I loaned my wife my USB drive that had YUMI, the successor/rename of the MultiBoot USB tool, on it with CloneZilla loaded in order to do some re-imaging. She created her image and got 3 out of 4 computers up and running again. On the fourth computer, suddenly it wouldn’t boot from the USB drive and when sticking it into a Windows PC, you would get this error message: You need to format the disk in drive E: before you can use it.

Well that’s no good and it would mean she had lost the image she had created – backing it up was planned for after getting all the computers up and running. She wisely didn’t format it and brought it back to me to see if I could save her hours of work and get that image back.

[Editor’s note: this review was written by Freewaregenius contributor Jason H. Check out his tech blog: 404techsupport.com].

To recover the files on the drive, I turned to the MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition – free for private, noncommercial, home computer use. The 5.6MB download includes an installer for the tool. Running through the setup, it is malware and bloatware free. It also warns you to not install the software to the same drive as the one you’re trying to recover files from as this may overwrite some of the lost files.

Once the install completes and you launch the application, you can see the various recovery modules available: Undelete recovery, Damaged Partition Recovery, Lost Partition Recovery, Digital Media Recovery, CD/DVD Recovery. I loaded up Lost Partition Recovery for this instance and it delivered exactly what I needed.

Once the module has been loaded, you can navigate to the drive or partition you wish to recover, select it, and hit the Full Scan button. After doing that, the scan will commence with a window to show you its progress, findings, and time remaining. The time it takes to complete seems to depend on the size of the drive, the number of files, and the damage to the drive. For this 16GB flash drive, that meant it took about 9 minutes.

After the scan completes, it will report on the number of files it found. You can go view the discovered files, which will allow you to browse the drive and select which files or folders you want. In this example, I browsed to the directory where the images are stored and found the one my wife was using. I right-clicked on the image’s folder and chose to recover the files to my secondary hard drive. This process took another few minutes, to move about 5.6GB of files.

After recovering the folder, I was able to format the drive, see it in Windows, load it up with YUMI and CloneZilla again, and copy back the recovered image.

Power Data Recovery supports FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, NTFS, NTFS5, and ISO9660, Joliet, UDF file systems. It successfully recovered a FAT32 partition from this drive.

For more details, you might be interested in their Free Data Recovery Help Manual. There is also a table provided that compares the features of the free edition to the other pay licenses.

Version tested: 6.5

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 – 32 bit and 64 bit

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 5.6 megs).

I’ve been meaning to publish a follow up to my first “43 must have Windows Enhancements” posting forever, but it’s taken a long time simply because I wanted to stick with the completely arbitrary “43? number of entries, and of course I wanted to only post apps that are worth writing about (as it turned out, I had many more than I needed).

The common theme here, as with the first one, is that these are all cool free Windows “enhancements”: i.e. apps that tweak or change the way we work with the system environment itself, whether it is working with files, folders, or applications; they are, to quote my first post “apps that brings functionality to the Windows environment that could or should have been built-in options in Windows”.

A caveat: I wouldn’t recommend that you install many of these on your system at the same time, so as not to overburden your PC, but also because some of these have overlapping functions.

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Here’s the list:

1. Listary: advanced file filtering in explorer at the press of a button

This program changes something that everyone does without even thinking about it; pressing a key in, say, a folder that has many items in it, in order to jump to the first letter of the file or folder being sought (e.g. pressing “d” to jump to “dashboard.xls”.)

With Listary, you could go ahead typing a second or third letter, and it will display a little popup list that quickly filters all instances of the word, including entries that may have the string of text in the middle of the file name (see screenshot above). You could then use the arrow keys to hone in on the file you want. Its not really desktop search and is not recursive to subfolders for example; however, it is extremely useful and after having used it for a few months now I am totally hooked.

Listary works not just in folders but also in all sorts of lists in Windows (such as the task manager to name an example).

Go here to download Listary (Windows 7, Vista, XP; 32 bit and 64 bit). Or check out my full-length Listary review.

