It happened to me a couple of weeks ago: my computer started acting flaky and unreliable, taking an unreasonably long time to boot (and sometimes failing do so), and driving me nuts in the process. In these situations most people I (believe), start wondering if they’ve contracted a virus or other malware, or puzzling over whether a recently added software might have caused the matter. All of these are plausible avenues of exploration, but if nothing seems to work you should check to see if your hard drive might have bad sectors on it that may be causing the problem. This is what Surface Scanner does and performs the job quite rapidly.

Surface Scanner vs. Windows’ check disk tool: the main reason why you would use this is for a quick diagnosis – it is considerably faster than Windows’ built in checker and the scan can be performed from within Windows without a reboot. However, it does not have a “repair” bad sectors option which the Windows utility offers.

A couple of quick notes:

• How to use: install then run; mount the hard drive you want to check then press “scan”. This can be done from within Windows, no need to reboot.
• Fast: it took about 10 minutes to scan my 5400 rpm 80-gig drive.
• If you encounter many errors: then stop the scan; you now have the information you need, and forcing the scan might further damage the drive and decrease the chances of salvaging your data.

The verdict: the scan is fast enough that its worth doing every once in a while if your system is acting weird, seeming to work fine in one instance and hanging up the next.

If you do find bad sectors: the first thing I would do is get my data out of there ASAP. Next you might try to run software that will attempt to apply fixes to the problem. Windows’ own check disk seems to have an option to do that. I am not sure if there are any good freeware tools that will attempt to fix bad sectors … if you know of any let me know in the comments. In any case fix or no fix if you have bad sectors you should start planning to replace the drive immediately. (Oh, and in the case I described above my hard drive turned out fine, to my relief!).

Version Tested: 1.0

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 1.78 megs).

This software is designed to encrypt entire hard drives, storage devices, or CD/DVD media. It is similar to TrueCrypt, another notable software previously mentioned on this site; however DiskCryptor lays claim to several advantages:

1. It can encrypt partitions with existing data: without destroying the data. This is obviously very practical and useful and is a significant advantage.
2. It can create encrypted CD’s/DVD’s: through the use of .ISO images. DiskCryptor will encrypt these and the user can subsequently burn them to actual physical media.
3. “Truly” Open Source: purports to be “the only truly free solution provided under GNU General Public License” (in contrast to the “TrueCrypt Collective License” which apparently places restrictions on the modification of the source data).

Disadvantages vs. TrueCrypt:

1. Unlike TrueCrypt, DiskCryptor is not designed to create file containers that can be mounted as encrypted virtual drives. It will, in other words, encrypt a partition or an entire hard drive or flash drive, but strangely will not create an encrypted file that you can mount as a virtual drive. I personally find this omission very strange and I am sure will cause many to stick with TrueCrypt.
2. Lacks the “plausible deniability” feature (where if, say, you are “forced” to surrender a password you can give a decoy which displays innocuous files). Although I personally think this feature is unimportant.
3. Although it is designed to encrypt bootable system partitions, the version I tested (0.8.548.97) has a known limitation in that the partition will not boot after encryption. If you want to encrypt system/bootable partitions you have to either wait for a future version, use a bootable CD (such as BartPE), or … use TrueCrypt.

More on how DiskCryptor works:

• Mounting encrypted drives: DiskCryptor has to be running in memory. To use an encrypted flash drive or CD on, say, your work and home computers, you need to install the program in both places.
• Booting encrypted drives: fully support bootings encrypted system partitions (including support for different multi-boot scenarios). DiskCryptor can also be integrated into a BartPE bootable Livedisk; instructions here.
• Caching passwords: if you have this enabled, entering a password once will cache it in kernel memory so that it mounts automatically on next insert, which is really cool. You can disable caching if you want and of course you can clear all passwords from the cache at will.
• Performance: superfast. Your encrypted disks, in other words, will be as fast as regular disks for all practical purposes. You can perform any operation on mounted encrypted drives that you would on normal drives (such as defrag, etc.).
• Support: these are all quotes from the program site; “full support for dynamic disks”, support for “disk partition encryption of any configuration, including boot and system partitions”, “support for hardware cryptography found in VIA processors”, “support for disk devices with large sector sizes, which is important when working with hardware RAID”, “support for hardware cryptography found in VIA processors”, “full support for 3rd party boot loaders (LILO, GRUB, etc.)”
• Encryption modes: a wide range to choose from; AES, Twofish, Serpent, AES-Twofish, Twofish-Serpent, Serpent-AES or AES-Twofish-Serpent in XTS mode.
  Extended configuration possibilities of booting an encrypted OS. Support for different multi-boot scenarios.
• Command line version: available
• Hotkeys: although this did not seem to be active in the version I tested, you will in the future be able to use hotkeys to perform actions such as dismounting partitions, initiating an emergency system stop, etc.

The verdict: I think this is a very exciting software that has huge potential. DriveCrypt was conceived, according to the website, as a replacement for DriveCrypt Plus Pack and PGP Whole Disk Encryption (WDE). The aim has subsequently changed to “create the best product in its category”, and I think they are well underway to achieve this goal.

Having said that I really wish future versions of DriveCrypt encrypted file containers. I know that for many people (including myself) this is an indispensable feature and could be a significant barrier to using this program over a program such as TrueCrypt for example.

Version Tested: 0.8.548.97

Compatibility: Windows 2000 SP0-SP4, XP (x86, x64) SP0-SP3, Server 2003 (x86, x64) SP0-SP2, Vista (x86, x64) SP0-SP2, Server 2008 (x86, x64), Windows 7 (x86, x64) RC0, RC1.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 579K).

Imagine the following scenario: you’ve freshly re-installed Windows, installed your crucial security apps and a handful of essential programs that you use; that you installed all the security patches and updates and driver updates; the "perfect", unadulterated state that you would love to be able to go back to if problems arise or something happens that decreases your system’s performance.

Another scenario: you wake up one morning and find that your computer is not booting. After running your PC manufacturer’s built-in diagnostic utility, you are heartened to find that there is apparently nothing wrong with the hard drive surface and that the problem is software-related. You wish that you could go back to a previous state when things were working swimmingly.

