All drive partitions are listed underneath each drive with their assigned drive letters, file system, size and status.

Below the drive listing is an area with six tabs that display information about the selected hard drive or partition.

The Information tab lists everything there is to know about the selected drive. From the firmware version over transfer mode and version, to the drive’s rotation rate, temperature, transfer features and controller information.

The S.M.A.R.T. tab lists all Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology information that the drive provides. This can be helpful for troubleshooting purposes, as you get realtime data that may reveal upcoming drive issues. Error logs, including self-test logs, write and read stream error logs or extended self-test logs are displayed in the logs tab next to it.

The Control tab lists supported drive features and whether they are enabled or not. This includes features such as S.M.A.R.T. but also Advanced Power Management, Advanced Acoustic Management or Auto Offline Data Collection. State changes are not saved even though it is possible to click on on or off to switch a feature on or off.

DHE Drive Info offers additional tools that are mostly relevant to technicians. This includes a built-in sector browser, a list of all supported features and commands, and an option to create reports via the File > Save Reports menu.

Regular users can configure the program to display a notification if a drive’s temperature reaches a selected threshold.

DH Drive Info is a useful hard drive diagnostic software for the Windows operating system. The portable nature of the application makes it a good fit for a troubleshooting DVD or USB stick.

Some might now bring forth the old argument of having nothing to fear if you have got nothing to hide, which has been refuted over and over again. One argument against is that you may value your privacy. There is really no need for someone else to see family photos, financial documents or private email messages when you are crossing the border.

Zer0 is a basic program for Windows that deletes files so that they become unrecoverable on the system. The developers state that it is using a “high security file deletion” algorithm, but fail to elaborate on that. Tests confirmed that files can’t be recovered with software like Recuva or Undelete My Files.

While that may do for private use, it is not recommended for corporate environments because of the lack of information.

Files can only be added via drag and drop to the program interface. Each file is listed with its full file path, size and a status code.

A click on delete removes the selected files from the system and overwrites the occupied space on the hard drive so that it cannot be recovered afterwards. Successful deletions are indicated in the status column in the interface.

Zer0 is nowhere near as sophisticated as Eraser for instance. The program still gets the job done even though you’d probably would want to skip it if you are deleting a lot of files regularly on the system.

You can download the program from the developer website. Please note that a “free of all sponsored” offers version is provided on the download page next to the regular program versions. If you download the regular version, you will notice that it is filled to the brim with those offers that install toolbars and other gimmicks that you may not need on your system.

Free File Wiper is an alternative that provides more information about the file deletion process.

Most laptop keyboards display a key’s Fn action in blue on the keyboard. To activate one of the features, one has to press the Fn key and the key the function is mapped to.

Function key layouts may differ depending on the manufacturer of the laptop. Media keys most of the time are mapped to the F-key bar at the top.

One of the issues here is that it is often not that comfortable to use these keys. It may be difficult to nearly impossible to use the functionality with just one hand.

SfunKey has been designed to provide comfortable access to some of the extra keys. It maps a total of 12 keys to the F-keys on the keyboard. These features can now be activated by pressing the key twice on the keyboard, which is more comfortable than having to use the Fn key with one of the F-keys.

The following actions are available after the portable program has been launched (from F1 to F12): Sleep, LCD Brightness-. LCD Brightness+, Connect to Projector, Lock PC, Task Manager, Volume Mute, Volume-, Volume+, Previous Track, Play/Pause, Next Track.

The F12 key is not active by default, as it is often reserved by the system.

The program displays selected actions in an on screen display by default which can be disabled in the program settings.

Incompatible programs can be added to the compatibility listing which blocks program features when those applications are running on the system. This may be useful for full screen games for instance.

SFunKey is a handy portable program for mobile users who prefer to access media actions and other actions without the Fn key. The program is compatible with all recent 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Screenshot Captor is one of those Swiss army knifes in the screenshot taking world. The program supports all the capturing options that users expect, from capturing the whole workspace to individual windows, free form rectangles or scrolling windows. All modes are selectable from within the program interface, or by keyboard shortcut. New users find all shortcuts listed under the capture menu in the program window.

