When you first start the program you will notice that two program windows are opened. The first window lets you configure the search parameters, the second displays the results.

When you look at the search window, you will notice that it offers a lot of search options. You only need to select at least one base folder for the search though to get started, as everything else is optional. The program supports multiple base folders for the search, as well as file, folder and extension exclusions. You could for instance search only for doc or docx files on all hard drives and partitions connected to the computer. And while those options are handy enough, you can use the program to search for file contents in text or binary form as well.

That’s still not everything there is to search. How does searching in alternate data streams sound? Or parameters that take the file size, file attributes or creation, modification or access time into consideration?

SearchMyFiles stops by default after the first ten thousand matching files it finds, with an option to set a different limit or no limit at all.

The Search Mode menu defines how results are displayed in the search window.

• Standard Search – Displays a list of files matching the query.
• Duplicate Search Mode – Will display only duplicate files in the search results.
• Non-Duplicates Search Mode – Displays all files that are unique.
• Summary Mode – Displays information for each folder included in the scan.

All search modes share the same layout. Details are displayed for each result, including the file or folder name, location on the computer, size and time related information.

The program comes with the usual Nirsoft tools to create HTML reports and to export the data to text, xml or csv files.

One interesting option, available under Options > Open File on Double Click, allows you to open any file in the search results listing with a double-click. This can be handy to verify duplicate files or to open the file that you were looking for.

A command line version supporting the majority of search parameters is available as well.

Windows users can download Search My Files from the official Nirsoft website. The program is offered as a 32-bit and 64-bit version.

Even if you are using a password manager like KeePass, you will usually have programs that save account information and passwords for you. That’s a problem if you want an overview of all passwords, or want to make sure that all are secure.

The new Nirsoft application Password Security Scanner has been designed to audit Windows passwords. The first release supports auditing passwords stored in Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, MSN, Microsoft Outlook, Windows Live Mail and, dialup and vpn passwords.

The program scans the operating system for all supported programs and displays all passwords that it finds in a list. Password Security Scanner lists the item name (usually a domain name), the type (browser, email), application the password was found in, the username, password length, the password strength, and even the type of characters used by the password.

Firefox users need to disable the master password if set up, as it blocks access to the password list. This is done under Options > Security > Master Password in the browser.

The password length and strength give detailed information about a password’s security. The information may for instance be used to change weak passwords on the system. Keep in mind though that all passwords read by the application are accessibly openly on the system. Someone with direct access to the PC could retrieve the account information regardless of password length.

Users can however use the information to delete passwords that are out in the open on their system. While that may not always be a practicable solution, it may work in some cases.

The data can be exported into text, csv and xml files, and HTML reports. Windows users can download the portable program from the official program website.

USBLogView has been designed to fill the gap. The new portable software monitors plug-in and unplug events of external USB devices for as long as it runs on the system.

Plug and unplug events are recorded along with other information about each particular event. This includes the date and time the event took place, the device name, description and type of device.

The program furthermore highlights drive letters, serial numbers and other information about each external USB device that got connected or disconnected while the application was running in the background.

If you run the program all the time you get a detailed list of all connections to the PC the software is running on. It needs to be noted that this is not a 100% safe way of finding out. Users with access to the PC could close the program and restart it to avoid detection. They would however need to either look for monitoring software or know that it is running to do so.

USBLogView comes with the usual options Nir Sofer adds to his software programs. It is possible to export connection data, create a HTML report, print data or copy and paste it directly.

The software is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. Interested users can download it from the developer website.

RunAsTime is a lightweight portable software for Windows that can run applications in the date and time that you specify. Unlike other tools that change the system data and time for that, RunAsTime injects the desired date and time into the application directly without altering the system time. The application is made to believe that the system time is set to the selected date and time, when in fact it is not.

All options are displayed in the main application interface on startup.

Here you can select the application that you want to run in a different date and time and the desired date and time. It is optionally possible to add startup parameters to the program start. A click on Run starts the program with the selected date, time and parameters.