2. Nemo Documents: displays your desktop files on a calendar grid

Presents your files on a calendar-style grid, so as to enable the user to quickly scan the calendar to locate files or projects that were last in use last week or last month or the month before that, etc. It also is a full-fledged tagging engine for your files.

Nemo Documents is useful for those who work on multiple projects and multiple files and/or would like a way to keep track of the many files that pass through their desktop.

The thing about this one is that it is such a simple yet brilliant concept, and brings an entirely novel way finding and retrieving files that can really be very useful.

Go here to download Nemo Documents (Windows 7, Vista only; 32 bit and 64 bit). Or check out my full-length review of Nemo Documents.

3. Browser Chooser: lets you choose the browser you want to use, case-by-case

This app is for those who use multiple browsers. It installs itself as your PC’s default browser so that, whenever you click a link (from within a program or anywhere in your Windows environment outside of a browser), it will display a popup window that gives a choice as to which browser to use for that particular link, file, or web page.

This program can work really well if you launch your web pages via a launcher program such that you can, for example, launch certain sites from IE (for me, work-related sites, Sharepoint, and Web based Outlook, all of which work best in IE), launch your web based email from the browser that works best for it, or launch several web-based email accounts in different browsers simultaneously, etc.

Go here to download Browser Chooser. (Windows 7, Vista, XP; 32 bit and 64 bit).

4. ClassicShell: brings back some cool XP features to Windows 7

Does a number of different things in Windows 7 and Vista to revert these operating system back to “classic” Windows XP style behavior.

For example, it can transform the “Start Menu” in Windows 7 and Vista into the typical Windows XP-style, as demonstrated in the screenshot to the left, below.

However, my favorite tweak that this program does (and the more important one, in my opinion), is its ability to restore the “go up one folder” button in Windows Vista and Windows 7 (a function which used to be part of Window XP before it was removed). See screenshot above, right for an illustration.

A step by step tutorial on how to install the “folder up” arrow can be found here.

Go here to download ClassicShell (Windows 7, Vista; 32 bit and 64 bit).

5. QTTabBar: provides tabbed folder browsing in Windows 7 Explorer (see screenshot).

To add a tab, simply drag and drop a folder to the tabbed area. The software also provides the option to browse folders in-place via cascading menus (as displayed in the screenshot above, towards the bottom right).

I mentioned this one in the first “43 must have Windows Enhancements” posting. Back then it was only for Windows XP, but since then it has been re-launched as a project on Sourceforge for Windows 7 and Vista, hence the re-mention. (And yes, it works beautifully on 64 bit Windows 7).

Go here to download QTTabBar (Windows 7, Vista, XP; 32 bit and 64 bit).

6. Hot Corners: triggers user-defined events when hovering over screen corners

Will let you simply hover over any of the four corners of the screen to perform any number of functions, such as opening favorite folders, launching favorite programs. or performing a number of common tasks such as searching Google, showing the desktop, or locking the computer.

It works really well, with one caveat: it is very likely that a user might hover over any one of the corners and trigger a function accidentally. To remedy this, Hot Corners allows you to set a delay in seconds before it kicks into action, making it less likely to launch a function unless you demonstrate that you mean to do so by lingering in the corner for the requisite number of seconds.

Go here to download Hot Corners (Windows 7, Vista, XP; 32 bit and 64 bit). Or go here to see my full-length review of Hot Corners.

7. Quick Cliq: launch favorite files, folders, and tools on-demand

Is an all-in-one, hotkey-activated launcher for apps, files, folders and even URLs. It has a smattering of cool extra functions (e.g. a clipboard manager of sorts, a window manager, etc).

Quick Cliq will even let you access favorite folders in Windows open/save dialogs (launch Quick Cliq then CTRL+right click on the folder in the list), and because it can use relative paths for files and folders it can function as a launcher for USB sticks. Any of its functions can be launched via user-defined keyboard shortcuts or mouse gestures.

Adding items to the launcher is easy via the “Quick Cliq” context menu entry in Windows explorer. This program is really super cool, and consumes little memory to boot (around 8 megs).

Go here to download Quick Cliq (Windows 7, Vista, XP; 32 bit and 64 bit). Or go here to see my full-length review of Quick Cliq.