Screenshot Captor displays a preview window after capturing a screenshot that offers options to process the image directly. Here it is possible to print it, create a thumbnail of it, save it, copy it to the clipboard or use the send to menu to transfer it. Options are provided to bypass the preview window if it is not needed.

You can send the image to the main program window where you can process it further. Screenshot Captor offers all the tools that users except from a screenshot editor. This includes adding annotations and watermarks, highlighting or blurring areas, drawing arrows, or resizing or cropping images directly.

Screenshots can be saved in a wide variety of formats, including png and jpg, but also jpeg2000, bmp or pdf among others. The program can be configured to remove all meta data from the image. A preview is available that displays both the original image and the new version that will be saved to the system.

Screenshot Captor 3 ships with a set of new features. You can for instance configure the program to upload screenshots automatically or on-demand to image file hosting sites such as Flickr or Imageshack, or to an ftp server. Especially the scrolling window capturing tool in Screenshot Captor 3 needs to be mentioned, as it handles many scrolling windows with ease that other screenshot taking programs fail to capture.

Another feature that sets the program apart is that it is highly configurable. This includes automatic processing options, the ability to take and save screenshots directly or support for third party applications that you can send the screenshots to.

New users may feel overwhelmed at first because of the sheer size of options and menus that the program offers. Mouser has created demonstration videos that explain all the program’s key concept in a few minutes each. Especially the first video, which offers a quick overview, is recommended.

You can download the latest version of the program from the Donation Coder website. The program is compatible with all versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system, from Windows 9x to the very latest version.

Verdict

Screenshot Captor is a professional screenshot taking application for Windows. It offers a rich feature set and ships with features that are usually only available in commercial applications.

Developers are the second group. They might want to experiment with different program icons for their applications to find the most suitable one. Thumbico is a free portable software for Windows that acts both as an icon viewer and extractor.

You can drag and drop icons into the program interface to view them in the selected resolution. One of the features of Thumbico is that it can display icons in a larger resolution than Windows can. You can change the resolution in the application’s top menu bar, with a right-click and the selection of Make Bigger or Smaller, or with the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+ or Ctrl-. If you ever wanted a larger than life version of the Firefox logo, now is your chance to take a look at it.

Standard icon sizes are available through the right-click context menu and the keyboard shortcuts Alt+ or Alt- as well. The latter cycle through all available icon sizes from 16×16 to 512×512 pixels.

Icons can be saved in their current display size and in various formats including bmp, gif, png and jpg. You can alternatively copy the image to the Windows clipboard to paste it directly into another application. The image will be saved with the background color that is displayed in the program interface. You can change the color or enable glass mode which adds transparency to the image if you save it in a format supporting transparency.

Most program features are accessible via keyboard shortcuts for fast access.

If there is one thing to criticize it is the lack of a load option in the program interface. The only way to load icons into the program is via drag and drop.

Thumbico is despite that a useful program for developers and users who want to customize their operating system.

Windows users can download the latest version of Thumbico from the developer website.

Update: Just got word from the author of the application that a load button is available after all. It is the top leftmost button in the program interface.

GonVisor is another versatile software that combines the functionality of an image viewer with ebook and comic book format reading capabilities and management functionality.

The program is offered as a portable version and setup on the developer website. One of the main program features is its support for a wide variety of files. GonVisor supports all major image formats, comic book reader files such as cbr, cbz or cba, pdf files, and compressed files containing images.

You are staring at a blank application window on startup, only the navigational menu at the top is visible. You can load files into the viewer in numerous ways, from dragging and dropping them into the program interface to using the File menu or associating the reader with specific formats so that you can double-click the files in Windows Explorer.

You will then see the first image displayed in the program, a self-retracting tools menu on the left, and a file selector on the right.

You can now use the back and forward button, the file selector, hotkeys, or the automatic slideshow to navigate between pages. Various tools improve the overall reading experience, from maximizing the page in the viewer over rotating images and displaying two pages next to each other, to zooming in or out or using the built-in magnifier. Pages can be bookmarked to continue at the page at a later time.

Some features, like color correction or the creation of comic book archive files require additional files that are not provided with the portable version. It is not clear if those files are included in the setup version of GonVisor. The main issue here is that there is no documentation where to get these files and where to place them.

