Power tools for IT pros

I have a confession to make. The title of this book isn’t, strictly speaking, accurate. It actually contains descriptions and hands-on advice for more than 10 apps, accessories, and utilities—many more, in fact.

I began with a list of several hundred software tools and accessories, all built by Microsoft and compatible with Microsoft Windows 10. Eventually, I narrowed the list to my top 10, giving each of the finalists its own turn in the spotlight in the remaining chapters of this book. But that winnowing process wasn’t easy.

The sheer volume of Windows programs and accessories, including utilities such as Sysinternals Suite, says a lot about the power and complexity of Windows—a fact that every IT pro knows from firsthand experience. There’s a tool for nearly every task, and a large part of the process of becoming a Windows expert is knowing how to find the appropriate one when you need it.

This chapter provides an overview of many of the apps and accessories that are included in the box with Windows 10, along with a brief explanation of how and why I picked the top 10. It’s also an opportunity to highlight a few of my favorites that I couldn’t include elsewhere.

And, of course, it’s an opportunity for me to share some hard-won knowledge with my fellow IT pros, helping you to figure out the best way to make Windows 10 work for you. There’s rarely a right or wrong way to accomplish a particular goal, but there’s often a faster, smarter way, which is what I look for.

Some of these tools are for everybody—end users and experts alike—whereas some are strictly for professionals. A few are so specialized that you’ll only need them once in a blue moon. Collectively, though, they make up a toolbox that can save you (and your company) time and money.

Finding the right tool for the job

Sometimes, accomplishing a task requires nothing more than adjusting a Windows setting by selecting a check box or moving a slider to the right position. Other times, you might need a stand-alone program.

Occasionally, those two options are related. The Settings app and classic Control Panel are filled with buttons and links that do nothing more than launch executable files, typically from the Windows\System32 folder on the system drive.

You could, for example, run the Color Management Control Panel tool (Colorcpl.exe) directly from that location, but experienced Windows users are more accustomed to opening Control Panel and navigating through Hardware And Sound to Display.

In Windows 10, it’s even easier to just search for the setting or program you need. You can find nearly anything you want by using the search box on the Windows 10 taskbar, located to the right of the Start button. Because settings and built-in tools are indexed by keyword, you don’t need to know the exact name to find what you’re looking for. Figure 1-1, for example, shows the results when I searched for the term “task,” all neatly categorized.

FIGURE 1-1 Most of the time, just searching for a related term is enough to find what you’re looking for.

With the help of a few subtle controls on those raw search results, you can filter your search to refine the list, eliminate the noise, and show more of the type of results you’re looking for. The controls on the search results list are so subtle that you might not even notice them. Click the arrow to the right of a heading (Apps or Settings, in Figure 1-1, for example) to show only results from that category. Or, click one of the icons at the top of the results list to show a group of categories that you can use to refine your search, as I’ve done in Figure 1-2.

FIGURE 1-2 Tap an icon at the top of the search results to refine your search. In this case, I’ve asked for just results in the Settings category.

By the way, Figure 1-2 also reveals a shortcut that is especially useful if you prefer using the keyboard rather than the mouse. Instead of using the hidden menu at the top to refine by categories, just type one of the text operators—apps, settings, or files, for example—followed by a colon and then the search term.

Here’s one final secret in this section: Get in the habit of using the Quick Links menu, which is available by right-clicking Start or by using the keyboard shortcut Windows logo key+X. Figure 1-3 shows that this menu contains several of the tools I feature in this book as well as the ability to quickly open a Command Prompt window with administrative rights. For Windows experts, it offers instant access to programs that you will use regularly.

FIGURE 1-3 Every would-be Windows expert should memorize the keyboard shortcut Windows logo key+X, which opens the incredibly useful Quick Links menu shown here.