What's in your wallet, er USB stick?

[Jeff Zylstra]

I've been doing some remedial work on a relative's laptop and have had to perform CPR to get it running, so I was wondering what kind of utilities and programs you folks have loaded on your USB sticks?   If you could the name of the program, tell us what it does, and maybe provide a link, that would be great.  Merry Christmas everyone!


Tweaking.com - Windows Repair Free/Pro:
Tweaking.com - Windows Repair is a tool designed help fix a large majority of known Windows problems including; registry errors, file permissions, issues with Internet Explorer, Windows Updates, Windows Firewall and more. Malware and poorly installed programs can modify your default settings resulting in your machine working badly - or worse. With Tweaking.com Windows Repair you can restore Windows original settings fixing many of these problems outright.
http://www.tweaking.com/content/page/windows_repair_all_in_one.html

Angry IP Scanner for scanning networks and grabbing IP address, MAC addresses, and computer names:
http://angryip.org/download/#windows

SysInternernal Suite (Now Microsoft)
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb842062.aspx

Ultimate Boot CD.  It's got tons of programs for nearly any task. 
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html

[Steven Strauss]

As a threshold disclaimer, I am not an IT professional, and only know enough to be dangerous:

Piriform's CCleaner (https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner) for "de-junking" and optimizing a PC.

Macecraft's JV16 Power Tools (https://www.macecraft.com/) that will fix "problem" PCs (as opposed to CCleaner which is for preventative maintenance). This tool has a whole pile of stuff that I find useful, and an equal amount that exceeds my IT knowledge capacity. Certain tools even warn you that you should ask yourself if you really know what you are about to do. GREAT GUI.

SuperAntiSpyware (http://superantispyware.com/) as the strongest most thorough free anti-malware program out there (finds stuff that MalwareBytes misses)

[Jeff Golas]

Technically both for here and at home use I have a keychains worth of usb sticks, but primarily 1-2 that were ever really used:

Windows Boot or Recovery Disk (can use Win10 boot disk for other versions)
Active@ Boot Disk (recovers files and accounts - not free but worth $) http://www.lsoft.net/bootdisk.aspx

[Jeff Zylstra]

Thanks, Steven.   Some good looking stuff here.  I tend to gravitate towards "free" software where I can try it and then send a donation if it works.  I just bought NeoSoft's Easy BCD program. Unfortunately, it didn't work as advertised in correcting the UEFI and boot information.  I had a laptop that lost its boot information after it was put into safe mode, and this was the only thing that would recognize that there was a restore point available, which is what I did.  I shouldn't complain, part of the tool did work, which is all I could ask for.

[Steven Strauss]

Totally agree on your free-to-donate strategy Jeff. In my opinion, it is the epitome of capitalism. The product either has value and is supported or doesn't and fades away. All three of the items I listed have a basic "free" option (even if one (JV16) is a 60 day trial period of the full version).

[Jeff Zylstra]

Technically both for here and at home use I have a keychains worth of usb sticks, but primarily 1-2 that were ever really used:

Windows Boot or Recovery Disk (can use Win10 boot disk for other versions)
Active@ Boot Disk (recovers files and accounts - not free but worth $) http://www.lsoft.net/bootdisk.aspx

A timely post.  As I just said, I had a horrible issue with a laptop that would not boot.  I couldn't get the UEFI (fka BIOS) set up correctly to recognize which drive was the boot drive.  The user told me that she left the old Dell utility files on the machine which she thought may be causing a conflict.   Nope!  Both drives had bootable Windows 10 installations on them, which I didn't know at first which caused an issue when I put the machine into safe mode to fix a Windows update issue.   I will definitely check this out.  Thanks, Jeff!   

[Joshua Conner]

I normally have Combofix  https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/combofix/
Malwarebytes https://www.malwarebytes.com/
AdwCleaner https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/

I normally just fix slow / junk laden pcs that people bring me.