You probably need Outlook Configuration Analyzer Tool
Microsoft Outlook is a large and complex application, so if your copy starts misbehaving then it may not always be obvious where to start looking for a solution. But don’t worry, help is finally at hand. Two Microsoft engineers with more than 30 years of combined experience in supporting Office, Outlook and Exchange Server have produced the Outlook Configuration Analyzer Tool (OCAT), a useful program that will scan your Outlook 2007/ 2010 profile for common issues and report on anything it finds.
OCAT isn’t portable, unfortunately, so you’ll need to install it first. But with that done, it’s easy enough to use: make sure Outlook is running, launch the program, click Start a scan > Start scanning, and around 20 seconds later (if our test PC is typical) you’ll be looking at a detailed report.
Who owns that Explorer folder? NTFS Permissions Reporter knows
If you’ve ever tried to figure out your PC’s NTFS folder permissions with the standard Explorer tools then you’ll know it can take a while. The basic details are a few clicks away, even the advanced tools don’t tell you everything you need to know, and if you need to check several folders then you’ll have to right-click each one of them individually: very tedious.
Fortunately there is now an interesting alternative, though, in the NTFS Permissions Reporter.
Lightweight Mirage Anti-Bot is heavy on malware
Protecting yourself from web-borne malware can often be something of a hassle. Especially if the process involves browser toolbars, which can slow you down and make your system more unstable.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. And the new Mirage Anti-Bot is a great example of a simpler, more lightweight approach.
Paragon Hard Disk Manager 12 Suite first look
If you were after a hard disk management package, then Paragon’s Hard Disk Manager 11 Suite was one of the picks of 2011, packed with functionality, and including something to handle all your partitioning, backup, cloning, defrag and system recovery needs.
We weren’t entirely sure how much scope there was for improvement in the upcoming Hard Disk Manager 12 Suite, then. But we were interested to find out, and so when Paragon Software offered us an exclusive first look we eagerly installed and launched a pre-release build.
Unwrap Windows 7 in a Box
Windows 7 comes packed with useful applets, functions and features, and locating them isn’t always easy. Can you remember where the Data Execution Prevention settings are to be found, for instance? If you don’t know already, tracking them down can be a problem, as they’re not flagged on the Start menu anywhere and entering various keywords in the Windows Search box won’t return anything relevant.
But then that’s where Windows 7 in a Box comes in. It’s a tiny tool (268KB in size) that organizes more than 160 functions, applets, applications and folders into just six menus so there’s actually a chance that you can find the option you need.
Reopen Windows apps with UndoClose
If you close a tab in Firefox and then realize you’ve made a mistake, it’s easily fixed: just press Ctrl+Shift+T and the last-closed tab will be instantly reopened. Very convenient.
If you’re working at the Windows 7 desktop and accidentally close the wrong application or Explorer window, though, there’s no obvious safety net to reload them. Unless, that is, you run UndoClose, which delivers very similar functionality at the press of a key.
Need more from your presentation? ZoomIt!
Often, during a presentation, you’ll want to focus on a particular area of the screen. A mouse cursor can help, custom tools like PointerStick are even better, but for real flexibility look no further than Sysinternals ZoomIt.
At its simplest, the program can deliver a simple, static zoom: just press the (configurable) hotkey, then use the mouse wheel or up and down arrow keys to zoom in on the area you need.
Auslogics Disk Defrag Pro review
At first glance Auslogics Disk Defrag Pro looks much like any other defrag tool.
There’s the list of your drives, for instance. Choose one, click Analyze and a few seconds later you’ll get a fragmentation report (including the usual cluster map). And if it’s not looking good, click Defrag and the program will rearrange your files for the best possible performance -- just as promised by every other disk defragger.
New UI and cloud functions headline avast! 7 beta
AVAST Software has released the first public betas of its 2012 security family, in the shape of avast! 7 Free, Pro and Internet Security.
One immediately obvious change comes in the revamped installer. If you’re tired of security tools taking over your entire system then you’ll appreciate the degree of control you get here. Install Internet Security, say, and you can choose precisely which core components you need (firewall, sandbox, spam filter, browsing protection, more), and which real-time shields, making it much easier to create a minimum install which should run alongside other security packages.
Is your graphics card wonky? GPU Caps Viewer can help
The average graphics card is now a seriously complicated piece of kit, a host of complex subsystems and technologies working together to deliver the visuals you expect. When everything’s running smoothly then that’s just fine, as you don’t have to pay attention to any of this, but if your system’s misbehaving then GPU Caps Viewer may be able to help you find out why.
The program provides all the core details about your hardware, for instance: its GPU model, Shader cores, BIOS version, TDP, memory size and type. You’re able to monitor its current temperature, fan speed, clock rates, voltage and GPU load, too. Do you have the drivers you need? The program details your primary driver, OpenGL, OpenCL, CUDA and PhysX support on a single page.
Ad-Aware 10 definitely needs to be on your shortlist
Lavasoft has today released one final beta of Ad-Aware 10, the latest incarnation of its flagship anti-malware package. The program will soon be available in three versions -- Ad-Aware Free Antivirus+, Ad-Aware Personal Security ($12 per year) and Ad-Aware Pro Security ($36 per year) -- but, unusually, it’s the free release this time around that sees the most significant change.
Many technologies previously reserved for the commercial editions only are now available in the free build, for instance. So real-time process protection will detect and block malware before it can launch; Registry protection looks out for potentially risky Registry changes, and real-time network protection blocks connections to blacklisted IP addresses. Ad-Aware 10 Free gains advanced rootkit protection, too, and the new (to this edition) Game Mode means the program can maintain all this without hassling you with extra alerts.
Dolphin Text Editor Menu -- advanced formatting from most any Windows app
If you occasionally need to format a text document in advanced ways, perhaps adding line numbers or sorting its lines alphabetically, then your first thought might be to find and install a programmer’s editor. But these can be expensive, and complex, leaving you with a whole new editing interface to learn.
A better idea might be to install Dolphin Text Editor Menu. The program runs in the background, ready to work with virtually any application where you can enter text: Notepad, Wordpad, Word, Excel, Visual Studio, browsers and more. So you can use your preferred application as normal, then when you need some advanced option, just select the text you’d like to format, press Dolphin’s hotkey (Ctrl+Num Pad 0 by default) and the program’s menu will pop up.
CyberLink PowerDVD 12 Ultra Review
PowerDVD has always been one of the most popular commercial DVD and Blu-ray players, but these days that’s just the start of its abilities.
CyberLink is now trying to position the program as more of a universal media player, a one-stop shop for all your media playback needs -- and PowerDVD 12 Ultra takes that a notable step forward.
Security Task Manager reveals malware other apps miss
Your system is misbehaving, and you think there’s a good chance it’s been infected by malware, but your antivirus package isn’t raising any alerts. So what do you do next?
One option is to install the trial version of Security Task Manager. This can display all your running processes and rate their potential risk -- all based purely on behavior and code analysis, no signature files are required, and so it may highlight dangerous processes which other tools miss.
Drive Manager -- when Windows Explorer isn't enough
Hard drives, memory card readers, DVDs and Blu-rays, network drives, removable disks and more: even a budget PC can have a host of storage options available at any one time. If you find you have trouble managing these with Explorer, though, then the free, portable Drive Manager has plenty of tools to help.
These start by presenting the key drive basics on a single opening screen, so just about everything you might need is available at a glance. There’s the drive volume name and type, for instance; network path; file system; capacity and space free; vendor or product name (useful for identifying which USB drive you’ve connected), and more.
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