Comments on: Need to carry a toolbox for boxen

Question: Need to carry a toolbox for boxen

bartleby — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 09:34:17 -0800

Anyone recommend PC tuneup software, installable to a portable drive or USB stick? Something for tuneups/cleanups, kind of like System Mechanic Portable Toolkit used to do.

There used to be a couple of products, that either ran like a LiveCD or could be installed on an external drive, which could scan a random PC's local hard drives, registry, memory, etc. and clean things up/diagnose problems.

I could really use some sort of portable tuneup kit like that, but I'm not finding what I'm looking for. Anyone use something like that? Made your own and can help me with a some recommendations of what to include?

I've never needed something like this for a Mac, so Windows suggestions only please.

By: fogster

fogster — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 09:40:58 -0800

CCleaner is amazing. It's a Windows app that cleans all sorts of crap off the system. The first time I ran it, I reclaimed gigs of space, no exaggeration. Not a 'bootable' tool, but it's great to carry on a thumbdrive or something.

Ultimate Boot CD is exactly what the name suggests, and I'm eternally grateful after it fixed my bootloader, right as I was beginning to panic that the drive was beyond repair.

By: goldism

goldism — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 10:20:16 -0800

i co-sign on CCleaner.

i have a portable version on my usb stick...LOVERLY.

By: asuprenant

asuprenant — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 12:58:22 -0800

I always carry AdAware and Spybot on mine.

By: asuprenant

asuprenant — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 12:59:43 -0800

Oh, and AVG Free for viruses.

By: MaverickX

MaverickX — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:36:04 -0800

Introducing the Lifehacker Thanksgiving PC Rescue Kit, intended for those traveling home to their families during the holidays only to find parents (or grandparents) frustrated with a adware/spyware/virus laden-PC.

I used it myself and it really helped my dad's computer. Best part is that its designed to fit (and execute from) a USB stick. The comments in the article are also very helpful for additional useful utilities.

By: lhauser

lhauser — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 16:01:02 -0800

AVG Free is good, but I prefer ClamWin for AV because it's open source.

The Thanksgiving PC rescue kit is great. I'm especially careful to keep it up to do date as I no longer use Windows as my personal machine (I moved to Mac recently) but still support Windows for my family and, to some extent, on the job.

By: flabdablet

flabdablet — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 18:23:31 -0800

Trinity Rescue Kit is excellent for cleaning viruses off Windows boxes too heavily infested to boot up, apart from being generally useful.

By: rjt

rjt — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 21:02:56 -0800

Norton/Symantec WinDoctor can be run easily from a USB drive, and seems to be pretty conservative in what it fixes. (i.e. It appears to actually focus on actual problems, rather than just "here's a stale registry entry you might not need any more".)