8. Switcher: terrific Mac Expose clone for Windows 7 and Vista

This app for Windows 7 and Vista is one of best Mac expose-style application switcher/Alt+Tab replacement of its kind.

It offers different visual styles (see the screenshots above), can be invoked via hotkey or mouse gesture, and is relatively low on resource consumption.

Go here to download Switcher (Windows 7, Vista; 32 bit and 64 bit). Or go here to see my full-length review of Switcher.

9. Super F4: quickly terminate any program

A program that terminates other programs without asking nicely. This program, surprisingly, has become an essential download that I always install. Why?, because when working with Windows (and perhaps any modern OS) you will invariably encounter crashed programs that refuse to close promptly, and this program can take care of that for you quickly in a way that ending the process in task manager (CTRL+Alt+delete) will not.

Super F4 is launched via hotkey and employs a visual interface whereby you click on the offending program with Super F4’s skull icon to shut it down (see screenshot)

Go here to download Super F4 (Windows 7, Vista, XP; 32 bit and 64 bit). Or go here to see my full-length review of Super F4.

10. Windows 7 Taskbar Pinner: pin individual files and folders to the Windows 7 taskbar

This program lets you pin anything you want to the Windows 7 taskbar, including individual folders and files. “But wait!”, you might think, “I already can pin items just by dragging and dropping”. Actually, no; while it is true that you can drag program executables and shortcuts to pin them on the taskbar, individual folders and files will in fact be buried within a jumplist on the taskbar, not on the taskbar itself.

Unless, of course, you use Windows 7 Taskbar Pinner, in which case you can pin just about anything straight to the taskbar. You can do this from the program interface or optionally the program can install a Windows context menu entry to quickly right-click on any item (file or folder) to pin it.

Go here to download Windows 7 Taskbar Pinner (Windows 7; 32 bit and 64 bit). Or see my full-length review of Windows 7 Taskbar Pinner.

11. Pismo File Mount: mounts disk images as well as ZIP archives as virtual drives

Can mount ZIP, ISO, CFS and so-called “private folders” as virtual drives or folders that can be accessed through the Windows file system. This means that you can access ISO files without burning them to CD or DVD first; but, more interestingly, it also means you can mount ZIP files to work with them, then simply unmount them. This occurs without having to deal with duplicate files (as occurs when you unzip a file and have both the zipped and unzipped archives to deal with, rather un-elegantly).

Note, however, that ZIP files are mounted as read only, and you cannot add or write to them.

One thing to note that mapping a mounted volume to a drive letter is optional. Pismo File Mount installs a Windows Explorer context menu entry for both 32bit and 64bit Windows that enables you to simply right click on a volume to mount it.

Go here to download Pismo File Mount / Audit package (Windows 7, Vista, XP; 32 bit and 64 bit). Or see my full-length review of Pismo File Mount.

12. WinArchiver Virtual Drive: mounts almost all disk images, as well as ZIP and RAR files as virtual drives

Like Pismo File Mount above, this utility can mount both the most popular CD/DVD image files (ISO, BIN, CUE, and many, many others), as well as ZIP and RAR archives.

Also like Pismo, ZIP/RAR archives are mounted as read only (although its support for RAR is an advantage over that program); but WinArchiver lacks the right-click context menu support, which is a drawback.

Go here to download WinArchiver Virtual Drive (WinAll; 32 bit and 64 bit)

13. MouseExtender: very cool on-demand launcher

A launcher for favorite programs, files, folders, or URLs that is invoked via middle mouse button, a user-defined keyboard hotkey, or a combination of the two.

This program is super stylish and really very practical and user friendly. (And what more could anybody want?). Although it doesn’t look it at first glance, MouseExtender is actually a tabbed launcher, allowing you to create several different pages of shorcuts (see screenshot above).

You can browse to an item to add it, add any program that happens to be running, or (if you have the launcher pinned to desktop) you can drag and drop items directly onto the MouseExtender interface.

Go here to download MouseExtender (Windows 7, Vista, XP; 32 bit and 64 bit). Or you can see my full length review of MouseExtender.

