Strictly for tinkerers ;-)

Microsoft's Sysinternals has been around quite a long time yet doesn't get much attention most of the time. Yet it is a great resource for tinkerers - those like me who love looking around behind the scenes, either to enhance their knowledge or just out of sheer curiosity.

Autoruns.exe is a great way of finding out what is starting up without your specific consent and is the best known of the programs, but fancy having four desktops? Try Desktops.exe, or Zoomit for some useful extra mouse functionality.
RootkitRevealer might reassure you if you are wondering what may be going on ... and bginfo might give you quite a surprise.

After installation all these programs and many more will be in C:\SysInternals and the usable ones have a 'proper' icon and many have a help file (.chm extension)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx

 

Agreed, Earthling - it's a very handy addition to any toolbox. In addition to the apps you've already mentioned, I use or have used DebugView, Process Explorer, TCPView, and WhoIs with great success.

There's a link for the Sysinternals Suite here at MG, as well as separate links to many of the programs included in the suite.

 

And for all the geeks out there that would like you put all of the Sysinternal utilities along with the Nirsoft utilities in one interface, Windows System Control Center is the bomb.

http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/wscc05.png

 

Yeah, I agree it is a great resource but it's not just for tinkerers.

I think my favorite utility so far out of that bunch is PageDefrag which I have been using regularly for a
couple of years now. I have it set to run on every boot up with a zero second delay.

Another favorite of mine is Contig