You can click on create desktop shortcut to create a desktop shortcut for that configuration. Handy if you need to start the program regularly. The program supports a second mode of operation called Immediate Mode. This mode injects the data and time directly without waiting for the kernel to be fully loaded. This may fix problems with applications who get the real system time and not the time configured in RunAsDate. Some applications on the other hand may crash when Immediate Mode is used.

Like many other Nirsoft applications, RunAsDate can be launched from the command line. The supported parameters are the following ones:

RunAsDate.exe {/immediate} {/movetime} [dd\mm\yyyy] {hh:mm:ss} [Program to run] {Program parameters}

RunAsDate does not work on all Windows programs. It is only compatible with 32-bit applications and won’t affect applications that get the time from a secondary source.

Windows users can download RunAsDate from the official Nirsoft website.

The portable software monitors a network adapter for Internet traffic. It automatically saves select Internet file types to a custom storage location so that those files remain on the system even if the browser cache itself is deleted.

It is necessary to configure the capturing on the first start of the program.

You can define the base folder where all downloaded Internet files are stored in and the file types that you want to capture. Available for selection are among others image, video, audio and text file types.

The capture method supports three different methods. First raw sockets which is not as reliable as the others, and then WinPcap Packet Capture Driver or the Network Monitor Driver, both available for free on the Internet. All network adapters of the computer system are displayed in the same configuration menu. If multiple are installed it is up to the user to select the one that needs to be monitored.

WebSiteSniffer from that moment on monitors the Internet traffic on the system. It displays all host names, the number of files and file types, the transferred size and the storage location in the interface. It is possible to stop the capturing at any time with the F6 key or a click on the stop button in the toolbar.

Selected items can be saved as text, xml or csv files on the system. The reporting options hint at other uses, like creating reports or logs for specific websites or projects.

Users who want to download Internet files can configure the program to only specific file types like image formats. There is unfortunately no filter available to restrict the downloads to files of a certain size or resolution.

Windows users can download the monitoring software WebSiteSniffer from the Nirsoft website. The program is compatible with all recent 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system. Please note that some Windows users may need to run the program with elevated privileges if they want to select the Raw Sockets capturing method.

Sometimes though you may want to see which cookies are written to the system in realtime. While you could configure your browser to display warnings about each cookie that is about to be written, it is often not the most comfortable thing to do considering that it breaks the workflow big time.

The new Nirsoft application WebCookiesSniffer on the other hand deals with cookies without interrupting the browsing experience. The program requires the free software WinPcap Capture Driver or Microsoft’s Network Monitor Driver to capture cookies in realtime. You can alternatively try the Raw Socket method which is however less reliable than the other two options.

When you first start the program you are asked to pick a capture method and network adapter. The program will then pick up all new cookies that are created on the system. The program itself is browser independent which means that it will display cookies from all web browsers installed on the system.

Each cookie is displayed with its host name, request path, length, count and string. When you select a cookie all of its values are displayed in the lower half of the screen. There are no options to edit or delete which is unfortunate. As is that you cannot link a cookie to the website that triggered its creation.

The portable software comes with the usual assortment of exporting options. You can create HTML reports or save selected cookies as text, xml or csv files.

The ability to edit or delete cookies would come in handy. As would an option to display the website that triggered the cookies creation. Finally, an option to filter by browser would be handy as well.

Windows users can download the latest version of WebCookiesSniffer from the official Nirsoft project website. The program is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

CSVFileView is that alternative. It has been developed by Nirsoft, and provides capabilities to view and convert CSV and tab-delimited files. The portable software uses the standard Nirsoft interface.

You can load supported file formats via the File > Open option or with a click on the load file button in the toolbar. The program processes the file then and display all of its values in rows and columns on the main screen. Here it is then for instance possible to sort by column header or use the Find command (Ctrl-f) to find specific entries within the data.

Another handy option is the ability to remove columns from the display via View > Choose Columns. Columns can also be dragged around, which can be helpful to place all important data columns next to each other to make them visible on the screen.