14. SysTrayMeter: displays free RAM and CPU usage in a SINGLE system tray icon.

Achieves the remarkable feat of displaying both CPU and RAM usage in the system tray menu within a single icon. And should you wonder if this may be overreach, I assure you that it is not; it works beautifully. This program in fact is a favorite that I install on every machine.

CPU usage is displayed in the upper half of the icon, while unused RAM is displayed below, and you can hover over the SysTrayMeter to get more detailed info. Left clicking on the icon exits the program (which is kind of strange, and at first results in many an instance of closing the program without really meaning to do so).

The developer’s program page for this program has disappeared; however you can use the link below to download.

Go here to download SysTrayMeter (Windows 7, Vista, XP; 32 bit and 64 bit). Or see my full-length review of SysTrayMeter. (Note: developer’s program page seems to be down, but the program is available at the link above).

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Have you ever needed to compare multiple versions of a text or code, and wished that the differences would be highlighted visually? This is exactly what this program does: Diffuse Merge Tool is a free, visual text file comparison and merge tool. It will display text files on-screen simultaneously each in their own pane, highlight the difference, and offer easy merging options.

This program is unusual in that, aside from the typical 2-pane two way comparison, it provides a 3-pane three-way comparison as well.It also provides syntax highlighting for a wide array of coding languages, a set of tools to identify differences and merge some or all of them, and tools to manipulate text. It can be launched from the Windows context menu (on both 32bit and 64bit Windows) for quick, on-the-fly access.

Diffuse Merge Tool is open source and multiplatform (Windows, Mac, Linux, and BSD).

You can see from the screenshot that this program will display text files side-by-side and highlight differences in red. But if you haven’t seen this type of visual comparison tool before you will certainly find the highlighting of the absent “empty space” useful. This is a neat device that keeps similar rows in a file opposite each other, such that the insertion of rows or sections in one file doesn’t cause a confusing misalignment. Otherwise, here are some PROS and a wish list.

PROS:

• Two or three way comparisons: in case you missed this detail in the introduction, Diffuse Merge Tool can compare 2 or 3 files simultaneously, which I hadn’t seen before.
• It looks and feels good: there is something about the user experience and the way it highlights differences that is very pleasing and intuitive.
• Nice set of tools: powerful set of both text merging tools as well as text manipulation tools
• Syntax highlighting: which is pretty much standard for this sort of tool. Covers every conceivable coding language.

Wish list:

• Windows context menu unintuitive: launching the tool via the context menu after selecting two (or three) files results in each of them being opened singly in their own instance, instead of being compared against each other (which is somewhat unintuitive). It would be nice if it asked upon launch or there were subentries in the context menu for comparing files against each other. Also would also be nice to be able to switch the context menu entry off in the settings.

The verdict: most readers would want to know if Diffuse holds a candle to WinMerge, which is the de-facto leader in this category, and my answer is that it certainly does. Diffuse does not quite have the same range of functions and bells and whistles as WinMerge (which is extendible via plugins), but in many ways this does not seem to matter and Diffuse is a very solid program all the same. (And, possibly, is the more user friendly of the two).

WinMerge also offers a folder comparison functionality, which Diffuse lacks, but I never thought it was a particularly inspired folder comparison tool anyway (if you want visual folder comparison use FreeFileSync). On the flip side Diffuse is unique in that it offers 3-way file comparison which I am sure many users will find extremely useful.

One last disclaimer: I may not be as qualified to give a verdict on this as, say, coders and developers who might need and/or use this function very frequently, but I do know a quality program when I see one, and this is a quality program that I recommend highly.

Version Tested: 0.4.4.1

Compatibility: multiplatform; Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (download the .win32.exe file for Windows, which is approx 6.8 megs).

ERUNT Gui is a free app that can backup and restore the Windows registry. It is a front-end for the well-known registry backup and restoration app ’ERUNT’ but serves to take the command line out of registry backups and replace it with a simple button (see screenshot). It can also be used to setup automatic registry backups on each Windows restart.

