilities I've been collecting over the years, and Unix-style utilities (ps.exe, kill.exe, and others) ported to Windows, without the need for a layer like Cygwin. I also have a copy of the install files for AVG, Spybot, Sygate and the likes. But, even though I think I have many great tools, I'm sure I do not know about a lot of great others to help diagnose and solve problem. So I ask you, what's on your thumb-drive?"

Comments

Here are two excellent resources...

[jbarr]

For me, the key is to load "portable" versions of apps instead of "installable" versions. The point is not only to eliminate the need to install, but more importantly, not to leave traces of your apps behind. It's security and a courtesy. Two excellent sources are:

PortableApps.com
PortableFreeware.com

-Jim Barr
http://jimstips.com/

mozilla?

[qortra]

You missed firefox/thunderbird. It's shocking how many people don't have them, and how much grief they put themselves through because they don't.

Don't People Bother to "Search" Before Posting?

[AnswerIs42]

Could do a long post... but easier just to point to this /. post that was already up with MANY MANY good links.

Sysinternals

[nmb3000]

There are a myriad of great tools out there, but personally I have a copy of almost everything from Sysinternals on my thumbdrive. Top of the list are Process Explorer a (overclocked, suped-up, uber, and simply amazing) version of TaskManager. It shows everything you've ever wanted to know about a process but didn't know you could know. In addition, FileMon and RegMon are very helpful for troubleshooting permission problems, and the PSTools kit (psexec, pskill, etc) are also great. They also have a free read-only version of NTFSDOS (and even an NTFS filesystem driver for 95/98. The TCP/IP tools are also very good to have on hand. Best part is of course that they are free, and many have source available.

If you do any Windows troubleshooting, this website is a must-have. No joke.

My malware cleaning stuff...

[zerocool^]

Trend Microsystems "Sysclean" package. It's just an exe file with the scanning engine, and you download the latest virus def patternfile, and it scans your computer. Very nice; TM I think is the best commercial AV product available.
Sysclean executable:
http://www.trendmicro.com/download/dcs.asp (under "Not a Trend Micro Customer")
Pattern files:
http://www.trendmicro.com/download/pattern.asp

I also carry, in the "Antivirus" folder:
Various utilities I've collected for removing Symantec AV
AVG Free installer (I tried to talk people into TrendMicro, because I honestly think it's better, but if they flat out refused, I'd install AVG for them - less virusy computers on teh intarwebs is a good thing)
vcleaner - avg's somewhat less capable version of TM's sysclean package.

Also:
A series of handy apps, including:
7zip - v313 (the older one seems to have less bloat)
adobe acrobat
Divx codec
VLC Media Player
Firefox
Winamp 2.92
IttyBittyProcessManager
Angry IP scanner
Killbox
MSRDPCLI.exe (MS Remote Desktop Client - for 2000/98 machines)
vbrun60 files

and a folder called "Computer Cleanup", containing:
ad aware personal (plus the latest defs.ref file, available form lavasoftusa.com)
CWShredder (remove cool web search spyware)
Hijack this
ewido setup
LSP Fix (for sneaky spywares that replace something with dns)
WinsockXPFix
BugOff
RegVac
Spybot S&D (plus latest update packs)

Yep.

Arsenal of Tools

[sixtyfivebit]

Funny, I also carry a thumb-drive with a removable memory card slot. It's this generic one floating around online: http://www.supermediastore.com/supermedia-handy-4i n1--usb-20-flash-memory-card-reader-yellow.html

I think they're a great idea, because I can move with the SD card market as flash memory becomes denser and denser. Speed hasn't been a problem, either. The thumbdrives support USB 2.0 and my SD card seems to be capable of a very decent data transfer rate.

I have a collection of Windows tools on the drive. Not Linux tools, because I can usually accomplish whatever it is I'm doing in the Linux environments I encounter day to day.

Network Tools:
* Raw TCP/IP transfer -> netcat ( http://www.vulnwatch.org/netcat/ )
* SSH/Telnet -> putty ( http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ )
* Port Scanner -> SuperScan4 ( http://www.foundstone.com/resources/proddesc/super scan.htm )
* Classic Port Scanner -> nmap ( http://insecure.org/nmap/download.html )
* Packet Capture and Analysis -> WireShark setup ( http://www.wireshark.org/download.html )

Editors:
* General -> vim 7.0 ( http://www.vim.org/download.php )
* Hex Editor -> xvi32 ( http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/freeware/xvi 32/xvi32.htm#download )

Development:
* Tiny C Compiler ( http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/tcc/ )
* nasm ( http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group _id=6208 )

Misc:
* Lightweight Windows md5sum -> md5summer ( http://www.md5summer.org/download.html )
* Process Explorer ( http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplo rer.html )
* MP3 Encoding -> RazorLame with lame ( http://www.dors.de/razorlame/download.php )
* Terminal Emulator -> TeraTerm Pro ( http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002416/teraterm.h tml )

The folder is 26.7MB.

Re:A few win32 apps on my drive

[enrgeeman]

you may want to switch to portaputty, it keeps stuff out of the registry, and in a neat little folder, same directory as the exe

Personal Wiki

[Lord Prox]

How about this... TiddlyWiki a personal wiki for notes. views in a web browser, pure javascript love, as handy as a PDA, and only 300kb of HTML.



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