What both scenarios above have in common, of course, is that you can use a disk-imaging app such as Easeus Todo backup to solve both situations by creating backup images of your hard drive partitions and restoring them later when you need to.

SEVEN things I like about this program:

1. Creates its own bootable disk: to enable booting into the program and restoring the active primary boot partitions. This is great because (a) it is so easy and quick, and (b) a number of freeware hard disk imaging programs that I’ve seen simply (and strangely) do not support boot partition restoration.
2. Mounts image files: for quick browsing of files/contents. Read only.
3. Offers file-by-file copying or sector-by-sector: unless you expressly want the latter, the former (file-by-file) is faster. It is also more user-friendly if restoring to a larger hard drive.
4. Backup straight to CD/DVD: and will split the image file by appropriately sized chunks.
5. Free for both personal and business use.
6. The help file: is excellent and informative beyond what I would have expected, and thus warrants a mention.
7. The interface design: simple, clean easy to use.

More features:

• Clone disk: very useful if you are upgrading to a larger hard drive and want to move all the data over.
• Compresses and/or password encrypts image files: optional.
• SupportsWindows server 03 and 08. I mention this because it is apparently a unique feature esp .among freeware programs of this kind.
• Supported file systems: FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS.
• Supported partition sizes: minimum 2 gigs, max 1.5 TB.
• Supported hard drive types: IDE, SATA, SCSI, USB removable disk, and Firewire disks

The verdict: this program inspires confidence if only because it is from the same people that gave us the excellent EASEUS Partition Master (one of my favorite free disk partitioning programs). It manages to combine advanced features with a really simple interface design that both novices and advanced users will appreciate.

I also like the fact that this program can create bootable media quickly and that it can be easily booted into. No hunting around the internet to figure out how to install it into BartPE or something like it.

But the best thing about it is that it does the job and does it well. Recommended.

Version Tested: 1.0

Compatibility: Windows 2000 (SP4), XP (32 and 64 bit), Vista (32 and 64 bit), Server 2003 (32 and 64 bit), and Server 2008 (32 and 64 bit).

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 35.3 megs).

Do you need a directory comparison and synchronization program with a lot of features and options? If so then you’ve just found one of the best free programs in its class. Before I continue I will point out that for this review I will use a mock question-and-answer format where I pretend I am being interviewed by someone else

Q: You’ve said that this is one of the best directory comparison apps. Why do you like it so much?
A: I like that it supports so many advanced options. But there are three real reasons:

1. The interface: this program’s Graphical User Interface is just tremendous. It looks good and delivers a great user experience in the way the items are compared are presented visually, and each entry has a little button that can be used for individual on-the-fly syncing.
2. Supports multiple folder comparisons simultaneously: which means you can perform all your folder comparisons and synchronizations at once and be done with it. You can also save your sessions (which the program calls "configurations"), to quickly re-do the comparisons at a future point in time.
3. Can create automated "batch files" for folder syncing: these can be run from the command line, and will allow you to specify folder(s) to compare, rules for syncing, file extension filters, and other details (see image to the right).

Q: How does this program determine which files are different and which files are the same?
A: It lets the user decide whether it should compare the actual content of the files or whether to simply compare the size and date of files.

Q: Does it support 2-way synchronization?
A: Yes. It supports "Mirror syncs" (right folder will exactly match the left, no matter what’s in it), "Update syncs" (new/updated files will be copied to the right folder), and "Two-way syncs" (both sides will be changed to reflect the new or updated files that are found on either side). Deletions ca an be performed via the Recycle Bin, which gives the user recourse to go and salvage them if need be, and copy errors can be ignored if necessary as well.

There is a also a so called custom sync option where users can create their own syncing rules, but it does not seem to be active as of the version I tested.

Q: Is it possible to only compare certain file extensions, or specify extensions that should NOT be compared?
A: Yes. You can do either one of the above, i.e. specify what to include or specify what to exclude (see image to the right for an example where I am excluding ZIP, RAR and JPG files from processing). You can also use the context menu for some quick, on-the fly file extension filtering. It is also very easy to hide or show filtered items from the main display interface.

Q: You mentioned other "advanced options" that this program supports. Can you list some of these?
A: Supports filesizes larger that 4GB, no limitations on number of files, "delete before copy" to avoid disc space shortages with large sync operations, handling of cloned files (i.e. symbolic links or junctures), UniCode and Network support.

Q: So what’s the verdict? Any last remarks.
A: Excellent Program. I was looking for a program that can compare two folders (and subfolders) when I found this and it was so much more that I expected. I highly recommend it.

I also would like to mention that there is a portable version available. Simply download the zipped version and extract it where you want it, even on a USB drive.

Version Tested: 2.1 build July 3 2009 Unicode

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 1.3 megs).

There are many excellent freeware programs that can mount disk images into virtual drives. What is interesting about this one, however, is that it is completely integrated into Windows explorer, such that mounting an image file becomes a simple matter of double clicking on the disk image file (as you would any other file), and – voila! it is mounted.

If you don’t know what mounting a disk image means, here’s a quick description: a disk image file (of which .ISO files are the most common) is a CD or DVD saved locally on the hard drive as a single file, and which can be burned to a CD or DVD with a program like Imgburn. “Mounting” this file to a virtual drive means that your system will behave as if a real, physical CD or DVD was inserted into a real drive. Virtual drives are much faster than physical drives.

More notes below:

• Image formats supported: I’m quoting the website; “supports ISO, CUE, BIN/RAW/IMG file formats as well as SMB network shares and includes a workaround for Windows cache bug“
• Number of drives supported: unlimited.
• Supports network shares.

The verdict: there are many freeware disk image mounting options but I like the fact that this one is invisibly integrated into Windows explorer and that it supports such a wide range of image formats. I reviewed MagicDisc previously which has the added option of creating image files from CDs/DVD, but if you do not want that functionality (or if you already have it via your CD/DVD burning program), the WinCDEmu may be a more attractive option.

Version tested: 2.2

Compatibility: Windows XP and Vista, 32 and 64 bit.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 783K).

