Free Windows Utilities from Microsoft

On this page you can find links to some utilities created by Microsoft that can be downloaded for free from their website:

• Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and the 2007 Microsoft Office System
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=CB944B27-9D6B-4...
  The Microsoft Best Practices Analyzer for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and the 2007 Microsoft Office System Best Practices Analyzer programmatically collects settings and values from data repositories such as MS SQL, registry, metabase and performance monitor. Once collected, a set of comprehensive ‘best practice’ rules are applied to the topology.
  Administrators running this tool will get a detailed report listing the recommendations that can be made to the environment to achieve greater performance, scalability and uptime.
• Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer 2.1 (for IT Professionals)
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=f32921af-9dbe-4...
  In response to direct customer need for a streamlined method to identify common security misconfigurations, Microsoft offers the free Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) scan tool. It includes a graphical and command line interface that can perform local or remote scans of Microsoft Windows systems.
  MBSA 2.1 builds on previous versions by adding support for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. MBSA 2.1 also provides full 64-bit installation, scan tool and vulnerability assessment (VA) checks, improved SQL Server 2005 checks, and support for the latest Windows Update Agent (WUA) and Microsoft Update technologies. More information on the capabilities of MBSA 2.1 is available on the MBSA Web site.
  MBSA 2.1 runs on Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP and Windows 2000 systems and will scan for common security misconfigurations on all Windows platforms and components including Internet Information Server (IIS) 5.0, and 6.0, SQL Server 7.0, 2000 and 2005, Internet Explorer (IE) 5.01 and later, and Office 2000, 2002 and 2003.
  MBSA also scans for missing security updates, update rollups and service packs available from Microsoft Update.
• SyncToy v1.4
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e0fc1154-c975-4...
  SyncToy helps you copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and computers quickly and easily.
• Active Directory Explorer
  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963907.aspx
  Active Directory Explorer (AD Explorer) is an advanced Active Directory (AD) viewer and editor. You can use AD Explorer to easily navigate an AD database, define favorite locations, view object properties and attributes without having to open dialog boxes, edit permissions, view an object's schema, and execute sophisticated searches that you can save and re-execute.
  AD Explorer also includes the ability to save snapshots of an AD database for off-line viewing and comparisons. When you load a saved snapshot, you can navigate and explorer it as you would a live database. If you have two snapshots of an AD database you can use AD Explorer's comparison functionality to see what objects, attributes and security permissions changed between them.
  AD Explorer works on Windows 2000 and higher.