I would not say that the program is necessarily faster than Office or Open Office. Maybe the start is, but the main advantage is that the tool is portable and a lot easier to use. If you do not need editing, then this is a solid alternative.

CSVFileView supports saving and exporting of some or all data sets. Just select the data sets that you want to export, and either right-click the selection or use the File menu to export it.

The program can not only export to CSV and tab delimited files, but also to plain text, tabular text files, HTML files and XML files.

CSVFileView can be downloaded from Nirsoft. The program is compatible with all recent 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

The network software works best with either the freely available WinPcap Capture Driver or Microsoft’s Network Monitor Driver. Both driver downloads are linked on the official program page. Users need to have at least one of the drivers installed to make full use of the software.

NetworkTrafficView supports a Raw Sockets method as well which unfortunately is not as reliable as using one of the network monitor drivers.

Some Windows users need to run the network monitoring software with elevated rights. This was for instance the case on my 64-bit Windows 7 Professional PC system, as no network adapter is discovered by the program otherwise.

The program afterwards displays the network traffic in realtime in the application interface. This includes the IP protocol, source and destination address, ports as well as packet information, the process and the total data site transferred.

A click on the stop button pauses the capturing for the time being. A search is provided to find specific items in the listing.

The listings are fully sortable with a click on the column headers. It is for instance possible to sort by process, destination address or data size.

NetworkTrafficView comes with the usual assortment of features, including the ability to create a HTML report and to export the current selection as txt, xml or csv files.

I rarely think that Nirsoft software lacks a feature. This time though I’d like to see a filtering option to filter traffic directly while it is captured. This way you could monitor a specific process or only data packets above a certain size in the interface.

NetworkTrafficView is available for 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system. Windows users can download it and the necessary capture drivers from the Nirsoft website.

While it is easier to work with crash reports under Windows Vista / 7 thanks to improved handling, it is still lacking fundamental features that one would expect from a first party tool. The ability to look up errors in a “crash” database on the Internet looks good on paper, but falls short thanks to lack of entries in that database.

Nirsoft is not reinventing the wheel with its latest Windows application WinCrashReport. The biggest accomplishment of the portable program is that it unifies the error reporting on all supported versions of the Windows operating system. It is compatible with all 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microosft Windows operating system from Windows 2000 to the very latest Windows 7 (at the time of writing).

The program needs to be run when an application crashes on the system. Windows 7 and Vista users may need to run WinCrashReport with elevated privileges if the crashed application was run with administrative rights as well.

The program then displays the file name, exception code and address in its interface, as well as the complete error report in the lower half of it.

The information presented here are valuable to programmers and admins who need to resolve program crashes. Regular users on the other hand won’t necessarily be able to use the available crash information to fix the issue themselves. Regardless, they can use some of the information to research the crash on the Internet.

The program can be used to create a text or html report of the crash. That’s handy for keeping records of application crashes for instance, or for sending the report to an admin or coder. The interface displays plain text error reports by default, which can be switched to html reports with the F9 key (and back to text with F8).

Reports are saved with the Ctrl-S shortcut, or the File > Save this crash report menu.

WinCrashReport does not support 64-bit application crashes at this point in time. Future versions of the software will support 64-bit crashes as well.

Windows users can download WinCrashReport directly from the Nirsoft website.

Some users may want to know how this program differs from AppCrashView by the same developer. AppCrashView is only compatible with Vista and Windows 7. It furthermore pulls the information from system crash logs (wer files) that are created by Windows Error Reporting. This means that you may see multiple error listings in AppCrashView that may data back some time ago.

Nir Sofer has just released a new tool to assist network and system administrators in those tasks. When you first start the WakeMeOnLan tool it scans the computer network automatically. The portable program identifies all connected devices, collects their network addresses and saves the information to a file.

The computers are also displayed in the application interface, along with their local IP address, computer name if set, MAC address, network adapter information and status.