How do you free up space on your hard drive? Assuming that you’ve cleaned your drives from all accumulated junk files (using a program such as CCleaner for example), the next step is to figure out which files/folders are taking up the space in the first place, and after that to make decisions as to whether or not you can afford to get rid of some of the offenders.

How do you do this? I’ve written about a number of programs that represent file and folder sizes, one of my favorites being Free Disk Usage Analyzer. The difference between this aforementioned program and SpaceSniffer is that the former is focused on presenting lists of the largest-size files and folders and comparing using bars and charts (which is extremely useful); SpaceSniffer, on the other hand, uses a different approach entirely that is much more holistic and conducive to discovering files and folders on your drives that you didn’t realize occupied the space that they actually do. Here are more notes on this program:

• The interface: is quite pleasant to work with; simple, yet effective. The two blue buttons on the toolbar control whether you would like more or less detail overall, while the green “star” toggles the display of the available free space.
• Filters: you can use multiple filters separated by commas. For example “*.zip, *.mp3″ will only display zip and mp3 files only, while, say “*black*” will only display elements with the word “black” in the file/folder names. Also size and date extension“<2years”. The following combination “*.jpg;>1mb;<3months” will show JPEG’s that are larger than 1 meg dated within the last 3 months.
• Navigation: click on the boxes to drill down into more detail, or use the arrow buttons in the toolbar, browser style. Note that a brown square means that the entity is a folder and you can click on it to drill down further; a blue square means that you cannot drill down (that its a file not a folder).Clicking on the box “title” will maximize it into the screen, hiding all the others.
• Context menu: right click on a file or folder (represented by a square), and you can access the regular Windows context menu for that file; a very cool feature, as this means that you can manipulate your files/folders on the spot (delete them or open them to evaluate whether or not you want them still, etc.)
• Interactive: if its running it will respond to changes on your system and reflect them in its representation.
• Portable: unzip and run.

The verdict: a very well made program that is simple, intuitive, elegant, and very useful. An excellent tool for exploring the contents of your hard drive that should be in your arsenal even if you (like me) like the rank-by-size function that other file-size exploration programs provide. To quote the program’s site “just… give it a try”… you will like it.

Version Tested: 1.0.3.18

Compatibility: Windows All.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 870K).

is designed to display a summary of your disk’s occupancy or otherwise a ranked list of the largest files or the largest folders.

Are you running out of space on your hard drive(s)? With all the music and media files, etc., and other random junk that accumulates these days it is easy to find all the space gobbled up. FreeDiskAnalyzer is a very well designed tool that can help you identify files and folders that are taking up the most space so that you can decide on the ones to delete (or move onto other storage) that would make a tangible difference on your disk’s free space.

This program is designed around 3 tabs that you can use to view your data. These are; (1) a contents “overview” tab (displays a normal folder structure); (2) a “Largest Files” tab that presents a flat overview of all the files on your selected hard drive or folder, sorted by size; and (3) a “Largest Folders” tab: which presents a flat overview of all the folders inside your selected hard drive or folder sorted by size.

Here are 3 reasons why this software is pretty cool:

1. The Largest Files tab: is extremely useful, especially if you need to clear some space quickly and want to find and remove gigantic files that are the worst offenders. What makes this really useful is that it is a flat list that includes all files inside your selected drive or folder and its subfolders recursively.
2. A “Largest Folders” tab: same as above. The flat display is very useful in that you don’t have to go hunting down treelike structures to find the biggest space hogs (this tab pictured in the screenshot on top of the post).
3. The “normal” windows context menu is enabled in the list of results. This means that you can intervene on-the-spot to delete files/folders that you don’t want, move them, or perform whatever operation you choose. (Some programs of this kind force you to jump back into Windows explorer to perform operations; not this one).

The verdict: this program doesn’t have the pie charts and fancy visuals that are offered by other programs in it’s category, but it really doesn’t need them and in my opinion it’s simple use of flat lists and of bars and percentages is much more useful than a lot of fancy graphics. I especially appreciate the largest file list, which is really helpful (and many times is missing from programs like this one).

It is extremely well designed, to-the-point, and very practical. Recommended!

Version Tested: 1.0.1.22

Compatibility: Windows All.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 11.1 megs).

[Update 12/4/2008] This review updated to include two new features that were added in the new Easeus Partition Manager v.3.0: copying drives and partitions.

This program makes managing or changing your hard drive partitions extremely simple and easy. The reason for this is that unlike many partition management programs that typically have to be booted into from a liveCD (e..g the excellent Gparted), Easeus Partition Manager runs from Windows, has an excellent, simple to use user interface, and (again unlike most other free partitioning software) can perform many – though not all – operations on the spot without requiring a reboot. Here are more notes on this program:

• The User Interface: is clean and intuitive. It displays your drives/partitions visually within a “disk map” that shows the status of your partitions and drives at a glance, including used vs. blank space, any unallocated space, as well as basic partition information. There is also a list of drives and partitions and all operations can be performed by simply right clicking on the drive/partition you want to change (or from the buttons on the main toolbar).
• How it works: Easeus Partition Manager provides a staging environment where you select your disk/partition edits and changes in sequence, then implement all of them at once when you’re done. Until you are ready to implement it gives you the option to undo individual steps or undo all changes if you need to.
• Supported drives: IDE, SATA, SCSI, USB removable disk, and Firewire disks are all supported. The smallest capability is 2 GB and (as of ver. 3.0) the largest is I.5 TB; supports a maximum of 32 disks.
• Performance: is simply excellent, although I say this from a purely subjective persepctive. I have performed lengthy partition resizing operations with Gparted before and Easeus Partition Manager seems to be faster, but note that I only tested it on moving 1 gig across partitions.
• Primary functions: resizing, formatting, creating, and deleting partitions. You can actually resize a partition visually in the resize dialog by grabbing onto the edge of the displayed partition and moving it (see image to the right).
  
