Personal Computer World

Bart's PE Builder 3.1.10a

Freeware

Build a bootable Windows CD-Rom or DVD from the original Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 installation/setup CD, very suitable for PC maintenance tasks. It will give you a complete Win32 environment with network support and a graphical user interface.

Requires: Windows 98SE, 2000, Me or XP

Partition Logic 0.68

Freeware

Hard disk partitioning and data management tool. Create, delete, format, defragment, resize, and move partitions. Copy entire hard disks from one to another. Based on the Visopsys operating system. Boot from a CD or floppy disk and runs as a standalone system, independent of your regular operating system.

Requires: Intel x86 computer (supplied as an ISO image)

Paragon Partition Manager 2005

Full commercial software, worth £28

Partitioning your hard drive is an invaluable way to optimise the use of disk space, improve performance, or create a dual-boot PC so you can install another operating system. Just don't use Windows own partition tools to do the job, as they're destructive.: you're much better off using a safe alternative PM 2005.

Requires: Windows 98SE, 2000, Me or XP

nLite 1.4

Freeware

Windows is updated, frequentely. New Microsoft patches, services packs, driver updates. What happens if you have to re-install from your old Windows install CD? nLite enables you to create a custom Windows XP install CD with new updates and drivers.

Requires: Windows XP & .NET Framework 2+

ReNamer 4.10

Freeware

File renaming tool that offers all the standard renaming procedures, including prefixes, suffixes, replacements, case changes and more. In addition, it can also remove brackets, add number sequences, remove digits or symbols and change file extensions. Combine multiple renaming actions as a rule set.

Requires: Windows 98SE, 2000, Me or XP

FontExpert 2004

Full commercial application, worth £32

Of all the technical issues you need to be concerned about when maintaining a PC, fonts will normally rank very low down the list. In fact most people leave font management up to their applications: install a program and it adds some fonts, remove it and it takes them away. Simple, really.

Requires: Windows 2000 or XP