The saved list can then later be used to select computers that are either turned off or in standby to turn them on again.

WakeMeOnLan can be run on all 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system, from Windows 2000 all the way to the latest client and server versions of Windows (at the time of writing Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2).

The remote computers need to support the Wake On Lan feature. It also needs to be noted that this works only on wired networks and not wireless networks.

On some computers, Wake on Lan needs to be first enabled in the computer bios before it can be activated in the network card properties.

More information about that process is available on the Nirsoft website and the manufacturer manuals (Bios, network adapter).

To wake a computer on the local area network select it in the device listing in the program interface and click on the “wake up selected computers” button afterwards. You can alternatively right-click a device and select the same option, or use the F8 shortcut code to do so.

WakeMeOnLan supports command line parameters to wake up computers on the network. The basic command is WakeMeOnLan.exe /wakeup followed by the computer’s IP address, MAC address or computer name.

Windows users who work with computers in a network regularly can download WakeMeOnLan from the Nirsoft website.

Their portable nature makes them excellent for putting them on troubleshooting DVDs, repair USB drives or tools collections. Nirsoft applications in general are lightweight and do not take up much space on the storage device.

NirLauncher is a frontend created by Nirsoft that provides access to more than a hundred Nirsoft applications. The program ships with the programs included, which means that you can run all the supported programs right after you have unpacked the launcher program on your system.

The program has a size of roughly 16 Megabytes unpacked on the hard drive, which is not bad at all considering that the Nirsoft applications are already included.

When you start the program for the first time, you see a tabbed interface that divides the programs into groups. Available for selection are for instance password recovery utilities, network monitoring tools, web browser tools, Internet related utilities or programmers tools.

A click on a tab lists all the programs listed under that category in the lower half of the interface. Each program is listed with its name, a short description of what it is doing, the version, last update date, web page url and file path.

A double-click launches the program automatically in a new window on the system. It is alternatively possible to select one program from the list and use the buttons located in the status bar to interact with them.

This includes running the program, open the program web page at the Nirsoft website, opening the program’s help file or searching the web.

A right-click on a program opens a context menu with options, including an option to run the program with administrative privileges or advanced parameters and options.

The Options > Advanced Options configuration menu holds some interesting preferences and settings as well. Users can change the double-click action for instance from running the selected program to opening the advanced run screen, help file, web page or properties window instead.

One interesting feature of NirLauncher is its package based design, which means that it is theoretically possible to add custom application groups to the program. For download at the NirLauncher website are several example packages, including the SysInternals Tools collection as well as the Joeware and Piriform packages.

NirLauncher is compatible with all 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems from Windows 2000 up to the very latest Windows 7 version. Some of the Nirsoft applications included have separate 64-bit versions which will be automatically run if a 64-bit operating system is detected by the program launcher.

Windows users can download NirLauncher from the project website over at Nirsoft.

Some of the information that I look-up as part of the research are the whois information and DNS records of the website in question.

DomainHostingView is a new Nirsoft application that seems to have been designed specifically for that purpose. The portable software looks-up information about a domain or website.

All the user needs to do is to enter a domain name in the form at the top of the application to generate a domain report for the domain.

It takes a few seconds to generate the report before it appears in the interface. The report begins with a summary at the top listing the important bits of information at the top. This includes the domain registrar and company or individual it is registered to, the web hosting company, mail server and information about the domain creation, update and expiration dates.

The program seems to have problems identifying some information from subdomains (like www.ghacks.net) correctly.

DNS Records, IP Addresses Information, Raw Domain Information, Web Server IP Address Information, Mail Server IP Address Information and Name Server IP Address Information follow after the summary.

All the information on the screen can be highlighted, copied and pasted easily. There is also the option to generate an HTML report of the current domain report. Reports can be saved locally for future reference.

The program is missing a few elements that other Nirsoft applications offer. This includes exporting the data to a txt or XML file, or printing a selection or all of the information. It is likely that at least part of the missing features will make their way into future versions of the application.