• Other functions: “change drive letter” (haven’t tried myself, wondering if it works on a primary partition i.e. changing the default C: to something else). “Hide partition” (a way to prevent your partition from appearing in explorer, for security reasons), “set active partition” (i.e. set the bootable partition that will contain your OS), “check partition“, which will check your partition for errors using Windows’ built in diagnostic tools (Chkdisk.exe and Scandisk).
• New functions in v3.0: copy partitions or drives. This is useful for either upgrading to a larger disk, for backup, or for data salvage purposes. Easeus Partition Manager will perform either a file copy or, if it encounters data corruption or errors, a sector by sector copy. The program perform the copying process after a re-boot, outside of the Windows environment, which I mention because I found the speed of the copying to be quite fast/noteworthy. Note that disk/partition copy is not disk imaging and should not be confused with that (the process generates files within a folder structure, not an image file).
• Differences between free and paid versions: the free Home Edition is free for home and individual use, not commercial use. The free version will run on Windows 2000, XP, and Vista 32 bit only, while the paid versions will run on 64 bit, server editions and various other Windows versions. The free version will not create a bootable disk, which the paid versions do.

The verdict: this program is billed as a “free replacement for Partition Magic” and as such it is a very worthy one. It is very powerful and easy to use and as the free edition for individual users it packs all the power that the paid editions offers. What I like about this program is that it works straight from the Windows environment, as opposed to having to boot into it from a LiveCD or bootable drive. This makes the program much more accessible, user friendly, and easy to install and use. This is freeware just as I like it: simple, straightforward, easy to use, and does the job brilliantly. Highly recommended.

Version Tested: 3.0

Compatibility: Windows 2000, XP, and Vista (for the free versions).

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 7.93 megs).

[Update Jul 24, 2008] This program has gone through several changes as to warrant an updated review and a “Freewaregenius Pick” award!

This program is similar to the afore-mentioned “Desk Drive” in that it aims to provide the user with automatic shortcuts to their USB and other drives that appear and disappear from the desktop as the user plugs their media in and out. Shortly after posting the review for “Desk Drive” I received the following email from the author of this program, which pretty much sums it all: “I just saw your post on the Desk Drive application yesterday, and I thought it was a great idea ….. Unfortunately, I usually prefer not to install .NET apps, so I decided to write my own version of this… It also has a feature that Desk Drive does not, which is support for Symbolic Links via the Junction utility from SysInternals… Please let me know if you run into any bugs and I will be glad to fix them. This was a great idea for an application and I wanted to create an app with a small footprint to make it a little more appealing.” This about sums it all up. Here are more notes on “Desktop Media”:

• Supported media: optionally supports any or all of: removable drives, fixed drives, network/remote drives, CD/DVD drives and RAM disks. Also allows the exclusion of specific drive letters that you might want to opt out of displaying desktop shortcuts.
• Hard links: you can opt for hard links rather than shortcuts. The difference is that while shortcuts point to the drive icon, hard links are equivalent to them (i.e. it is just like having a drive icon on your desktop). This might be handy for some file operations that might not work with shortcuts very well. Note (a) the program will automatically prompt the installation of the included Sysinternals “Junction” utility if you choose hard links, (b) to learn more about hard links see this related post, and (c) a suggested use for hard links: if you add your desktop as a toolbar on your taskbar (see screenshot)you can browse the media right from your taskbar.
• Save icon position: provides the option to remember the placement of the icon(s) on the desktop, in order to display them in the same locations in the future.
• User interface: lives in the system tray, but provides the option to hide that icon (whereby the program dialog can be accessed again from the start menu).
• Note on removable media: e.g. USB drives and CD/DVD drives, Desktop Media, to quote the developer’s site, “will only add the drive to your desktop if it is present … if you have a CD/DVD drive, but no
  disc is present, you won’t see the icon on your desktop”.
• Maximize windows: the option to open drives as maximized windows, (i.e. when you click on the drive icon, the window will appear maximized on your entire screen).
• Memory use: approx. 4 megs. (Compared to Desk Drive, whose memory use is not 100% clear because of .NET – anywhere between 2 to 18 megs).

The verdict: a very nice program that adds a very nice functionality to Windows. I prefer this to “Desk Drive” because it does not require .NET and because of its clear (and generally low) memory usage, as well as its support for hard links as well as shortcuts.

[Thanks Ian Perez for this wonderful app!]

Version Tested: 1.7

Compatibility: Windows XP; Vista.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 354K).

If you’re not to keen on Windows’ default method of safely ejecting USB devices (the little icon in the system tray) and/or if you encounter the dreaded “The device cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device again later” message more frequently than you care for, EjectUSB might just be exactly what the doctor ordered. Running the EjectUSB executable is simple and easy and can provide a one-click solution for getting all file/program contingencies resolved

Here are more notes on this program:

• How to use: extract the EjectUSB folder onto your USB, and then when you are ready simply run the “EjectUSB.exe” executable to eject. If you would like to have a shortcut on your USB’s root folder that runs EjectUSB check out this posting.
• Does it work: mostly, yes, with some exceptions. There are times when EjectUSB will keep trying to eject the drive and/or close running programs or files but fail. I would suggest that you close open documents and programs as you would normally then use EjectUSB to eject the USB after that; this always seemed to work on my system (to quote the author “EjectUSB was designed to eject the drive as quickly as possible, not to manage programs that the user hasn’t saved data in yet”).
• Note on performance: some performance kinks have been ironed out across various releases of this program, and I expect future releases will continue the trend.
• Options: you can modify the INI file and/or run the program from the command line to invoke many options such as whether it will forcibly terminate programs, how much time to wait to allow it to happen, whether to clean the registry, etc.

The verdict: a very useful program that delivers what it promises. This program is a work in progress but has been progressing rapidly and steadily and I expect it to only get better. Recommended.

Version Tested: 1.3.0.0

Compatibility: WinAll..

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 251K).