GonVisor’s rich feature set it apart from other comic book readers. The lack of proper documentation is what pulls it down again. If you are looking for a comic book reader with management features, then GonVisor may be the program you are looking for.

The free software Undoclose changes this, as it adds an undo feature to the Windows operating system that lets you reopen closed applications right away. This feature works in the same way as the undo close tab feature that web browsers use to let users reopen closed browser tabs.

It uses a first in last out system to determine which application to restart when the hotkey is invoked. This works extremely well if you want to restart the last application that has been terminated on the system, and with some juggling as well for previous apps that you want to restart.

The program keeps track of all closed applications and Windows Explorer folders when it is running. Each closed app and folder is listed in the program interface. Here you can restart them automatically with a double-click, which is the best option to restart an application or folder that has not been closed last.

The hotkeys that you can use to restore the windows are displayed here as well. Ctrl-Shift-f reopens Windows Explorer folders, while Ctrl-Shift-a the last closed application. Please note that you can run the commands several times to restore more than one folder or program on the system.

The hotkeys can be changed in the program interface. Just click in one of the fields and press the keys that you want to use for the new hotkey. They should appear instantly in the form. Click on the change button to change them, or do nothing to skip the change.

The recently closed folder part only works if you close the Windows Explorer window regularly. It won’t recognize if you switch folders or go back in the file manager.

UndoClose is a useful application for Windows users who wish the operating system had an option to restart programs or Windows Explorer automatically.

The program has been developed by our buddies from Addictive Tips. You can download the latest version from their website. UndoClose is only compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows 7. Keep also in mind that the program’s memory usage grows whenever you close apps or folders.

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.

Sometimes though I only have to make smaller adjustments to a video, for instance if I have to cut part of the video from the recording. While I could use the two programs mentioned above, I often prefer to run a simpler tool to accomplish those jobs.

Free Video Dub is a free basic video editing software for the Windows operating system. When you first start it up you are asked to pick a source video file that is stored on the machine. The program supports a variety of input video formats, from avi and flv to mov, m3v and mpg.

The video is then automatically loaded, and you have the usual playback controls that include stop, pause and a slider to go to a specific position.

The application can only be used to cut videos. This is done either by selecting the starting and end locations manually or by letting the program pick them automatically. If you select the manual option, you can either delete the part that you have selected or save it to the computer system. Deleted parts are removed from the video, and the video is again joined together. This means it can also be useful to remove advertisements from videos.

You can delete multiple parts of the loaded video one after the other with options to undo or redo processes when necessary.

Free Video Dub has an option that allows you to detect new scenes automatically to aid in the cutting process. Advanced users can furthermore use shortcuts to speed up the processing further.

Windows users who need to cut supported video files regularly may like the basic nature of the cutting software. The software is compatible with all recent versions of the Windows operating system. It requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 to be installed on the system it is run on. Please note that the program will install a toolbar on the PC if you do not pay attention to the installation dialog.

Files 2 Folder is a portable program by Donation Coder’s busiest member Skwire. The program registers a new shell entry when launched which can be used to automatically move the selected files into a new folder. Windows Vista and Windows 7 users need to run the program with administrative privileges to register the shell extension correctly. If they do not, the entry is not displayed in the context menu.

Just select one or multiple files in Windows Explorer, right-click the selection afterwards and select the Files 2 Folder option from the context menu.

The software creates a folder based on the filename if a single file is selected, and displays a popup otherwise.

Here you can then select to move all files into a single directory that you have to name, or to move each file into an individual folder based on individual file names.

Files 2 Folders simplifies the process of moving files into new folders on the system. This can be a useful program for users who often download all kind of files into a single download folder to move them from that folder at a later time.

A file to uninstall the shell extension is placed into the program folder after registration of the extension. This can be used to remove the entry again from Windows Explorer’s context menu.

Windows users can download the program from Skwire’s website.

You usually have to open the document or program window on the computer before you can start adding new log entries or editing old ones. And that’s one of the things that Anuran changes. The program has been designed to display the log window automatically on the screen. The default interval is set to 30 minutes with options to change the value to a different one in the program options.

