FREE Great Programs for Windows 7 [2]

[MilesAhead]

I find the MD does the initial defrag real quick and knocks at least half the time off the Windows defrag.

...

The thing to keep in mind with MyDefrag is there are many scripts included. It's a nice program but I never use more than the "daily" (if they still call it that) script since the more thorough ones take too much time for my taste. Also if you have the Windows Defrag in Task Scheduler, it's not smart enough to detect MyDefrag is running. First thing that happened to me when I got my Vista machine was I did MyDefrag after cleaning off the crapware, and Windows Defrag started up in the middle of the MyDefrag run!! No easy way to detect disk idle in Windows, after all these versions!!

My peference is Puran defrag free. It has options to optimize directories, boot files, set gaps etc... If only the Optimized Directories is selected it only takes a couple minutes longer than the basic no option defrag. Quick enough you can run it every day(if you keep about 70% free space on the partition that is.)

 

[jadinolf]

*Reserved*

Thank you very much for this collection.

 

[Brink]

*Reserved*

Thank you very much for this collection.

 

[jumanji]

Freeware to backup and replicate USB Flash Drives (UFDs)

While there are plenty of tools out there for creating disk images of HDDs/HDD partitions, there are only a few that work specifically with USB drives.

Passmark Software’s ImageUSB http://www.osforensics.com/tools/write-usb-images.html is an excellent application that can create a one to one bit-level copy of USB Flash Drives (UFD) – including bootable UFDs - into a .bin image. One can replicate it to any UFD anytime or write it to multiple flash drives concurrently.



A hands-on trial here .

Note: It can handle only .bin images created by it.

 

[Brink]

Thank you Jumanji. ImageUSB added to the list.

 

[kado897]

Thank you jumanji. I just tried it out. Works well.

 

[mjf]

Another USB file and image utility that has been around a long time that I use is

USB Image Tool can create images of USB flash drives and MP3 players, that are mounted as USB drives. It allows you switch between images with different music styles on your MP3 Player or to make an exact backup image of your USB Stick.
Features

• create image files of USB flash drives
• restore images of USB flash drives
• compressed image file format
• show USB device information
• manage favorite USB images
• command line utility

USB Image Tool works with any device, that implements the USB Mass Storage protocol. This includes flash drives, card readers and a lot of other devices, like digicams, cell phones and mobile music players.
USB Image Tool supports the globull secure mobile work environment.
alex's coding playground » USB Image Tool

 

[Brink]

Thank you Michael. USB Image Tool added to list.

 

[jumanji]

Yep, mjf, it is a good tool for general purpose imaging that has been around for a long time. But I had seen user comments that it cannot clone a bootable pendrive and my trial with it confirmed it. When I imaged my bootable Lucid Puppy pendrive and wrote it back with it, the resulting pendrive did not boot.

Both USB Image Tool and ImageUSB serve different purposes and this has to be borne in mind by the intending users.

 

[mjf]

Yep, mjf, it is a good tool for general purpose imaging that has been around for a long time. But I had seen user comments that it cannot clone a bootable pendrive and my trial with it confirmed it. When I imaged my bootable Lucid Puppy pendrive and wrote it back with it, the resulting pendrive did not boot.

Both USB Image Tool and ImageUSB serve different purposes and this has to be borne in mind by the intending users.

Hi
No it definitely can which is why I use it.
There are 2 modes.
1) Volume mode - when you run it as non administrator
This will make a copy of files but not a true image
2) Device mode - the default when run as administrator (right click etc.)
This will create a true bit image.

I use Device mode to image my multi-purpose bootable USBs. I have restored the bit images and the USBs boot fine.

 

[jumanji]

Oh! Thanks mjf.

I did notice Volume Mode but couldn't get into any other mode.

Now I know why.

I shall try it as an administrator when time permits ( after another 12 hours) and then report.

Good there is a discussion on this and thanks again.

 

[jumanji]

Yes indeed. I ran the tool as an administrator and in Device Mode to create an image of my bootable Lucid Puppy pendrive. I restored the image also as an administrator and was able to boot from the pendrive.

This is adequately explained in the FAQ section alex's coding playground » FAQ



While doing this experiment, I also noticed that if one does not run the tool as an administraror while restoring the bootable image (Volume Mode), the pendrive turns RAW, necessitating a format operation. I repated it thrice to make sure that it is so.

So users have to make sure that they run the tool as an administrator(and in Device Mode) while restoring a bootable image or else they have to go through the extra work of formatting the pendrive and repeating the process correctly.

The other point the users have to note is:

Whether they use ImageUSB or USB Image tool, if they write the bootable image to a larger capacity pendrive than the original pendrive from which it was imaged, the extra space on the larger drive will remain unallocated and Windows will not see the extra space other than that of the donor pendrive.

For example if the flash drive from which one created the bootable image is 2 GB,and it was cloned to a 8GB pendrive, 6GB in it will remain as unallocated and Windows will not see it. So one may not be able to format the full 8GB with Windows.It will format only the 2GB which it sees.

I used HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool to format and regain the full capacity of the pendrive after these experiments.

 

[F5ing]

Something doesn't seem right there. I've used USB Image Tool for imaging/restore quite a few different bootable UFDs and haven't run into any boot issues. You do have to use it in "device" mode though rather than "volume" mode.

The only issue I've run across is applying an image from on drive to another, but only when the receiving drive is a few bytes smaller than the original drive. It has never been a problem if the receiving drive is the exact same size or greater.

Gonna have to try ImageUSB one day to check out what it may offer. Thanks for posting it!

 

[Dwarf]

Listary

A simple program to give you a better file browsing experience.

Listary - instant access to your folders and files. Incredible productivity software.

Note that there is both a free version and a paid version available, which just provides more features. See Listary Pro | Listary for a comparison.

 

[boohbah]

playing with it now dwarf, handy bit of kit. thanks for the heads up.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Zone Alarm Firewall is not on the list.

Best Free Firewall Software for Download: Personal Firewall by ZoneAlarm

I don't know how many times i've tried, and given up with ZoneAlarm. Every now and then a version is released that crashes my PC (it has issues with other software i may be using). So i've switched permanently to Comodo

Curious. I've never had a problem with Zone Alarm.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Listary

A simple program to give you a better file browsing experience.

Listary - instant access to your folders and files. Incredible productivity software.

Note that there is both a free version and a paid version available, which just provides more features. See Listary Pro | Listary for a comparison.

Hum once I get the hang of it looking good Dwarf

 

[ICIT2LOL]

I don't know how many times i've tried, and given up with ZoneAlarm. Every now and then a version is released that crashes my PC (it has issues with other software i may be using). So i've switched permanently to Comodo

Probably was Recusant out of curiosity were you running Comodo as well at the time of the new version. Mind you I don't know about you but the Comodo firewall is probably as good as you are going to get anyway.

Plus I haven't heard of Zone Alarm being mentioned for ages

 

[Recusant]

Zone Alarm Firewall is not on the list.

Best Free Firewall Software for Download: Personal Firewall by ZoneAlarm

I don't know how many times i've tried, and given up with ZoneAlarm. Every now and then a version is released that crashes my PC (it has issues with other software i may be using). So i've switched permanently to Comodo

Curious. I've never had a problem with Zone Alarm.

It just has random conflicts with random programs. I can't remember the sordid history with other apps, but most recently it wouldn't play with uTorrent. I changed the firewall and no more system freezes. Oh, it also usually rates poorly here: www.matousec.com

 

[mjf]

Partition Wizard 7.6

Is now available.