Being the computer guy among family and friends I often get asked to fix their PCs.  Over the years I have built up a wide range of tools that I use when fixing the computers.  The issues have involved cleaning spyware/viruses, fixing network issues, setting up email, rescuing personal data etc.

Here is my current PC repair toolkit:

Microsoft Windows XP CD - required for refreshing Windows files for repair or worst case scenario a full rebuild.

Microsoft Windows XP SP1 and SP2 - I am surprised at the number of people who do not have these already installed.

Hiren’s Boot CD - this is the Swiss army knife of Boot CDs - it includes virus scanners, many disk tools, anti spyware, file managers literally everything you could possibly need.

Ultimate Boot CD - another boot cd, not quite as comprehensive as Hiren’s boot cd but still comes in handy every now and then.

Knoppix and Ubuntu Linux Live CDs - these Linux live CDs are a must if the PC is so bad that you can’t even boot into Windows to safeguard any data. Also I have found the Linux distros more tolerant of faulty hard disks and I could rescue data when Windows didn’t even recognize the faulty disk.

Spybot Search and Destroy - removes spyware from a Windows PC - the best I have ever used.

Avast Antivirus (Free Home Edition) - an excellent free edition of Avast for personal use.  I install this on any new PCs.

AVG Antivirus (Free Edition) - free anti-virus, anti-spyware and anti-rootkit software.

Driver Collector - useful for creating a copy of all your hardware in Windows. Note that you need to make the copy before you run into any trouble so that you have them in one place when you need to rebuild a PC.

ZoneAlarm Firewall - my Windows Firewall of choice.

InstallPad - an excellent utility which allows you to add software to a new PC very easily.  You just tick the box for each software app that you want to install and it handles everything for you.  Well worth a try if you haven’t used it.

SystemInfo - a very handy tool to read any system info from your PC.

AutoRuns  - from Sysinternals (now part of Microsoft) allows you to control any startup programs, services etc. on you machine.  Brilliant for preventing nasty spyware from loading up giving you a chance to remove it.

Process Explorer - gives you way more info than the standard task manager in Windows - an absolute must.

CrossLoop - I try more and more now (where possible) to fix PC problems remotely using CrossLoop (allows simple secure remote control of a Windows PC).  This is one of the most user friendly remote access apps I have used and a less experienced user on the other end will have no difficulties in setting up their end of the connection. This is handy for most tasks but for the major jobs which require reboots, when not running in Windows and internet connection issues this obviously won’t help you.

Well, that’s my list - do you use any other tools that I haven’t mentioned here ?