If you use CCleaner to clean your hard drive (temp files, internet activity, cookies, history, etc.) you already know that it is an indispensable and excellent program. What Click&Clean does is simply provide a 1-click complete cleanup using CCleaner from within Internet Explorer, Firefox, or the desktop Quick Launch without having to interact with any of CCleaner’s prompts or dialogs. Moreover, if Click&Clean is used from within a browser, the cleaning operation will be performed without the need to shut down the browser first. Here are more notes on this program:

• Adding browser buttons: in IE right click on the IE toolbar then ’customize command bar’ then ’add or remove commands’. Select the blue ’Cleaner’ icon and add it to the IE toolbar. For Firefox, right click the toolbar and select ’customize’, then drag the blue Cleaner icon to the Firefox toolbar. A desktop “quick launch” icon is added by default upon installation.
• How it works: clicking on the Cleaner button in a browser or otherwise launching it from the Quick Launch bar will start the process. In Firefox, Click&Clean seems to also kick-start Firefox’s “clear private data” option (seems to be a workaround designed around CCleaner’s inability to clean the Firefox environment without shutting it down first). To configure Firefox properly, go to Tools > Options > Privacy, clear a check mark beside “Ask me before clearing private data” (see this page for more info).

The verdict: I really like this one, as I really like (a) having a “browser cleaning” function in the browser, and (b) the quick 1-click cleaning that it provides. If you already use CCleaner it circumvents the need to have an additional program in the browser (such as Cachepal or the Internet Cleaner component of ALToolbar to name two) that duplicate the CCleaner function and might not be as sophisticated as this program.

Version Tested: 3.0

Compatibility: Windows 200, XP, Vista. CCleaner required. Works with Internet Explorer 5.0 – 7.0 and Firefox 1.5.0 – 3.x.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 397K).

There are many scenarios where you will find this tool useful: if you need to synchronize files between a laptop and your main computer, if you backup files on a network or external drive. However it has to be noted that its purpose is synchronization; if you are looking for a backup tool that can schedule automated backups there are many freeware options such as Karen’s Replicator, Cobian Backup, Jaback, or SyncBack.

This program is as straightforward as can be, but offers some good options as follows:

• Sync directions: bidirectional, single direction (left to right or right to left), or single direction without deleting missing files or folders. These relate to whether the user wants to give primacy over one directory over the other, and whether there was activity to be updated on one of the directories or both.
• Filename masks: you can specify which file extensions Pathsync should consider or alternately which ones not to be considered. Examples: *.mp3;*jpg;*avi will only sync mp3s, jpeg images, and avi videos. !*.mp3;* will include everything except mp3 files, !music’;* will include everything except the directory named "music", and *proj_A* will only sync files that have "proj_A" in the filename.
• Preview actions: once you set your paths and filename masks Pathsync will analyze your directories and display a list of actions. You can review these and right click on any one of them to change it if you so desire.
• Ignore list: you can set Pathsync to ignore file sizes, file dates, missing local files, or missing remote files when performing its analysis.
• Throttling file copying: this is one of my favorite features. Once copying begins, Pathsync allows you to manually adjust the memory buffer used for copying, which can significantly increase the copying speed.
• Performance: worth mentioning is the impressive speed by which Pathsync performed the analysis of the two directories.

Wish list:

• The ability to define batch jobs or a list of jobs under the same settings. Currently you can only compare two paths at a time, which forces you to put everything that you want to synchronize in one root directory.

The verdict: wonderful program for quick, ad-hoc directory synchronizations. I recently moved some 40 gigs of stuff from one laptop to another on the network, for which I used this program extensively and found it to be a delight. I will again mention that it is not designed for automated or scheduled backups and does not offer such options as encrypted or zipped backups. However, what I like is the simplicity of it as a straightforward tool that does a fantastic job.

Version Tested: 0.35

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 123K).

If you ever attempted to copy a large number of files and folders from one partition to another or across network or external drive(s), you might have run across a number of problems with the native windows copying function: the process can take a very long time, or it can ground to a halt for any minor reason, such as encountering a corrupt file, leaving you with the option to either try to fix the problem and re-do the copying operation (and hope for the best the second time around) or figure out which files/folders were copied and try to copy the ones that weren’t (which can be a very time consuming and precarious operation).

With a program like Copy Handler, on the other hand, the copying process is not interrupted by problematic, but moves on to the next file. Moreover, Copy Handler delivers full control over the copying process; not only does it allow the user to pause, resume, or stop the process at will, but it also introduces a “file basket” type functionality and file filters that can control which files to be copied. It also can result in significant speed increases in the transfer process. More info on this program below:

• Speed: the program can deliver varying transfer speed increases up to 6-7 times faster than Windows. One of the reasons for this is that it employs a non-parallel transfer queue rather than attempting to copy many files at once. Note: these figures are from the program page; I did not measure anything Myself.
• Control: once a copy or move process is in progress, Copy Handler displays a control dialog that allows you pause, resume, or stop the copying or moving process (screenshot above). You can also control whether to preserve the directory structure in the destination folder or whether to simply copy the file loosely without creating a folder structure. Copy Handler also provides control over advanced parameters such as setting priorities and customizing buffer sizes, etc.) which can be done through a larger, more detailed dialog (screenshot to the right).
• Filtering: this is one of my favorite features. You can select, say, a list of hundreds of files, select copy then “paste special” from the context menu. This will display a filter that you can use to control exactly which files to be copied. You can, for example, choose to only copy zip and exe files and exclude all others, or conversely you can exclude filetypes in the same way. You can also use advanced parameters to determine files to copy (e.g. files that were created, modified, or last accessed after or before such-and-such a date, files that are larger or smaller than a certain size, files that have certain attributes, etc. See screenshot on the right for more on this.
• File “basket“: one of the things you can do from the filtering screen (accessed through “paste special” or the system tray icon) is to keep adding files and folders to the queue. This results in a centralized “file basked” that you can use to add all of the files that you want copied. Once you are ready to perform the transfer Copy Handler will copy the files in the sequence they were added.
• Integration: Copy Handler can (optionally) be invoked by the CTRL-C and CTRL-V shortcuts as well as drag and drop, can (optionally) integrate into the Windows right-click menu, and can (optionally) observe the clipboard and, once it detects a copy operation, open a copy dialog that supports defining favorite folders.
• Memory use: a mere 5 megs in memory. Small by any measure, especially when you consider the functionality it delivers.

