Easy Sysinternals Tools

This is a tip for those of you that have to figure out what is not working on a given system.  It has been known for a number of years that Sysinternal tools are the best at determining problems.  A couple of years ago Microsoft bought the company.  There was some concern that Microsoft would either charge for the tools or hide them away.  Both of these worries turned out to be unfounded.

It is even possible to use the original domain www.sysinternals.com to find the tools on Microsoft sites.  What is not as widely known is that it is possible to directly execute the tools from the web.  Microsoft has set up a web site that allows direct execution of the most popular Sysinternal tools.  It might seem a bit obscure but once you try it, you’ll understand the value.  By downloading and running the executables, the process of installing is skipped.  If you know what you want, this would be much faster and easier way to run a specific tool against the machine that you are currently at.  In theory, it would even allow for the possibility of writing scripts that would use the Live Sysinternals tools directly.  It is both simple and clever.

Just today I needed to run WinObj to track down some objects.  This turned out to be a nicer option, especially since I only need it from time to time.

I remember when Sysinternals used to be called NTInternals.  It had caused a bit of a stink with Microsoft which had insisted that they change the name.  Now it does not matter but the NT name died quite some years ago.

Here is the brief documentation from the new web site:

What is this?

This is a file share allowing access to all Sysinternals utilities. We have developed this to test an alternate distribution mechanism for our utilities. This will allow you to run these tools from any computer connected to the Internet without having to navigate to a webpage, download and extract the zip file. If you are unfamiliar with Microsoft Windows Sysinternals, it is highly recommended that you visit the website at http://technet.microsoft.com/sysinternals before using these tools. If you have any questions or comments on this file share, please email syssite@microsoft.com

Regards, The Microsoft Windows Sysinternals Team

About Jeff Muir

Live near Brisbane, Australia. Software developer currently focused on iOS and Android. Avid Google Local Guide