Fing can be run with a single command from the command line or started in interactive mode which basically consists of a series of questions and simple answers provided by the user. The first question for example after starting the interactive mode is about the mode the software should run in. Options are discovery, scan or infos.

• Discovery: Will start the network discovery module. The user has to pick a network adapter and answer several additional questions. Fing will generate a network discovery report in the end.
• Scan: Provides the means to scan a remote host, will display ports, services and firewalls running on that server.
• Infos: Displays information about local and remote networks.

Fing offers a selection of output formats such as text, html or csv that can either be displayed directly in the console or saved in a file on the local computer system.

Verdict:

Fing is a fast network discovery tool for command line junkies. The export functionality and speed are excellent, a graphical user interface would be desirable nevertheless.

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The free program is a limited version of the commercial software from the same developer. It requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2, the Microsoft Management Console and PowerShell. The interface of the application makes it less time consuming to configure password policies for specific user groups in Windows Server 2008. It basically centers around creating, configuring and managing password policies.

The following parameters can be defined for each password policy:

A Password Settings object (PSO) has attributes for all the settings that can be defined in the Default Domain Policy (except Kerberos settings). These settings include attributes for the following password settings:

• Enforce password history
• Maximum password age
• Minimum password age
• Minimum password length
• Passwords must meet complexity requirements
• Store passwords using reversible encryption
• Account lockout duration
• Account lockout threshold
• Reset account lockout after

User groups can be added to newly created policies. It has to be noted that user groups cannot be empty as empty user groups cannot be added to password policies. The program displays an overview of all password policies on the computer system. The order can be changed which is important if users are members of multiple user groups.

Specops Password Policy Basic can be downloaded from the developer’s homepage.

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Windows System Control Center is a frontend for Nirsoft and Sysinternals software programs. The portable software displays the options at first start which is important to make sure the path to Sysinternals and Nirsoft applications is set correctly. Only one directory can be selected that has to contain all applications. This is not such a big problem for Sysinternals because the Sysinternals Live address is given as a backup for that. Most, if not all, of the Nirsoft and Sysinternals applications are portable which means it should not be a problem to move them into one single directory though.

The Control Center will display the applications sorted by publisher and categories but it is also possible to display all applications in one huge list. A click on a category will load the application list which contains a short description of each application listed in that category, a button to launch it and a icon at the beginning that gives information if the application is installed or can be started online.

The application provides access to two additional categories: Windows Utilities and Administrative Tools. Windows Utilities contains links to the Character Map, Disk Cleanup, Disk Defragmenter and Security Center while Administrative Tools lead to Computer Management, Data Sources, Event Viewer, Local Security Policy, Performance and Services.

The tool uses roughly 3 Megabytes of computer memory while running. It’s portability make it an ideal candidate to use on an USB stick together with Nirsoft and Sysinternals applications.

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