Two manual options are available to bring the log window to the front. You can first double-click on the program icon in the system tray or configure a shortcut in the program options for that purpose.

The log remains on top until you submit your entry with a tap on the return key on the keyboard. The Ctrl-Enter shortcut adds a new line to the log, with the option to reverse the behavior in the program settings (so that enter moves the cursor to a new line, and Ctrl-Enter submits it).

While we are at it, the program is highly customizable. From setting up hotkeys for all important features to defining the log entry timestamp format or popup behavior.

The main program window displays all log files available along with the entries that they contain. Logs can be exported into csv or text files, opened in Notepad and searched using the built-in search form.

Take a look at this screencast for a visual program walkthrough.

Keep in mind that the data that you enter into the log is saved in plain text format. This means that anyone with access to the user account or hard drive the data is stored on can access it. One way to overcome this limitation is to save the logs in an encrypted container, for instance with the help of True Crypt.

Interested users can download the portable software from the Donation Coder website. The program is compatible with all recent 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

Users trying to enter digits via the numpad could not do so if it had been deactivated before. The second was the caps lock key which turned lower case letters into upper case, and numbers on the keyboard to special characters.

Experienced users often do not have problems spotting those key state changes right away, for instance by looking at the leds of the keyboard, or by typing the login name or password into a text document or the browser’s web address form.

Keyndicate introduces an automated solution. It basically acts as a notifier whenever one of the following key states change on the PC system: CapsLock, NumLock, ScrollLock. Notifications need to be enabled in the settings of the program before they are displayed whenever they change on the system.

The program displays the key states in the system tray icon as well. A horizontal bar means that the state is set to on, and a smaller bar that it is off. The only other option available is to configure the program to start with the operating system.

Users who are interested in the program may also be interested in alternatives that we have reviewed in the past. This includes Keyboard Indicator which displays each state in its own icon in the system tray and Keyboard Leds.

Keyndicate can be downloaded from the developer website. The program is fully portable and compatible with all Windows operating systems from Windows XP on.

You could use the calendar of a messaging software like Outlook or Thunderbird, or install a third party calendar like Desktop Calendar.

The free portable software displays the current date and the days of the current month on the desktop. The display is fully transparent which means that it fits nicely with any desktop background. When you first start the application you will notice that it is positioned in the upper left corner of the screen. You can move the calendar by holding down the shift key, and dragging and dropping the window to another location on the screen. Only the controls at the bottom of the calendar can be used for that.

Right-click the window afterwards and select save position from the menu to lock in it place there. Options in the same menu opens the application preferences. Here you can change the calendar font type, size and colors, spacing, the date format and other relevant preferences. Depending on the desktop background, font and size, you may need to experiment with the available color font colors to find one that is readable.

Edit Reminders is the third and final option available in the context menu. This allows you to set custom reminders, one-time or recurring, for birthdays, appointments and other events. New event types, along with their color code, can be defined in the program options.

The biggest issue that you may have with the program is that you cannot synchronize the data with online calendars or calendars in other applications. The portable nature of the application allows you however to synchronize the data between multiple computer systems.

You can download Desktop Calendar from Glenn Delahoy’s website. The program is fully compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

Before we look at a tool that allows you to verify e-mail addresses, we should for a moment look at reasons for verifying addresses. A common reason is a mailing list that you want to clean up, another if you can only remember part of the e-mail address and not all of it.

EToolz is a free portable program for the Windows operating system that can verify if e-mail addresses exist. While it does not work for all messages, it works fine for many including Google E-Mail addresses (Gmail that is), and not for others like Microsoft’s Hotmail.

Switch to the Mail-Check tab of the program once you have started it. Here you need to key in the e-mail address you want to test, and optionally sender and server information as well as a timeout for the connection.

Click the start button once you have entered and modified all parameters to your liking. The program will then try to establish a connection with the selected e-mail address which may or may not work. Gmail will for instance let you know if sender and recipient are accepted. Even better, you will sometimes get information why it is not accepted, for instance if the email account is over quota like in the example on the screenshot above.

