What’s This About?

FileTypesMan is a superior replacement for the standard Windows File Types dialog*. It allows you to quickly find the file type you are looking for, add new, edit existing, add or change actions, etc. in a simple but comprehensive way.

* To access File Types open Windows Explorer then go Tools-Folder Options from the menu and select the File Types tab

Why Would You Want It?

Perhaps files aren’t opening with the program you expect when double clicked in Windows Explorer and you need to find out why or change it back. Perhaps you want to just know what a particular file extension does, particularly if you are concerned about viruses, spyware or malware. Perhaps you need to change the program that a file type opens with. For example you may have a favorite freeware text editor that you wish top associate with .txt files or other text type files such as log and ini files. You may wish to add additional actions which appear under the context menu when the file is right clicked in explorer often you will see with document type files options such as Open, Print, New at the top of the context menu. These are all actions set in file types. More advanced users will also be able to add or change DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) information.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Displays all File Type Associations
• Easy Sorting by multiple columns
• Add/Edit File Associations
• Add/Edit Actions for File Associations
•  

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 32% [?]

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What’s This About?

ShellExView provides a detailed list of the shell extensions (in-process COM objects) that are used to display items in the Context Menu of Windows Explorer. These can then be individually disabled or enabled allowing you to have only those Context Menu Items that you really need.

Combined with a utility such as CMenuExtender which was reviewed here:

Create Your Own Explorer Context Menus with CMenuExtender

You can control your context menus to display only what you need and create commands to do what you want

Why Would You Want It?

MS Windows provides many shell extensions as part of the OS. Also lots of programs add their own commands to the Explore context menu, Internet Explorer, etc. when they are installed to help with using the program. This makes the right click context menu in the system applications very useful for carrying out all sorts of operations and commands, however they can become cluttered with commands you never need or use. This can make it difficult to find what you want. With ShellExView you an disable the menus you don’t need. ShellExView does not remove the shell extensions it just disables them so that you can always enable anything you need to get back. This also means that you can experiment using ShellExView to see whether you are making the right choice without any fear or permanently loosing any functions.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Lists all Shell Extension Objects on the PC
• Allows Enabling or Disabling of the Extensions
• Allows Details to be Copied to text or HTML files
• Opens Windows Registry at the Selected Object Entry
• Marks “Suspicious” Extensions
• Column Sorting of Display
• Highlight & Sort on Enabled/Disable Items

For more details about Shell Extensions and what they do go to ShellExView

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 25% [?]

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What’s This All About?

Drive Manager is a small utility that provides quick access to information on all your disk drives, CD/DVD drives, Removable drives, Flash/USB Drives, Network Shares and Virtual Drives in one handy and easy to use interface. It provides an excellent way to get to essential information quickly as well as allowing you to run some essential drive maintenance utilities.

Why Would You Want It?

Simply because this is a small portable application that provides independent access to lots of drive information and functions in a single interface. You can access the majority of this information using Windows Explorer and various standard Windows Accessories and System utilities. However, with Drive Manger nearly all these functions are combined within a single, easy to use interface which quickly gives access to the information you need.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Displays a list of all drives
• Plenty of essential information is instantly available in the main interface
• Lots of other functions are available through the toolbars and menus
• Quick filtering of different drive types

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware
• Portable

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Popularity: 20% [?]

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What’s This About?

PDF-XChange Viewer is a fully portable application with a tabbed interface and extensive options for adding notes, text, highlights, drawing, etc. on a PDF file.

Why Would You Want It?

There are plenty of PDF file viewers available and most of them are free. Acrobat is bloated and slow, Foxit is good but not portable (Yes you can make Foxit portable using a wrapper , downloading the original installer and then using an extractor to get the executable – but who’s got that long to live!) PDF-XChange Viewer provides a fully portable (English Language) version with a tabbed interface and lots of useful options for direct download. The download has been kept small by stripping all unnecessary files including the language files so you miss out on these and a help file. Not only that but it is fast, relatively light.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Opens PDF files
• Provides tools for drawing and annotation
• Supports PDF file formats from 1.0 to 1.7 (equivalent to Acrobat

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 25% [?]