DomainHostingView is a portable program for 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system. The program is available for download at the Nirsoft website.

The selection of a thread in the upper half of the window displays its stack data information in the lower half. Displayed in particular are strings found in the stack, stack module addresses, call stack and processor registers.

It is possible to pause and resume the updating at anytime, helpful if you need to analyze a particular state. The stack view can be changed from displaying strings to displaying binary values, module addresses or all other stack values. These view modes plus displaying processor registers and call stacks can be enabled under the Options menu in the menubar.

It is possible to switch to another process with a click on the Choose Process bar in the button toolbar. Process Threads View is more of a tool for software developers than end users. It still can be used by everyone to get a deeper understanding of a process running on the system, but interpretation of the information requires technical knowledge.

The software itself comes with the usual Nirsoft features that include saving selected items to formats such as XML or txt. It is furthermore possible to create an HTML report of selected or all items on display.

Process Threads View is not as sophisticated or rich in functionality as Process Explorer. It is on the other hand easier to access and use.

The software is compatible with all versions of the Windows operating system from Windows 2000 on. A 32-bit and 64-bit edition of the program is offered for download at the Nirsoft website.

If you open Windows Explorer under Windows 7, you will notice a toolbar sitting between the navigation and search, and the sidebar and file listings in Windows Explorer. It contains items such as Organize, Open, Share With or New Folder.

Custom Explorer Toolbar offers customization options for that toolbar in Explorer.

When you first start the portable software, you will notice that everything is configured on one screen. A list of available buttons has been placed prominently in the interface. These functions can be selected via checkboxes. Each item is listed with its title and a description of its functionality.

Next to the items are folder types which define under which folder types the buttons are displayed. An example would be the slide show button which makes only sense when a picture folder is opened.

The Action pulldown menu defines whether the selected buttons are added to the Windows Explorer toolbar or removed from it. Just select Remove the specified toolbar buttons or add the specified toolbar buttons to do so.

The Toolbar mode pulldown menu defines when the selected buttons should be displayed in Windows Explorer. The buttons can either be configured to show up when one or more items are selected, or none.

A clcik on the Do It button sets the values in the Windows Registry. The changes are effective immediately, you may need to close all Explorer windows before they become visible.

Here is a list of all buttons that can be added to Windows Explorer this way:

• Burn, burn the selected files and folders to disc
• Close, close the active window
• Layout, configure this folder’s layout
• Copy, copy the selected items to the Windows clipboard
• New Folder, create a new, empty folder
• Slide show, display all of the selected videos and pictures in a slideshow
• Include in library, include the selected folder in a library
• Nobody, Makes the selected items private so that other people cannot access them
• Delete, deletes the selected files and folders.
• Cut, moves the selected items to the Clipboard
• Search on website, open the website to view all search results
• Organize, organize the selected folder’s contents
• Paste, paste the contents of the clipboard
• Redo, redo the last action
• Remove Properties, remove properties from the selected file
• Rename, rename files and folders
• Select all, select all items in the folder
• Email, send selected files as attachments in the default email client.
• Print, send the selected files to the default printer
• Share with, share the selected items with other people on the network
• Details, Library, Navigation pane, preview pane, menu bar, hide or show
• Properties, display the properties menu for the selected file or folder
• Sync, Sync files with your computer
• Undo, undo the last action

Windows 7 users can download Custom Explorer Toolbar from the official Nirsoft website.

ServiWin is a Nirsoft application that aids the administrator and user in troubleshooting driver and service related issues.

The program starts up in driver list mode on startup. It is basically a list of all system drivers that are currently known to the system. This includes drivers that are loaded or stopped.

Each driver is listed with is name and display name, status, startup type, description, versions and company related information. Especially the startup type and driver version are helpful in troubleshooting driver related issues.

The toolbar at the top contains buttons to start, stop and restart a selected driver. The right-click context menu offers even more of those including changing the status to pause and the startup type.

As you can see from the screenshot there are also options to research a particular driver on Google and to create a HTML report of selected drivers or all drivers of the system.