Not being able to test multiple e-mail addresses at once is one of the downsides of the program. You can download it from the developer website. Please note that the initial interface language is set to German. Click on Extras > Sprache / Language to change it to English or another of the supported languages.

WordPress Portable is a free program for Windows that automatically ships with everything needed to run WordPress locally. All you need to do is to extract the package contents on your system after download and start the WordPress Portable executable afterwards.

The blog is available from that moment on and you can do all the things that you can do on a self-hosted WordPress blog as well.

Just open http://localhost/wordpress/ in your web browser to open the local WordPress installation. Click on log in and enter admin as the username and password to open the administrative interface of the blog.

First thing you may want to do is to upgrade the blog to the latest version. You should see a notification at the top of the admin interface on first run. The update takes considerably longer than it would on a remotely hosted website.

Once done you can start to install new themes and plugins, modify settings, and to start writing your first posts. You basically can do everything that you can do on a self-hosted WordPress installation.

The local installation can be used for several purposes. This includes local theme and plugin development and testing, testing new WordPress versions before you upgrade your live blogs on the Internet, or to showcase blogs to clients or friends. Another option is to use the local WordPress blog to store your own personal writings, a diary for instance or important information that you need to write down or want to collect.

WordPress Portable ships with Apache, PHP and MySQL included, which means that you do not have to install those technologies prior to installing the blog. New users benefit from the simplicity of the solution, while advanced users may like the ability to put the package on a portable drive or stick, or to use it to quickly run tests locally.

The project lacks documentation which can be a issue for some users. It is for instance not clear if and how Apache, MySQL and PHP can be updated to newer versions, or if it is possible to import the database of an existing blog (the later may be possible with the help of plugins).

WordPress Portable is only available for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Interested users can download the latest version of the package, weighting in at about 10 Megabytes, from the developer website.

When you first start the program you will notice that you can configure one alarm in the application interface.

Here you can select the date and time that you want the alarm to notify you, and whether the alarm should notify you repeatedly or only once.

The program supports two types of notifications. You can select to have it open a file for you automatically at the time of the notification, display a custom text notification, or, and that is optional, play an alarm sound.

You may want to click on the test button to see if what you have configured is working the way it is intended. Especially the ability to load documents is interesting, as you could use the program to load an important spreadsheet or another file of importance automatically that you need to access during the call.

A click on Enable/Disable enables the alarm on the system. The program informs you if the selected settings are erroneous. This happens for instance if your selected notification date is in the past. You can then minimize the program to the system tray.

As mentioned earlier, the program has a few downsides to it. The biggest without doubt is the inability to configure multiple alarms. You can run the application multiple times for that but it is not the best solution if you ask me. Another related issue is that you cannot set alarms to repeat on specific days in the future. If you are making an important phone call every second Tuesday in the month, you may want the notification program to alarm every time automatically instead of having to configure it again to match the next upcoming date.

The excellent Alarm++ does that better but it is a commercial program. A basic alternative is College Alarm Clock.

You can download Remember to Call (223) directly from our servers. The developer web page is no longer available.

The application launcher Qatapult has been developed for this year’s Donation Coder Nany challenge. You can start using the program right after you have downloaded and unpacked it on your system. The program displays a small overlay window on the screen that you can use to type in the first letters of the application that you want to launch.

The top matching application and the most likely action are displayed in the program interface once you start typing the first letters of the application name.

A tap on the enter key loads the program on the system. It is alternatively possible to press tab to switch to the list of available actions for the active application (and use shift-tab to switch back). Available actions are taken directly from the program’s context menu. They usually include opening the application, opening the properties window, deleting the application or using the run as command to run the application with different privileges.

The keyboard launcher seems to take program information from the Windows start menu. You can use it to start applications but not documents or other files, at least not directly.

The only option to launch files from within the program’s interface is to enter a path in the launcher window. The folders and files under that structure are then displayed by the program, with options to select and launch files this way.

You can also use the built-in email to action if you configure a mail server in the program options. You can even authorize the program to fetch your Gmail contacts for some fast email sending action.

The program window stays on top all the time. You need to use the shortcut Shift-Space to hide it on the system. The same shortcut can also be used to bring it back to the front.