Wish list:

• Damaged file recovery: something which is offered by Unstoppable Copier and other programs similar to this one. Would be a nice function to have, although in some way it is no biggie since I can always use the no-install Unstoppable Copier if I need this.
• Program deletes files skipped during move operation: according to the website this was a feature at the beginning, apparently, but now the author has it on his list of things to change. (And I hope this happens soon, as I am loathe to recommend a program that might delete wanted files).
• Paste Shortcut broken: the version I tested seemed to cancel out the Windows native “paste shortcut” function. Probably an unintended issue, and I hope it will eventually be fixed.
• Portable version: would be great. Both Teracopy and Unstoppable copier offer this.

The verdict: overall this is a great program. It is unique compared to other similar programs (Teracopy, Unstoppable Copier, FFcopy) in the excellent filtering functionality that it offers, and its high degree of customizability. Plus it probably has the best system integration, and is open source. My favorite program in this category.

Version Tested: 1.31 beta svn152

Compatibility: WinAll. 32 and 64 bit versions available.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 42K).

The idea behind this rather original program is to spare you the need to go hunting in “My computer” for a flash drive’s letter number in order to access it when you need it, but rather magically make a shortcut to it appear on the desktop when it is plugged in, and disappear when the drive is unplugged. Honestly this should have been an option in Windows.

The not-so-good news: this program takes up 18 megs in memory, which is surely a lot for this kind of program (and requires MS .NET Framework v2). Also, I’m not sure why but this program did not work on my work computer, but worked just fine on my laptop at home; could it be because I have .NET v3.5 at work? Lastly, I would have liked the option to make the tray icon not be shown.

The verdict: while it might use up a good chunk of memory this is an original, interesting program that could be very useful to some users. You will simply have to weight the cost/benefit: the extent of practical usefulness you foresee vs. whether your computer has the memory to spare.

Version Tested: 1.0

Compatibility: Windows XP; no info on Vista. Requires .NET 2.0 Framework.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 500K).

You may or may not be regularly backing up your most important files and/or archiving the most important version changes, and saving your backups into compressed archives to keep your files from growing too large. But chances are that you do this in fits and starts and/or are not as consistent as you like to be, or even have simply given up on this. Wouldn’t it be just great if there were a program you could run in the background that would automate do this for you and manage the process automatically? DocShield is exactly this program.

Although there are a number of freeware programs that do this (e.g. File Hamster, previously featured on Freewaregenius), DocShield features mature functions such as archive management, on-the-fly compression, and FTP backup. Here are more notes on this program:

• The user interface: is very well designed. The main configuration screen is split into 4 tabs and is very easy and intuitive to work with.
• Files monitored: can monitor local files or files on the network. You can point the program explicitly to the files you want it to monitor (drag and drop is supported), or you can define a folder/folders and tell it to scan for certain file-types (you can include or exclude subfolders and use wildcards to exclude certain files). I would strongly encourage the former approach as I have found that pointing the program to a folder that contains a large number of big files can sometimes be problematic.
• Monitoring activity: the program will check for changes in your files and folders at 5 minutes periods by default, but you can set this to anything you like (seconds/minutes/hours). If it finds that a file has changed from the latest version of it in the archive it will add that latest version to the archive. Any changes or versions that may have been created between the monitoring intervals will not be recorded. (You can also trigger the monitoring action manually by pressing the “Shiled Now” button)
• Browsing the archive: simply click on any file in the list to see the stored iterations/versions of the file, any of which can be extracted at any point.
• Archive management: to avoid backup archives growing too large and out of control, DocShield uses a highly compressed archives and implements a system of managing archive sizes. It will (a) require the user to decide where the archive file(s) is located and how many megs to allocate to it, (b) optionally allow the user to define the maximum number of recent snapshots of each file to be kept, and (c) will either prompt the user for action when the archive size is exceeded or act on its own, based on the settings, to increase archive size or remove snapshots older than a certain number of days. See more on archive management in the wish list below.
• FTP archiving: one of the coolest features is the option to archive documents remotely on an FTP server. If you do not have an FTP server you can sign up for one with the developers of DocShield. Note that I did not test this myself.
• Portability: if you want to carry your archive of documents on a USB drive, you can do so using the “DocShield USB utility”. DocShield will copy both your archive and the utility that can read it into a USB drive.
• Resrouce consumption: the more files/folders it has to monitor, the more resources it will require from your system. For the handful of files I was monitoring it generally consumed something like 25-35 megs and did NOT seem to lay any noticeable claim on CPU processing activity. Not lightweight, but not much of a resource hog. For the service that it offers the cost/benefit is definitely worth it.
• Is DocShield Free?: this program is free for personal use and the download contains the full version. To use this in a commercial setting you need to purchase a license.

Wish list

• Responsiveness: the program runs in the background and, once you point it to a folder, will slowly (very slowly) add all of the relevant files to the backup archive. I made the mistake of processing a very large folder containing a large number of big files, and while it set itself to adding them to the archive, with repeated warnings that the archive max size had been exceeded and prompting me for action, it was irresponsive to my repeated attempts to abort the process of adding the files, or my telling it to remove the ones that were already added. Eventually I had to shut down the process and manually delete the archive to start over. This issue, however, is probably very easily tweaked/improved in future versions.

The verdict: a really nice, mature program that works really well, and has some excellent options. What I like about it is that you can install it, configure it, and then completely forget about it and it can backup and archive your selected files at a high compression ration without the backups growing too large and taking too much space. Highly recommended.

Version Tested: 2.0.2

Compatibility: Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista. Requires .NET Framework 2.0.

Go to program page to download the latest version (approx 700K). Note that you do NOT need to provide your email address when prompted to download this; just click the ’download’ button.

Clones, if you’re wondering, are not copies of a file or shortcuts. Cloned files look like normal files (except for a little inverted blue arrow) and what they are are multiple instances of a file that point to the same exact data. So, for example, you can have a cloned file reside on your desktop as well as in another directory on the same drive (or even in the same directory under a different name), but in reality there is only a single copy on your drive, with two files pointing to it. Opening any one of those two clones will access the same data, so that if you save a change to the file on your desktop for example it will be reflected in the other one as well. The process of creating these clones is referred to as hardlinking.

