Freeware administrator tools

These tools were included in previous versions of Windows. The associated documentation for each tool should help you use these tools in Windows. The following list provides links to documentation for each tool. If the content that is linked to a tool in the following list doesn't provide the information you need to use that tool, send us a comment by using the Was this page helpful?

Details about the information you want for a tool will help us plan future content. Diagnostic Data Viewer. Skip to main content. This tool allows you to manage your RDP connections in a effective way plus al lot of cool features like AD integration, shared connections etc. Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 8.

SCM provides ready-to-deploy policies and DCM configuration packs based on Microsoft security guide recommendations and industry best practices, allowing you to easily manage configuration drift and address compliance requirements for Windows operating systems, Office applications, and other Microsoft applications.

Now you can easily configure computers running Windows Server , Windows 8, Microsoft Office applications, and Windows Internet Explorer 10 with industry leading knowledge and fully supported tools. In addition to the latest software releases, you can also configure previous additions of Windows Server and Microsoft Office. In Windows Server and Windows Server R2, the resource kit tools are installed as part of the server role installation. For example, if you install the Active Directory Domain Services server role, all of the tools needed to support that role are installed on the server i.

Your email address will not be published. Home Blog About. The Blog. Sysinterals Suite. This tool also covers some key applications, such as virtualizations. OpManager uses a threshold system to identify when performance is likely to get impaired. There are many little problems that can soon stack up to bring performance to a level of impairment that users will notice. Catching these problems when they first arise gives you a chance to take action to head off disaster.

If a performance threshold gets crossed, the OpManager system generates an alert. OpManager is available in a free version. This has all of the functionality of the paid edition, but it is limited to monitoring only three devices. Those interested in the paid version have three choices of plans: Standard, Professional, and Enterprise. All versions are available for installation on Windows Server and Linux.

Access a day free trial of ManageEngine OpManager:. With Kiwi Syslog Server Free Edition you can collect, view and archive up to 5 sources including routers, computers or other devices. Logs may also be written to disk—either in one large file or split up by day or priority. You can view logs in real-time, gather stats, and even setup warnings and alerts.

If you want to get more serious, I recommend upgrading to the full version. Nagios is a networking monitoring software solution. With Nagios XI you can monitor everything from infrastructure to applications with granular detail. With Nagios Log Server, you can quickly sift through a central repository of audit logs, or setup triggers to alert you to critical events such as threats.

And with Nagios Network Analyzer, dig deep into the health and integrity of your systems and network. Analyze flows, validate intent and troubleshoot with the lights on. What I like most about Nagios is their straightforward approach to monitoring. They have multiple ways to represent data visually, which is another key interest of mine. Lastly, the built-in failover is wickedly cool if you start monitoring larger environments.

Named after the popular top command in Unix, ntop shows network usage similarly to how top shows system usage. Ntopng, based on libpcap, is the next generation version of the original ntop.

It was written in a portable manner, which gives it the flexibility to run on numerous platforms: Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.

Web-based, ntopng allows you to view traffic data and gather reports regarding network status. You can even do long-term reports to collect metrics such as throughput over time.

I personally use this tool to generate detailed host-based reports showing applications latency, RTT, TCP statistics like retransmissions, out-of-orders, and zero windows.

As a bonus little feature, you can actually authorize specific IPs or ranges to limit sending and receiving directly to the server for advanced security. You can authorize specific IPs or ranges to limit sending and receiving directly to the server for advanced security, and run it as a service on a centralized server. I am intimately familiar with several very large networks that use SolarWinds NCM for configuration, compliance and image transfers.

Wireshark is an unparalleled network protocol analyzer , and honestly, one of the best free network tools ever made. Never leave home without it!