The main reason you might want to backup your registry, of course, is as a safeguard against events that might mess up your registry (and, by extension, mess up your PC in general). These could be unanticipated events, such as a malware attack, or otherwise you could backup your registry ahead of testing a program or programs that you are unsure of or that you anticipate problems with, etc.

This program makes registry backup (and restoration) a one-click affair. Here are a few other notes:

• One click registry backup and restoration: takes a few seconds.
• Backup current users or all users: defaults to current user, but “all users” possible
• Portable version available: downloadable from the site, although strangely to get the portable version you have to run an installer that creates a portable version within a folder. Note: you will have to go into the “files” folder and find “ERUNTgui.exe”; the shortcut that you may find outside is broken and needs to be discarded.
• Auto backup on every Windows restart (optional): you could set this up in the settings (see screenshot to the right). You can also set the number of days going back that you would like to preserve backups for.
• Compatible with Windows Vista, Windows 7: although note that you will need to run the program with administrative privileges. You could do this either by right clicking “run as administrator” on the program executable or shortcut, or modify the program executable permanently (right click properties/compatibility and check “run this program as an administrator” at the bottom or the dialog).
• Registry optimization: presumably undergoes a registry defragmentation (please correct me in the comments if I am wrong and it does something more). In any case I tested this but it took a long time and pretty much hung my system, forcing me to reboot. Please let me know in the comments section if you had a different experience.

The verdict: a great little backup. Ostensibly, it merely relieves users from having to use the command line interface in using ERUNT; in practice, however, ERUNT Gui in fact makes registry backups (and auto backups) accessible to a much wider audience than they would have been otherwise, to the hands of average users who can now easily protect their systems and guard against all sort of adverse events.

Version Tested: 1.2.5

Compatibility: Windows NT/2000/2003/XP/Vista/7

Because the author’s home page is prone to be down, here are 2 options for downloading; (1) go to the program home page then scroll all the way down the programs list (approx 1.82 megs). Alternately, (2) go to the ERUNTGUI page on Freewarefiles, where the file is hosted for download.

MyDefrag PowerGUI is a front-end for free hard drive defragmentation software MyDefrag. It is designed to manage all aspects of hard drive defragmentation with MyDefrag, including scheduling defragmentations, auto-updating the MyDefrag engine, installing the MyDefrag screensaver option, as well as providing a variety of advanced defragmentation functions such as a wide range of defragmentation profiles to choose from, filtering files by extension or by location that would be included or excluded from the defragmentation operations.

An interesting addition is MyDefrag PowerGUI’s coupling of defrag operations with disk-cleaning functions, a rather useful feature that can prevent moving and processing useless and unwanted files during the defragmentation process. MyDefrag PowerGUI can do this by performing its own cleaning operations before the defragmentation process or alternatively it can run another program such as CCleaner to do this instead.

If you don’t know what disk defragmentation is imagine this: you’re reading a newspaper and once finished with the first page you have to go up to the third floor to get the next one, then, after reading that one, head to the basement to find the third page, etc. Imagine how much faster the reading process would be if you had collected all the pages in one place ahead of time. That, essentially, is what disk defragmentation does: collect and line up all the parts of a file that would otherwise be scattered all over the hard drive, making reading operations much faster. (Note: this newspaper metaphor is not my original thought; I read it somewhere which now I cannot recall where).

What you need to know about MyDefrag is that it is probably the best defragmentation software out there. What you need to know about MyDefrag PowerGUI is as follows:

PROS:

