Whether your an IT professional, computer enthusiast, or simply use a computer for fun in your down time (I think we just covered 90% of the world population here) you either may or may not know the benefits of solo executable file utilities.  Whether do or don’t know the benefits of these neat little utilities, there are likely single executables out there that would make life easier for us if we knew about them.  

To the laymen PC enthusiast, you may think any new application you want to use on your computer has to be installed first.  Well in regards to executables, this is not the case.  And that is what makes them so great.  Single files (normally ending with .exe) that can be copied from PC to PC or brought with you on portable media, like a thumb drive.  All you need is to access the executable utility from a PC desktop by double clicking it and you’re in business!  No need to install and no reason to junk up your computer with more registry entries.  The executables run completely without any installation required. 

After being in the IT industry for 5+ years as an Networking Technician, here are 5 executables I have found to be totally indispensible!

1. Executable – HijackThis.exe
2. Executable – ipscan.exe (Angry IP Scanner)
3. Executable – TeamViewer.exe
4. Executable – putty.exe
5. Executable – RDPRemoteEnabler.exe

All of these executables can be found online and cost nothing.  Below I’ll explain each one in more detail.

Hijackthis.exe is developed and supported by Trend Micro.  If you’ve ever dabbled in removing spyware or viruses from a PC this tool definitely and strong weapon to have in your arsenal.  HijackThis scans your computer’s registry and generates an in depth report of registry and file settings on your computer.  Now the utility itself makes no distinction of what is good and what is bad so you must know what your doing in order to use this application when telling it to delete entries.  If you want to use Hijackthis but are a little uncertain of yourself then use the following website:  http://www.hijackthis.de.  From here you can perform a scan and save a log file from the program, copy and paste the log file and analyze the log file.  The website will distinguish good and bad entries for you using what other users have posted about finding these entries.  MUST HAVE!!!

ipscan.exe, also referred to as Angry IP Scanner, is developed by Eusing Software.  If you have ever sat down at a computer and are expected to find out how all network devices are set up then this tool is great at aiding in your endeavor.  Angry IP Scanner utilizes a ping like scanning feature that will scan what ever subnet you tell it too and will report back all IP addresses that reported there was a device holding specific addresses.  Its a great tool to use when documenting a network or finding any specific devices on any LAN network.

TeamViewer.exe is a great remote access tool to use for free so long as you are using it in a noncommercialized fashion.  TeamViewer.exe is developed and supported by Team Viewer.  The utility can actually be installed or used as a simple executable.  It actually utilizes an online service that will connect you with any remote computer, so long as your computer and the remote computer have internet access and both computers have users sitting at each computer and are running the executable on both computers.  Once this is achieved you will be able to use the remote computer as well as transferred large files from one computer to another.

putty.exe is well known by many and is used very much in the same way hyperterminal is used.  It is developed and supported by Simon Tatham.  This application provides an interface between you and several different types of devices utilizing connection types such as; telnet, serial, rlogin, and raw. 

RDPRemoteEnabler.exe is developed and supported by Intelliadmin.  Anyone who has full network access with an administrator account can easily use this application to turn on remote access on any PC on the network that is a part of that networkdomain and is online.  This tool has come in handy many times when other forms of remote access would not work.

These 5 applications are only the 5 most used applications in my history.  As I am sure there are many more out there and maybe possibly better executables, please don’t hesitate to blog your favorites.  Thanks!