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What’s This All About?

Windows Seizer is a quick and easy to use portable application that lists all the program Windows that exist on the system including hidden and “no caption” ones.  Not only does it list the windows but it allows them to be closed individually or in groups, off screen (lost) windows to be moved on screen and processes to be killed. It also provides details of the windows size and class as well as some process details like a task manager

Why Do You Want It?

I wrote the other day in Recover Hidden & Off-screen Windows with this Simple Tip and Freeware Program ForceWindowVisible –

Sometimes Windows just disappear off of your computer monitor. There are several reasons why this may occur:

• Changing Screen Resolution
• Using a Single Monitor after using a Dual Monitor Display
• Corruption of Registry or “ini” file data
• Programming Errors
• Program Conflicts

When this happens you need a simple and reliable method to get them back onto your screen.

Windows Seizer not only does this in a quick, easy and intuitive way, it also provides some very useful additional functions as detailed below.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Displays a list of all current windows
• Displays or hides the window
• Moves the window to the top left of the monitor
• Closes Groups of Windows
• Shows the Desktop
• Kill Processes

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 18% [?]

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What’s This All About?

A simple way to find hidden and off-screen windows using a tiny freeware program and a quick way to move “visible” windows back on screen.

Why Do You Need to Know?

Sometimes Windows just disappear off of your computer monitor. There are several reasons why this may occur:

• Changing Screen Resolution
• Using a Single Monitor after using a Dual Monitor Display
• Corruption of Registry or “ini” file data
• Programming Errors
• Program Conflicts

When this happens you need a simple and reliable method to get them back onto your screen.

Using Windows Standard Move Function

Sometimes you will see the “lost” window in the Taskbar and right clicking will allow you to carry out the normal windows functions. What has happened is that the coordinates the system has for the window (for whatever reason) make the system think the window should be displayed somewhere off of your actual monitor screen.

This standard Move function tip is available from many sites offering advice, hints and tips – this is what you need to do:

Right Clicking on the Taskbar Icon

This displays the standard windows controls and in this instance we are interested in Move

Click on Move and the move cursor will be displayed in the middle of the title bar for the window (although obviously you can’t see it on an offscreen window).

The important thing now is to press one of the cursor (up/down/right/left arrow) keys on the keyboard to attach the window to the mouse. If you don’t do this you can move the Move cursor onto the visible screen and click with the mouse but nothing happens (Why? It would have been simple and obvious for MS to have programmed it to work this way )

When you click on any one of the arrow keys it attaches the Window to the mouse cursor and you can drag it back to the visible area. Of course if you don’t know where it is and it is a long way off your actual screen this can be a bit of a hit and miss process.

Actually when you hit the arrow key it also moves the window in the direction of the arrow so you can use the arrows to get the window back but this can be even more long winded and frustrating if you don’t know where the window is in relation to your screen.

What is clear is that this solution works but can be difficult when you don’t know where the window is. Also if the window is “hidden” it will not show in the taskbar so you can’t use the above method,  so what is a better solution?

Useing ForceWindowsVisible

This is a very simple, very small portable executable file which will list all the windows currently created on your PC by the operating systema nd the programs you are running.

However a word of caution. Windows and the programs you run may create many “hidden” windows that you are never meant to see. Take care if you display these windows, which may not have any visible information, as closing them may cause problems or crashes of programs and the system.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Displays a list of all current windows
• Displays or hides the window
• Moves the window to the top left of the monitor
• Resizes the window to fit on the screen

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 34% [?]

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What’s This All About?

Neutron is a tiny portable utility to synchronize your computer with “Atomic Clocks” through various Internet servers.

Why Would You Want It?

While you probably don’t need the time on your computer to be accurate to the second you will often want it to be correct to the minute. Things like scheduled reminders or recordings of programmes are obvious examples. It is also useful to have reasonably accurate time “stamps” on the creation and modification of files.