• Pre-built profiles: there are many different strategies that can be used (e.g. your weekly defrag may be slower and more thorough than the daily defrag), and if you have a preference you could select it from a dropdown (see screenshot above).
• Can schedule defrags: it implements this via Windows Task Scheduler, such that MyDefragPowerGUI does not need to be running for the scheduled tasks to run.
• Can clean hard drives prior to defrag operations: this can potentially remove a large number of files that have no business being packed into the defragmentation process. MyDefrag PowerGUI uses an internal cleaner which is probably good enough. Alternately, you can switch that one off and simply tell it to run CCleaner with the /Auto parameter prior to defragmenting (you will need to create a .bat file to this though as strangely MyDefragPowerGUI will not accept running executables with parameters).
• Includes,Excludes, and “spacehog” file sizes easily definable: you can easily tell it to skip or include certain files or extensions in the defrag process, as well as define what the size is for the so-called “spacehog” huge files to be moved to the end of the drive.
• One-click to update to the latest version of MyDefrag: not only will it grab the latest version, but it will also run the 32 bit or 64 bit version that is appropriate to your system.
• Portable: unzip and run. It will download all of the external tools it needs and save them to its directory. You could install or uninstall both the MyDefrag PowerGUI itself in “program files”.
• MyDefrag Screensaver: can also be easily installed or uninstalled from within PowerGUI. If you are unfamilliar with defrag screensavers, what they do is defrag your hard drives whenever your computer is idle; instead of running a screensaver that does nothing, you get your hard drive defragmented. It is VERY cool.
• Registry optimization/defrag: PowerGUI: downloads NTREGOPT registry optimization tool, but the version I tested does not do anything with it. I am guessing that this feature will be implemented in a future update.

CONS:

• The interface: is hard to navigate at first, which is strange for a GUI. The icons, whether in the sidebar or inside the panels, are unlabelled and confusing. On the positive side once you spend some time using it you’ll figure it out.
• Run before and after does not take parameters: MyDefrag PowerGUI lets you optionally run an executable before or after the defrag, but doesn’t seem to accept parameters. You could go around this, as I did with CCleaner, by creating a .BAT file instead.
• Downloads NTREGOPT registry optimization/defrag tool but doesn’t

The verdict: this a one-stop shop for defragmentation management that makes it easy to be as sophisticated as you want to be about defragging your hard drive, without having to write scripts or delve too much into the process. I highly recommend it.

Version Tested: 1.0.2

Compatibility: Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008 and Windows.

More info here, download here (use the green arrows on the right hand side; approx 4.17 megs).

WinMHR is a free security tool that provides a similar function as the VirusTotal website but with some additional features, and more to come. WinMHR is not a replacement for antivirus but it works great in conjunction with one (I’d recommend Avast! for a free antivirus.). The name stands for Windows Malware Hash Registry, which largely describes its functionality. WinMHR will calculate a hash for a file and then check against its database to see if it has identified that file to be related to malware.

The software comes in the form of an 8MB installer and takes up 26MB of RAM while running. WinMHR works on Windows XP SP3, Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7. It is completely free with no ads, reminders, or paid versions. You can set it to run when Windows starts or only be on-demand. The advantage of WinMHR is that your files remain private. The hashing is done locally and only the hash is sent across the wire to the Team Cymru servers.

[Editor’s note: this review was written by Freewaregenius contributor Jason H. Check out his tech blog: 404techsupport.com].

The interface is simple enough and is logical for WinMHR’s tasks. The Summary tab allows you to drag-and-drop files or folders into the application and initiate the process of analyzing them. You can also get a quick read-out of whether current running processes or previously scanned files are known malware.

Beyond the Summary tab, you can view current running processes to see if any malware is detected running in the background.

The Files tab allows you to view a summary of any files you’ve had scanned by WinMHR. It shows you the name, hashes, status, and other factors of any files so that if malware does show up you can more easily track down the source and eliminate it.

Upcoming features (based on comments from Krebs on Security):

• Ability to report false positives
• Ability to monitor a specific folder
• Firefox Add-on version

Pros:

• No files uploaded, just hashes.
• Automates the process of checking hashes with the Malware Hash Registry.
• Command line functionality.
• No definition updates needed.

Cons:

• Unable to scan 64-bit processes.
• Doesn’t help remove malware, just detect it.
• Odd situation from my experience: Launching WinMHR starts up WISPTIS.exe, Microsoft Tablet PC Components, and freezes my mouse until I kill the WISPTIS process.

Check out WinMHR from Team Cymru to complement your current computer security. On their website you can also find a bit more explanation and a video detailing the program. You might compare WinMHR to a similar tool for VirusTotal, VirusTotal Uploader, to add to your security toolbox but with VT, you will be uploading the files to their servers.