If you have not heard, Microsoft awesome Sysinternals site has released the beta version of Sysinternals Live. What this service offers is the capability to connect directly to the Sysinternals site and run their tools without the need to download.
If you are not familiar with Sysinternals, they produce some of the best tools, such as Process Explorer, Autoruns and Process Monitor for Windows systems. Microsoft bought the company in 2006 and continued to offer it's extensive library of diagnostic, troubleshooting, and management utilities for free.
Why is this very cool? Because Sysinternals Live allows to you connect and run all their tools with out needing a web browser.
For example, Vista owners can connect from the Start menu Search bar by entering \\live.sysinternals.com\tools.
Windows Explorer will open, displaying the connection to the share listing of all the tools available.
You can click on any available tool and run it immediately (Sysinternals tools require no installation) without needing to download and unzip.
Or if you know the name of the tool, you can just reference it's name to have it launch and run with the following command syntax:
\\live.sysinternals.com\tools\<toolname>
For example, to run Autoruns, you would use:
\\live.sysinternals.com\tools\autoruns.exe
If you're a command line user, this means you can also run the tools directly at the prompt by entering the same command as above (be patient and give it a few seconds to launch).
But I find mapping a drive to be the best method, since it's convenient to have all their tools available using a drive letter.
You can easily map a drive from the Run dialog windows, by pressing Windows Key+R or click on Start \ Run… and entering the following command:
net use * \\live.sysinternals.com\tools
Of course you can use any browser and connect using http://live.sysinternals.com/tools/.
The Sysinternals Live tools should work in all x86 and x64 versions of Vista and Server 2008 as well as previous version of Windows.
No matter what method you use to connect, having access to these tools with out the need to download, is a big bonus, especially for those times when family or friends bug you to fix their computer and you don't have your handy USB stick around!
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