Windows users looking for a fast great looking keyboard launcher that is actively developed can download the latest version of the software from the Donation Coder website.

StrokesPlus is a lightweight mouse recognition software for Windows that is offering an incredible amount of options. the portable software minimizes itself automatically on program start.

A right-click on the system tray icon displays some of the most important program options. This includes enabling or disabling mouse gestures, running a test mode to draw gestures on the screen without executing the command, changing the button that initiates the command, and links to program preferences, configured actions and the program’s ignore list.

The actions window displays a list of twenty or so actions that ship with the program. Actions range from opening Notepad or the Task Manager to decreasing the sound volume or minimizing a window.

Each action consists of the initial action button, the gesture itself and optional mouse or keyboard modifiers. New actions can be created globally or for a specific application. The software uses Lua scripts to run commands. A good starting point are existing actions which demonstrate for instance how programs are opened or keys send.

The project forum offers additional information, the program itself unfortunately not.

The ignore list prevents commands from being run when specific windows are active. This can be used to block incompatible programs or situations where gestures interfere with program functionality.

StrokesPlus uses a small amount of RAM while it is running on the system. Windows users who’d like a flexible lightweight mouse recognition software should give it a try. The latest version of the program, compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the operating system can be downloaded from the official program website.

Ethervane Echo sorts clipboard entries into tabs for easier access, unlike other clipboard extenders who simply provide an unsorted list of entries.

The all clips tab lists all clipboard items, whereas tabs like last hour, urls or browsers only specific items that you may be interested in. A search is provided for heavy clipboard users to aid them in finding the clipboard entries that they are looking for.

Clips are automatically sorted by date, with options to change the sorting order to alphabetical, application, use count, length or ID.

The right-click menu offers to copy, paste and delete clips, and editing options.

All information are stored in a database in the program folder. The program creates the database automatically on first run. You can easily copy the database to another computer to use it there as well, or run the clipboard manager from an external drive to access the clipboard history wherever you go.

The database is cleaned up ever 30 days by default, with options to change the frequency of the cleanup in the program preferences. It is even possible to keep the database in memory all the time and not on the computer’s hard drive.

Keyboard shortcuts are available for most operations. From deleting entries (del) over pasting only textual information (shift-enter) to minimizing the program window (esc), bringing it up front (windows insert) and clearing the clipboard (ctrl i).

The feature set does not end here though. Ethervane Echo can be configured to only accept clipboard entries from specified applications, which can be useful for the workflow or to avoid leaking information into the manager that you do not want to record.

Other features include pasting multiple clipboard entries at the same time into the active application window, adding manual entries to the clipboard database, integrating a spell checker or changing the program’s font and color layout settings.

Ethervane Echo will only capture text, no images or other data that you copy to the clipboard. This appears to be the only limitation.

The application is an excellent replacement for the standard Windows clipboard functionality. The program is a contribution to this year’s NANY challenge at the Donation Coder website.

The program is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Issues arise with portable applications. Their nature forbids them to set themselves as the default file handler, and selecting them manually every time is probably not the most comfortable of choices.

Enter Portable Extension Warlock, a program designed to bypass system file associations. The application can be configured to load specific file extensions in a program that is not the default handler of the extension on the computer system.

The program ships with two core components; first the main program where you can add, edit and remove applications and linked file extensions, and second the launcher drag and drop window that you need to use to load the files in the new application.

A click on add new application opens a new window where you need to specify the path of the application and the file extensions that you want it to handle. You can use relative or absolute paths here.

Arguments can be added if necessary. The program is automatically adding the file argument to each application so that the file is passed to the selected program on the system when a linked file extension is dropped on the launcher window.

It is possible to link multiple applications to a file extension. If that is the case, a selection menu will be displayed automatically where one of the configured programs can be selected.

Portable Extension Warlock’s use of a drop box to launch files in non-default applications requires manual user interaction. Programs like Portable Extension Manager show that it is possible to bypass file associations directly. It is nevertheless a useful program for users who work with portable applications.

Portable Extension Warlock is available for download at the Donation Coder website. The program requires the Microsoft .Net Framework 4.0.