How this can be useful: hardlinking can be useful whenever your primary method for organizing your files is within a folder structure. As an example, you might organize your MP3s such that each folder represents an album and contains the constituent song files. But let’s say that you also want to have a “best of” folder that contains your favorite songs; instead of making copies of the MP3s and putting them in the ’best of’ folder (or using shortcuts that need to be maintained and might not be recognized by media players) you can use hardlinked clones such that any single song in the “best of” folder will actually exist in both the “album” and “best of” folders at once. This way your songs take up hard drive space only once, and any change you might make to the tags/metadata of one file will be instantly the case for the other (because they in fact the same file), instead of having to be performed twice.

How to perform hardlinking using “Link Shell Extension”; after installing “Link Shell Extension”, you can create hardlinks as follows:

Step1: right click on a file and select “Pick Link Source” (see screenshots below)

Step2: right click on the destination folder where you would like to place the clone (in this case its a folder called “place1″) and select “Drop Hardlink from the right click menu. Note that (a) both the file (spzar.txt in this case) and the destination folder have to be on the same partition, and (b) you can use the “Cancel Link Creation” from the right click menu to cancel.

That’s it. See screenshot at the top of this posting for an example of a hardlinked file.

Symbolic Links: are supported only in Vista. Unlike normal hardlinks hitherto being discussed, which require that both file and clone reside on the same partition, these “Symbolic Links” allow for the creation of hardlinked files that reside on another partition or hard drive.

Hardlinking folders: is also possible. However, “Link Shell Extension” offers three ways in which you can do this, as follows:

1. Junctions: are straightforward clones of folder (i.e. the new hardlinked folder is equivalent to and points to the same folder data as the original). Junctions (hardlinked folders) have a little “chain” on their icons that mark them as such.
2. Hardlink clones: in this case, it is not really the folder that is cloned but, instead, the folder structure of the original folder is copied and all the files inside are cloned.
3. Volume mountpoint: provides the ability to instantly mount a folder, but is only available in NTFS v5. For some reason I wasn’t able to perform volume mountpointing myself when I tested this program. If you want another freeware that does this (and works on both NTFS and FAT32) check out Visual Subst.

Here’s more Q&A on this:

Q: How is cloning possible? Is it some sort of scary Windows hack?
A: No. According to the program’s documentation, hardlinks “can be created with the POSIX command ln included in the Windows Resource Kit or the fsutil command utility included in Windows XP”. “Link Shell Extension” merely gives you this functionality in the Windows’ context menu. For more info see the hardlinking entry on Wikipedia.

A: Does this mean that I can open the same exact data twice in a single application at the same time?
Q: In most cases yes, so be careful how you use this functionality.

A: What happens if I move a file into the same folder as its clone?
Q: If they have the same name, one of them will simply disappear.

For more info on this program, check out its documentation.

Version tested: 2.803

Compatibility: Windows NT4/W2K/WXP/W2K3/WXP64/Vista/Vista64. You have to have an NTFS formatted hard drive. Check out the list of limitations on the program page.

Go to the download page to get the latest version (approx 610K). Make sure you download the version appropriate to your OS. Also visit the program home page.

Rating

Version tested: 0.91

JkDefrag GUI is a graphical user interface program for the open source hard drive defragmentation program JkDefrag. It enables users to easily use JkDefrag’s powerful defragmentation operations, schedule defrags, perform system file defrag operations on startup, as well as set a wide spectrum of defrag options. It can also be used to quickly install JkDefrag’s screensaver defrag, an option that kicks in the defrag process and displays it as a screensaver whenever the computer is idle.

I don’t usually think about hard drive defragmentation programs as being exciting, but this one is an exception. JkDefrag itself (rater than the GUI) has a number of features that I have not seen in other free defrag programs, and JkDefrag GUI is a well designed program that makes these accessible and easy to work with. Here’s a quick listing of some of these:

• The screensaver option: although JkDefrag does not continuously defragment your hard drive as a process in the background, the screensaver option goes one better in that it kicks the defrag process into action at those idle times when normally your screensaver would run (and will show the visual representation of the defrag process as the screensaver). Extremely cool! This is my favorite feature simply because it provides an automatic install-and-forget solution to hard drive defragmentation. (Note that you can install the screensaver from the ’install’ tab in the GUI).
• Space hogging files: JkDefrag will push files certain files behind directories and regular files to make system operations faster. These space hogging files include files that are 50 megs+, most compressed archive filetypes, data in the recycling bin, and a number others (for a list of the default space hogging files go to the JkDefrag site and look for “what are spacehogs”). Note that you can use the GUI to manually add more filetypes (e.g. avi, mpg, etc.) to the list of Space hoggers if you want.
• Portable: a U3-specific version of JkDefrag GUI is available.
• Safe: ok, so this isn’t a unique feature but a good one to highlight all the same. JkDefrag uses Microsoft’s standard defragmentation API library (which most defrag programs use) and is extremely safe. When interrupted, the defragmentation process will finish the immediate task at hand in the background and shut down.

Aside from these unique features above, JkDefrag GUI provides easy access to powerful defragmentation functions as follows:

• Easily launch JkDefrag operations: or combinations of operations such as analysis, defragmentation, fast optimization, forcing files together, moving to the end of the disk, sorting files (by name, size, last access, last change, or creation time).
• Schedule defrags: Allows for scheduling of once-only, daily, weekly or monthly defrags. Also allows for on-startup, on-logon, and on-idle defrag scheduling. Although in general this is nicely implemented, it does NOT seem to allow for scheduling multiple types of events (e.g. on idle as well as, say, every Monday at midnight). It is also not clear how “on idle” is/is not different from the screensaver defrag.
• System file defragmentation: although JkDefrag does not defragment system files, JkDefrag GUI can schedule these upon reboot (on a regular or one-off basis) using SysInternals PageDefrag utility (included in the JkDefrag GUI download).
• Set options: set defragmentation speed, disks to defrag (including ’all’), and percent of free hd space to free at the beginning of the disk. Advanced options allow you to determine folders or types or files that you want (or do not want) to be included in the defragmentation process.
• Set GUI options: including whether to detect removable disks/RAMdisks, shutdown after degfrag, autodetect updates, enable/disable spacehog files option, and others.
• Installer functions: JkDefrag GUI can be unzipped and run and does not require installation; however, for those who prefer a properly installed app it can install itself as a regular windows app (see the ’install’ tab. It can also be used to easily install the screensaver function). Note that the JkDefrag GUI download contains all the apps/tools that you need, and you do not have to perform any separate downloads.

