Windows 10 – best tools for your admin shed

Windows 10 – best tools for your admin shed

Updated: November 12, 2018

Working with Windows 10 is an interesting phenomenon. Often, functionality is hidden or purposefully
obfuscated, making administration work that much harder compared to earlier editions of Windows. Then,
because this operating system is so popular, there are always many clever ways and workarounds for
pretty much every problem.

Finding the right tools is almost as important as knowing what the issue is. But assuming you’re
following sound principles of
problem solving, then having the adequate toolbox will
help resolve problems quickly and efficiently. In this article, I’d like to present some of the most
handy programs an advanced Windows user should always have in their proverbial IT drawer. Follow
me.

Process Explorer

In general, anything by
Sysinternals is a good bet. In particular,

Process Explorer
is a must-have tool. While it doubles as a task manager on steroids, growth hormones and radiotheraphy,
it is also extremely useful in many other regards. It provides useful GPU, I/O, memory, network,DLL and
file handles activity. The best way to look at the program is a combo of Windows task manager and
resource monitor, with still more flexibility and power.

windows-10-process-explorer-1-9337346

Exploit protection

Up to Windows 10 Creators Update 1709, Windows 10 used and supported the superb Enhanced Mitigation
Experience Toolkit (EMET), a set of mechanisms designed to prevent common exploits in memory. On older
versions of Windows, EMET remains the Rolls Royce of software security, and it is one of the few, rare
security solutions that I
endorse, recommend and use. But Windows 10 no longer supports
EMET.

Instead, Windows 10 now uses the
Exploit protection framework, which is
integrated into the Windows Defender Security Center. Essentially, it is the same tool as EMET, with a
slightly different UI and underlying rules syntax. But the methods and functionality remain identical.
At the moment, applying mitigations does require a lot of manual work – or you can use XML-based
rulesets – but the end result is a lean, transparent and highly effectively security framework.

win10-build-1709-exploits-system-1824794

Windows Debugger & Image File Execution Options (IFEO)

This may sound like a name of a hip 1970s music band, but it’s one of the more mystical and yet
powerful components of the Windows operating system. So much in fact that you should read my
dedicated article on this topic. In a nutshell, this
functionality lets you change how programs behave. You can alter what they do, for purpose of
troubleshooting, debugging or development – or if they bother you but you don’t feel like yanking them
out of the system – then just neuter them. This gives you almost infinite freedom to how you manage and
control your system, including the ability to ruin everything majestically. Only for experts.

ifeo-debugger-registry-1227953

ExecTI

This is another heavyweight, belied by its simple UI and size.
ExecTI is a program,
developed by Winaero, whose
system tweaker tool I’ve used to tame Windows 10 (more on that in my

privacy guide), which can run Windows
executables with the ultimate TrustedInstaller privileges. Indeed, to prevent damage and abuse, some
resources in the Windows operating system are not normally accessible by ordinary users (even admins).
You need special permissions to modify certain things. This is done by elevating privileges to the
TrustedInstaller account. You can do this manually, but it’s a tedious process. Instead, you can use
ExecTI to quickly run the programs you need, and then once you’re done, close them and be done with it.
Like IFEO, this gives you almost unlimited super-admin privileges. With great power comes great
responsibility. Only for experts. You’ve been doubly warned!

windows-10-winaero-execti-8182620

Policy Plus

This program is an alternative to Microsoft group
policy editor (gpedit.msc), allowing you to manage system changes in an organizational manner, even if
you use the Home edition of Windows, which does not support group policies. Policy Plus behaves much
like its spiritual model, it comes with a safe and consistent UI, and it allows users to define the
behavior of their machines and then export the settings across multiple systems, if they need to. Very
handy and practical.
My tutorial has much more on this subject.

policy-plus-working-1974010

Windows 10 hide/show updates

The Windows Update facility has been revamped in Windows 10, and it no longer features the ability
to hide individual updates. This can be detrimental and limiting, especially if you are aware of
potential driver conflicts for your particular hardware. While not well known, Microsoft does have a
dedicated utility that lets you hide and
show updates, just like in the past. It runs as a standalone tool, but it gets the job done.

windows-10-hide-choose-option-5520907

Some extras

It is all too easy to diverge here. But then, there are also some safe bets. Similar to
Sysinternals, pretty much anything
Nirsoft will work well. In fact, you
might want to read my review of
NirLauncher, a mega-utility that bundles everything Nirsoft in one
killer package.

Then, Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) is another
sturdy little workhorse.
It’s seen more glamorous days, and technically, it is supported only up to Windows 8.1 and equivalent
server versions. However, it works just fine in Windows 10, and offers a very useful auditing
capability for common security misconfigurations.

windows-10-nirlauncher-2062337

windows-10-mbsa-1-2129923

windows-10-mbsa-2-3638955

Lastly, there’s also
SuRun, a sudo-like mechanism for Windows – works well in
Windows 10, too. The basic idea is to allow you to use a standard account (rather than an admin one)
for day-to-day stuff and then elevate privileges only when necessary. This is a very healthy practice
for many reasons. Windows 10 has also gotten a lot better than previous versions in offering a seamless
standard (limited) user functionality, but you can definitely complement the Run As mechanism with
SuRun. Complement and experiment.

More reading

Hungry for me? Worry not. Your favorite chef provideth:

Thorough guide on group policies (has that Policy Plus article sparked thy
curiosity?)

Windows BSOD guide (if you want to learn more about the Windows
Debugger)

WMIC – The Windows secret weapon (if you thought IFEO was cool and
you’re craving more)

Conclusion

It is always very easy to go wrong with compilations – they can be often too short or way too long.
I tried to keep this list down to a mid-range sweet spot, without going overboard, with enough detail
to cover a broad spectrum of needs and uses – processes, security, complex administration,
debugging. A few handy extras, and several in-depth articles that cover a few other vital areas.

Windows has quite a few built-in gems, but many of the best utilities for this operating system
actually come from third-party sources. When you combine the two, you get yourself a solid toolbox that
should help you make your life easier, cleaner, quieter, more productive. Windows 10 can be a fairly
noisy system, so having the right stuff to tame it and bring it into submission is rather important.
Well, hopefully, this was a useful article. If you have any suggestions on killer apps of similar
nature, please do send them over. The recommendations, that is, not the apps themselves. Duh.

Cheers.

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