The File > Save Selected Items menu can be used to save the selection to a text, xml or csv file.

You can switch to Services Mode, the second featured mode of the program. You do that with a click on the Services button in the toolbar, via the View menu or by pressing F8.

This list mode displays all services of the operating system along with their names, statuses and startup types. That’s handy to troubleshoot related issues, for instance the Print Spooler service when troubleshooting printer drivers.

This mode supports the very same options as the driver mode. From changing statuses and startup types over researching a driver on Windows to exporting the information to a file or a HTML report. The software supports troubleshooting remote machines. This is done by entering the IP address of a remote computer via the File > Select Computer menu.

ServiWin is a handy portable software for the Windows operating system. You can download it directly from the Nirsoft website. (via)

That could leave their wireless routers open for unauthorized access, especially if no encryption or weak encryption is configured.

The best option here is to use the strongest encryption possible. That however may not be always possible, if devices that need to connect to the wi-fi router do not support that.

Wireless Network Watcher is a free software program that scans a wireless network for connected computer systems. It displays all computers that are currently connected to the network in its interface, making it dead easy to identify unauthorized access to the network.

Each connected device or computer is represented with an IP address, device name, MAC address, company that created the network adapter and device information. These information can be exported and saved to various formats including html, xml and text files.

The program is fully compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system. It supports all Windows versions from Windows 2000 to Windows 7, including Windows Server versions.

The program can only scan the wireless network the computer it is running on is connected to. Users who want to scan a network that they are not connected to need to connect to it first before scanning it.

It can happen that the wrong wireless network adapter is identified by the program. It is possible to select the right one under Advanced Options (F9).

Wireless Network Watcher is a portable program that will start the scan automatically right after it has been started. It can take a few seconds before the list is populated.

Windows users can download the program from the official website over at Nirsoft.

BatteryInfoView is a portable Nirsoft application that provides in depth information about a device’s battery. The program displays information like the battery name, manufacturer, manfuacturing date or serial on startup. This, and more than a dozen battery related information, from the battery’s power state over current capacity, full charged capacity, voltage or the number of charge and discharge cycles.

The estimated remaining battery time for the current activity, and the full battery time for the current activity are also displayed directly on screen.

Those information can be very helpful. The battery name and manufacturer can be helpful to order a new battery for instance.

BatteryInfoView comes with a second mode, which you can activate by pressing F8. The battery log keeps track of a battery status over time. It is set by default to record the status every 30 seconds. Users who prefer a different interval can press F9 to open the advanced options to change the interval.

A log, which acts as a battery monitor at the same time, can be pretty handy to analyze the discharge speed of the built-in battery. A new log entry is added whenever the computer changes state, for instance if it is put into standby or hibernate and resumed at a later time. This way it is relatively easy to calculate the discharge rate when in one of those modes. You can switch back to the default battery information mode with F7.

The program comes with the usual Nirsoft options to export the information into xml, html or csv files. The easiest way to do that is to press Ctrl-S, or by using the File menu.

BatteryInfoView is a handy portable software for mobile Windows devices. The program is compatible with all 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system, from Windows 2000 up to Windows 7. Program downloads are provided directly on the Nirsoft website.

The software is a free portable application. Just unpack it after download and run the executable afterwards. You get two windows on first launch, a select domains window that resembles a text editor and the main program window. Add domain names to the select domains window and pick the DNS record types that you want to look-up.

Four additional options are available.

• Use the following DNS server – Lets you select a different DNS server, for instance Open DNS, Google DNS or another public DNS server for the DNS look-ups.
• When IP address is detected, retrieve the PTR record (Reverse DNS lookup) – It is possible to enter IP addresses in the domain list. If this option is enabled, a reverse DNS lookup will be performed to retrieve the IP addresses’ host name.
• Show error information when DNS record cannot be retrieved – Displays errors when a DNS record lookup fails.
• Filter out additional records – Only display the selected records, do not show additional records.