Other notes/issues:

• I noticed that this release of JkDefrag GUI always seemed to be taking up some CPU processing resources in the background, even when idle. The author noted that this will be fixed in a future release, which, he noted, will also use less memory.
• Future releases of JkDefrag GUI will include a disk cleaner and registry defragmentation components (if you want standalone programs that do these functions I recommend CCleaner and Auslogics Registry Defrag, respectively).
• Tooltips: when in doubt, simply hover over the many buttons with question marks on them and JkDefrag GUI will display a tooltip with info. I found this very useful and wanted to mention it.
• Another thing I noticed is that when you select “all disks” for defragmentation, the visual representation of the defrag process is not displayed for some reason.

The verdict: this is definitely my freeware hard drive defragmentation program of choice, simply because of such innovative features as the screensaver defrag mode and space-hogging files. JkDefrag is a solid and powerful program that I previously shied away from simply because it was command-line based. With JkDefrag GUI JkDefrag becomes accessible and easy to use. The GUI still needs some kinks ironed out, but these will happen in future releases. I highly recommend it.

Compatibility: Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista.

Go to the program page to get the latest version (approx 1.72 megs). Also visit the JkDefrag home page.

One of the things that I find most annoying about Windows is when I use the “Safely Remove Hardware” function to disconnect a flash or external drive and it doesn’t work. What bugs me more is when I am in a hurry and that happens (e.g. I want to grab my USB drive and rush off to catch the bus in time, and Windows announces that “the device … cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device again later”).

I don’t know what other people’s experience is, but I would say for myself that I get this more than 50% of the time, which is why I decided that I would write a posting on how to use Unlocker to work around this issue. Here are the steps (assuming you tried the ’safely remove hardware’ dialog and it didn’t work).

1. Download and install Unlocker if you don’t already have it.

2. Go to ’My Computer’, right click on the icon for the hard drive you want to disconnect, then click the ’ Unlocker’ entry in the context menu (see screenshot).

3. Once (and if) you get the ’Unlocker’ dialog with the locking processes outlined, click on ’Unlock All’.

4. That’s it. Now go back to the “Safely remove hardware” dialog in the system tray and it should work as normal.

Although the process above works every time for me, I can imagine a situation where the drive might not be ready for removal for other reasons beside locking processes, so in theory it may not work 100% of the time.

Version tested: 1.3.015

File Hamster provides real-time backup, archiving, and version tracking for files and folders. It is a memory-resident application that will monitor the folders and files that you ask it to and invisibly keep a copy whenever you change thse (such as saving or overwriting them), so that you can revert to the old version(s) if you ever need to. It also gives you the ability to create notes on-the-fly whenever you make a change.

Here’s how this program works:

• The first thing you have to do after installation is tell File Hamster which individual files and/or folder to monitor. For folders, you can tell it which file types you want monitored and/or excluded. It can also watch sub-folders recursively.
• File Hamster will now monitor these files in real time at all times. Any attempt to change or overwrite these files will prompt File Hamster to instantly make a copy of the file before allowing the change. This will result in a trail of incremental on-the-fly backups of your files that are done invisibly without any user intervention.
• File Hamster will flash a little window close to the system tray whenever it detects a change. You can use this window to quickly leave comments or notes if you need to that you can refer to later on.
• The process of making backups is remarkably fast and streamlined . This is the case even for large files that take quite a bit of time to be saved from the application that is working with them.
• All historic versions of the file can then be accessed if need be from the File Hamster main dialog (see screenshot).
• Note that the file name of the file being monitored has to remain unchanged for File Hamster to keep taking snapshots of it. If you want to use different version names for your file then simply tell File Hamster to monitor the folder that you keep it in and it start monitoring each successive file name that it finds in that folder.
• If you are worried about backups taking up too much disk space, you can do a number of things: you can set the maximum number of revisions File Hamster will keep of any single file, set a time period beyond-which a kept revision will be discarded, or require a user defined delay period between revisions. You could also have File Hamster do compressed backups (see below).
• Plugins: there are a handful of available plugins that you can use with File Hamster. A really useful plugin is the zip plugin, which enables File Hamster to compress into zip archives when performing file backups.

This is a powerful program that works really well; so well, in fact, that you may forget that any incremental backups are taking place at all. And it is 100% free. Download and install it right now; the time will most certainly come when you will need it to save your skin (and yes it will deliver).

Compatibility: Windows 2000, XP, Vista; requires .NET Framework 2.0

Go to the download page to get the latest version (approx 1.4 megs). Also visit the program home page.

Version tested: 1.0

Disc Space Reporter is a small program that can provide insight on the files and folders on your hard drive that are taking up most of the physical space. It features a simple user interface that represents file/folder sizes using little bars in the detail view, as well as an overall top ranking of the largest individual files in the scanned hard drives.

Here’s what you need to know about this program:

• It is a small executable that does not need installation and has a very light footprint.
• Very fast scanning of hard drives.
• What I really like about this program is that it contains a special pane that presents you with a ranking of the top files that are taking up space across all the scanned hard drives and folder. This is simply a great idea and I am surprised that more programs in this category dont have it (as opposed to having to drill into drives and folders using bars and pie charts to identify the culprits). It will ask you at the outset the number of top files you want displayed (i.e. top 10, 20, 30, or whatever you want).
• Size is represented using little bars in the detail view. There are 2 columns that contain these bars, one representing the relative size of the file/folder within the folder that it resides in, and another one that is an absolute representation in relation to all the hard drive contents.
• One inexplicable drawback is that you cannot sort by size in the folder view pane; very strange for this type of program in my opinion, but the program still manages to do the job very well. You can sort files by size in the files panes, though.
• You can save the scan result to a file, as well as store performed scans into a database.

There are many freeware programs that do what this program does, with a lot more bells and whistles; what’s interesting about this one is precisely its simplicity, combined with the fact that it does the job very well (if you want a lot of charts and more feautres/reports, check out JDiskreport).

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the download page to get the latest version (approx 196K). Also visit the program home page.