Best Computer Tools to put on flash drive?

Darren

Darren

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Staff member
I started working at a computer repair shop about a month ago and they gave me a flash drive with various programs for troubleshooting, fixing problems, malware removal, etc. It wasn't organized very well and some of it out of date. I'm recreating it myself and wondered if you guys have any specific recommendations on what to throw on there that might be useful? Feel free to use this as a reference for your own use, too.

I'm not going to list absolutely everything, but most of the major stuff and that isn't illegal. :P The flash drive is a bootable Hiren's disc so I have everything included in that. The rest are just various programs, installers, or even scripts they gave me or things I've put in myself. Some of these are also combined installers making use of ninite.com

As far as this list is concerned all of this software is free, fully functional and doesn't violate any software copyright AFAIK. The bolded items are things I'm required to run for our specific services and thus won't remove/change them.

Security
  1. AdwCleaner
  2. Avast
  3. MalwareBytes
  4. ComboFix
  5. SuperAntiSpyware
  6. HitmanPro
  7. MS Security Essentials
  8. Avira
  9. tdsskiller
  10. Norman Malware Cleaner
Utilities/Installers
  1. 3DP_Net (software that installs drivers for pretty much any/all Ethernet cards, use this daily)
  2. JKDefrag
  3. BlueScreen View
  4. CCleaner
  5. Revo Uninstaller
  6. 7Zip
  7. OpenOffice
  8. Notepad++
 
What about some stress tests and monitoring tools like cinema 4d, prime 95, afterburner, heaven etc for testing stability and overclocking?
 
Shlouski said:
What about some stress tests and monitoring tools like cinema 4d, prime 95, afterburner, heaven etc for testing stability and overclocking?
Click to expand...

Prime95 is already on there and maybe a couple others but never needed them for work. I'll throw a few of those on there for personal use though or should the need arise.

I have yet to come across a single computer at work that even holds a candle to my laptop, let alone my desktop. Most of our customers are old and/or low income so I'm lucky to even hear a mention of gaming machines, let alone overclocking or stress tests. :D

The best GPU we have on sale is a GT 730. :eek:
 
Darren said:
Prime95 is already on there and maybe a couple others but never needed them for work. I'll throw a few of those on there for personal use though or should the need arise.

I have yet to come across a single computer at work that even holds a candle to my laptop, let alone my desktop. Most of our customers are old and/or low income so I'm lucky to even hear a mention of gaming machines, let alone overclocking or stress tests. :D

The best GPU we have on sale is a GT 730. :eek:
Click to expand...

I have the same problem. I want to be building beasts or half decent budget PC's trying to get the best performance for the price, but instead I'm mostly fixing up junk and when I say junk I mean it, many are rusting on the inside.
 
Shlouski said:
I have the same problem. I want to be building beasts or half decent budget PC's trying to get the best performance for the price, but instead I'm mostly fixing up junk and when I say junk I mean it, many are rusting on the inside.
Click to expand...

I had a guy trying to install a Linux distro on a HP Pavillion that had more ovals and bubbles on it than a 1996 Ford Taurus. Looked straight out of the 90's, although I think it was early 2000's. 384MB RAM, Athlon at 1.3GHz. We spent several days trying to get it to boot from anything other than the hard drive and no dice.

Looked like this. Also had rust and maybe mold in it...?

40716327.jpg
 
Darren said:
I had a guy trying to install a Linux distro on a HP Pavillion that had more ovals and bubbles on it than a 1996 Ford Taurus. Looked straight out of the 90's, although I think it was early 2000's. 384MB RAM, Athlon at 1.3GHz. We spent several days trying to get it to boot from anything other than the hard drive and no dice.

Looked like this. Also had rust and maybe mold in it...?

40716327.jpg
Click to expand...

Wow mold, that would be a new low. I've never seen mold yet fortunately, hope you cleaned it up and disinfected it :D
 
Darren said:
Security
  1. AdwCleaner
  2. Avast
  3. MalwareBytes
  4. ComboFix
  5. SuperAntiSpyware
  6. HitmanPro
  7. MS Security Essentials
  8. Avira
  9. tdsskiller
  10. Norman Malware Cleaner
Click to expand...

Combofix - Will only run on windows 7 and below. I doubt they will ever make it compatible to windows 8 and higher. It's a very good program otherwise.
Hitman pro and Security Essentials - Not sure why you would have these.
Norman Malware Cleaner - Discontinued!!! Looks like Norman has partnered with AVG???

Add

Junkware Removal Tool
ASWMBR
OTL - replacement for hijackthis
Rogue Killer
TFC - Temporary File Cleaner - Run this after running Ccleaner
Minitool partition wizard
 
Geoff said:
Who needs a flash drive when you can use S.T.A.R.S. FTP server over a 0.10Mbps upload connection, that he will make sure is always up to date?
Click to expand...
This is very helpful.

johnb35 said:
Combofix - Will only run on windows 7 and below. I doubt they will ever make it compatible to windows 8 and higher. It's a very good program otherwise.
Hitman pro and Security Essentials - Not sure why you would have these.
Norman Malware Cleaner - Discontinued!!! Looks like Norman has partnered with AVG???

Add

Junkware Removal Tool
ASWMBR
OTL - replacement for hijackthis
Rogue Killer
TFC - Temporary File Cleaner - Run this after running Ccleaner
Minitool partition wizard
Click to expand...

Sweet thanks. I have MSE on there just as an installer so I can install it alone. We by default put MSE on machines unless we sell them a copy of Avira or they request a different free one installed like Avast. 95% of our machines that we sell are refurbished by us so I just have a Ninite with a handful of the basics and MSE since everything is W7.

What's wrong with Hitman? Haven't used it yet but my manager said I should have it. *shrug*

I'll check out the rest of your suggestions. I think a few of those are floating around in there already.
 
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