I have had occasions where a computer has been years out due to corruption of the bios information on a power failure and then the system restarts with the bios reset to the base date or some other completely wrong time. If this goes unnoticed you can have hundreds of files with the wrong dates and (perhaps) even worse restore points that are incorrect. Trying to sort duplicates where files have incorrect dates or synchronising files across your local area network can be made far more difficult if different machines don’t have the same time.

So a simple, tiny utility that will make sure you don’t have this problem is well worth while.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Looks up the exact time on Internet Servers
• Synchronises the local computer either manually or automatically
• Syncs at Startup (Optional)

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 13% [?]

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What Is It?

The Wonderful Icon (TWI) is a small utility that sits in your system tray (windows notification area) and gives you access to numerous system commands, Windows manipulation/placement functions, hotkey options, sounds options, shutdown options and a user defined Start Menu. This is an amazing little application that has been around for a long time and never seems to have gotten the recognition it deserves.

Why Would You Want It?

If you want a simple, single click system tray icon that gives you access to all sorts of system commands using the mouse or hotkeys, combined with all sorts of user definable options then this is the one for you!

Don’t be put off by the lack of development in recent times and lack of a fancy GUI with icons – this is simplicity and functionality defined

It appears that The Wonderful Icon even works with Vista despite it the fact that it hasn’t been updated since Vista was released. N.B. I haven’t tested it on Vista, I am relying on comments posted elsewhere.

Why Do I Want It?

Because it gives me access to so many different functions in a system tray menu that I can define myself as well as defining items to be activated by Hotkeys. In fact I thing the most amazing thing about The Wonderful Icon is that it hasn’t been more widely recognised.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• System Tray Menu
• Hotkey Functions
• Select Sounds
• Access Common Tasks
• Access Common System Commands

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 15% [?]

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What Is It?

A wonderfully simple utility that safely removes (ejects/unmounts) USB disks from a Windows system in the way that the MS Windows “Safely Remove Hardware” utility should but doesn’t.

Why Would You Want It?

Because the inbuilt Windows Safely Remove Hardware utility is a triumph of obscurity and poor design. Why? – I will tell you.

Left click on the Windows Safely Remove Hardware tool icon is the system tray and what do you see:

(click on any picture to enlarge where necessary)

Now unless you have previously assigned drive letters to particular USB drives and then can remember those assignments you have no idea which drive is which.

Or you can right click-

Then left click on the Safely Remove Hardware menu item

(Why – As it is the only item wouldn’t it be a triumph of the programme developers art to have it open the program window straight away?)

This shows the Safely Remove Hardware Window

Well this is even less helpful until you click on the “Display device components” checkbox

and now you get far more information, in fact enough to be confusing but not enough to easily work out which device is which!

Compare this with the USB Disk Ejector utility window:

Now this isn’t perfect (See What Could make this Better? at the end of this post) but it certainly is a lot less cluttered and far more informative.

Why Do I Want It?

I use several different USB drives often at the same time. These include portable drives, memory sticks and flash card readers. Trying to “Safely Remove” one of these often requires opening “My Computer” to help determine which drive is allocated to each drive letter before running the Windows “Safely Remove Hardware” utility. Finally getting totally fed up with this process I searched for a tool that would do the job more efficiently and found USB Disk Ejector.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Lists the currently mounted USB drive devices.
• Allows these devices to be ejected (unmounted )

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 15% [?]

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What Is It?

A utility that monitors the files accessed by any specified process or program. For the selected process it provides the filename and extension, last handle, last error, Opening module and address, the number of times that the file was opened and closed, number of read/write calls, total number of read/write bytes, the dll that made the last open-file call.

Why Would You Want It?

Ever wondered why a particular process is reading or writing to files so often or wondered what all the disk activity is about. Using Windows Task Manager and selecting the Read, Write and Other columns will show the overall activity but not which files or where they are located. This utility allows you to find out this information quickly and easily.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Provides details of files accessed by a selected process

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

(more…)

Popularity: 14% [?]

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