Troubleshoot PC problems with Switchblade - a free portable toolkit
If you regularly find yourself helping to fix other people’s
PC problems then you’ve probably already thought about creating a portable
troubleshooting toolkit. And this needn’t take very long. Just copy something
like the Sysinternals Suite to a USB stick, for instance, and you’ll be more
than equipped to diagnose and resolve all kinds of issues.
And if you find you need to extend your troubleshooting
capabilities even further, then you can always add another free toolkit or two.
Switchblade is an excellent free example: just download the latest version,
unzip it to your USB key and you’ll gain all kinds of useful features and
functionality.
This can start very simply. If a PC is suffering from internet
or network connectivity issues, for instance, then you may normally open a
command line to run a few tests. No need here, though, as Switchblade’s
"Network" box has various handy shortcuts. You can try pinging Google
to confirm that the system is able to get online, for instance; list its
network interfaces; renew or release the computer’s IP addresses, and a whole
lot more.
If your problems are
more involved, though, Switchblade also bundles a range of free tools which may
be able to help. So you can launch Malwarebytes Anti-Malware to check for
infections; run Error Lookup to translate odd Windows error codes into
meaningful text; or use RegShot to take and compare Registry snapshots, showing
you whatever might have changed. And you also get copies of PuTTY, Notepad++,
FileZilla, IObit Uninstaller, IObit Unlocker, UltraDefrag, DiskCleaner,
TrueCrypt and Media Player Classic.
Still not enough? Switchblade also includes the installers
for various programs. CCleaner and IObit’s Advanced System Care will help with
maintenance issues, for instance; Microsoft Security Essentials adds more
antivirus capabilities; and you’re also able to install Chrome, perhaps useful
if you’re having problems with the system’s current browser.
And there’s more. You get buttons to back up and restore
your drivers, for instance. Or grab event logs to your USB stuck for analysis
later. Installing the K-Lite Codec pack could help to get some video file types
playing, and there’s a set of useful links to, say, help you find and download
the latest graphics drivers.
We found Switchblade’s selection of tools to sometimes be a
little odd. UltraDefrag doesn’t really seem necessary, for instance (defragging
is useful, but not usually something which requires this kind of emergency
assistance). Apache Web Server probably isn’t something you’ll need to install
very often, either: we’d rather have had Process Explorer or some other system
monitoring tool.
Still, as we pointed out, you don’t have to live with these
deficiencies. It’s easy to equip your USB stick with Sysinternals utilities,
and whatever else you might like. And so, while Switchblade may not be enough
on its own, the program does provide a host of useful troubleshooting tools and
features, and if you regularly need to work on other people’s PCs then it’s
worth a closer look.
Review: http://betanews.com/2013/01/04/troubleshoot-pc-problems-with-switchblade-a-free-portable-toolkit/
Posts