Dns Data View retrieves information about each domain name and IP address. All information are displayed in a table like interface in the main program window. Among the information are the domain name, DNS record type, host name or IP address.

The entries can be sorted with a click on one of the table headers, for instance by IP address or host name.

A HTML report can be generated for selected items or all items. It is furthermore possible to export the data to a text, XML, HTML or comma delimited file.

I see two core applications for DNS Data View. First to verify that DNS records are properly configured for one or multiple domain names, and second to check DNS propagation by using different DNS servers.

DNS Data View is a portable software for all recent versions of the Windows operating system from Windows XP to the latest Windows 7 version. It tested fine on a 64-bit Windows 7 Professional system.

Interested users can download the program from the Nirsoft website.

Sometimes it may be important to get detailed information about an IP address. Say you receive spam emails from a particular address all the time, or want to find out more about a person who stalks you, or are a webmaster who wants to find out who tries to brute force their server.

The IP address can provide you with valuable information in all cases. Please note that computer experts tend to use proxy servers or virtual private networks to cover their tracks. You would only see the last IP of the chain in this case, and not the IP of the device where it all started.

IPNetInfo is a lightweight portable software for Windows to look-up IP address information. It basically offers direct access to whois databases that you find on the Internet, for instance at a web host’s website.

The program displays a white text form on first startup that you can use to add IP addresses. It is possible to add IP addresses or hostnames manually, or paste them in from the Clipboard. Options are displayed at the bottom of the screen, of which some are already pre-selected.

The program will automatically resolve IP addresses and convert host names to IP addresses for instance. You can furthermore add a pause between look-ups which may be appropriate if you have added dozens, hundreds or even more IP addresses.

IPNetInfo will perform the selected operations. Each IP address is listed in a row in the main program interface. Core information, like the IP address and host name, country of origin, phone number or abuse email are displayed directly in each row. Detailed information about the selected row are displayed in the lower half of the program.

The information here resemble the whois look-ups on certain Internet sites, where information about a domain name or IP address can be obtained for free.

Reporting and exporting options are available. It is possible to create an HTML report of the look-ups, or save the information to text or xml files.

Another interesting option is located under Help > Show my current IP, which loads a web page where the current IP address of the computer is displayed. This is similar to our own IP address script where you get similar information.

You can download IPNetInfo from the developer website at Nirsoft. The program is fully compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

WhoisThisDomain is a free portable Nirsoft application that simplifies the process, at least for Windows users. The program can be used to look-up one or multiple domains names. Even better, it will automatically request the information from the right server so that you do not have to worry about that at all anymore.

A choose domains screen is displayed on first startup. You can enter or paste domain names into the form that you want to retrieve whois information from. Domain names can be entered one per line, or separated by commas or spaces.

Once you are done editing it will try to retrieve domain name information for each domain name that you have entered or pasted into that form.

A wait period of ten seconds between look-ups ensures that you do not hammer whois servers. You can change that number on the chose domains screen.

Another interesting option is the ability to build domain lists. These add selected domain name extensions to names automatically, so that you do not have to enter them manually in case you want to look-up multiple domain name extensions (e.g. ghacks.net, ghacks.de)

Each domain is displayed in a row in the main interface. Lights at the beginning of each row indicate whether a domain is online or not. Following in line are the domain name, whois source, domain status and information when the domain name expires, when it was created and last updated.

The whois information are displayed after you select a domain from the list. The output depends largely on the source. Some companies return the registrants name for instance, while others do only return generic information.

A whois on google.com for instance returns the Dns Admin as the registrant. All information can be copied and pasted. Records can also be saved to a text file or HTML file.

Advanced users can override the default whois server list by adding their own whois servers to the program. You need to create the text file whois-servers.txt and place it in the program directory. Whois information need to be added in the way domain-extension whois-server to the text file. Check out the program homepage for some examples.

WhoisThisDomain supports both generic and country code domains. The tool is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Windows operating system from Windows 2000 to the very latest Windows 7.