Take advantage of Windows 7 Gadgets to create room on the Taskbar

As you may know, Microsoft first introduced Gadgets in Windows Vista, where they existed in a docked container called the Sidebar. In Windows 7, Microsoft did away with the Sidebar, and now Gadgets are free to be positioned anywhere on your desktop. I love this feature and have used it to move to the next level and am now really taking advantage of Gadgets. Read more.

The TaskList Gadget makes it easier to troubleshoot running processes

When you’re troubleshooting problems in Windows, one of the tools you’re likely to use is the Task Manager. It’s designed to provide you with detailed information about the programs and processes that are running on a system. However, Task Manager doesn’t really give you the full picture when it comes to the running processes. For instance, what if you suspect that a DLL is at the root of a problem and want to find out what DLL modules a particular process is using?

To get the information you need, you can shell out to a Command Prompt window and use the TaskList command-line utility, along with a couple of special parameters. But working from a Command Prompt can get fairly tedious. So I created the TaskList Gadget, which automates the TaskList command. Read more.

Add the ARP Gadget to your troubleshooting toolbox

The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is a key TCP/IP protocol that is used to determine the physical address of the network card that corresponds to an IP address. When you’re troubleshooting TCP/IP connectivity problems on a Windows network, you may need to investigate or modify the ARP cache as you look for problems.

Windows comes with a command-line utility called ARP, which you can use to display or adjust the contents of the ARP cache of either a local or remote system. To make the tool easier to use, I created the ARP Gadget, which automates the ARP command.

Get quick access to troubleshooting info with the Netstat Gadget

The difficulty in troubleshooting TCP/IP connectivity problems on a Windows network stems from the sheer number of connections and services on a particular system. Identifying the status of the connections and determining which services are running can help you narrow down the search, but doing so takes time. However, an underused Windows command-line utility, Netstat, can shorten the time it takes to hunt down rogue connections by quickly providing information about client services and TCP/IP communications.

Unfortunately, because Netstat is a command-line tool, admins often avoid it. So to make the Netstat tool a bit easier to use, I created the Netstat Gadget, which automates the Netstat command.

Put the Route command to work with the help of this Windows gadget

When you’re troubleshooting TCP/IP connectivity problems on a Windows network, you may need to investigate the current IP routing table and add or delete specific IP routes. Windows comes with a command-line tool called Route that you can use to reveal and edit this type of information. Unfortunately, the Route tool is stuck in the DOS-based world of the command line, so it’s often avoided when it’s time to troubleshoot TCP/IP connectivity problems that may be rooted in the routing table.

To make the Route tool easier to use, I’ve moved it out of the command line and created the Route Gadget. Let’s take a closer look at this tool.

Expedite TCP/IP troubleshooting with our PathPing Gadget

When you’re troubleshooting TCP/IP problems on your network, chances are the first tool you head for is the Ping utility. By default, the Ping utility sends four ICMP (Internet control message protocol) echo packets to a remote computer and listens for the replies. You can then use the information generated by the utility to move on to the next troubleshooting step. In some cases, you may find that this second step involves using the Tracert utility, which traces a packet to a remote computer, showing how many hops the packet requires to reach the host and how long each hop takes. As it does so, it displays the FQDN (fully qualified domain name) and IP address of each gateway along the route to the remote computer.

While the results generated by these two utilities provide a good view of the problem, you can get all this information, and more, by using the PathPing command. As you can surmise from its name, PathPing is basically a hybrid of the Tracert and Ping utilities bundled into one utility. However, PathPing is a more powerful troubleshooting tool than either of its predecessors. It generates a detailed statistical report that can more precisely indicate the cause of the network problem.

As a follow-up to the popular IPConfig Gadget, I decided to create a gadget to automate the PathPing command. Let’s take a closer look at the PathPing Gadget.

Download the IPConfig Gadget to simplify troubleshooting in Vista

The IPConfig command can be invaluable when troubleshooting TCP/IP connectivity problems. Unfortunately, this handy command is a command-line tool, which means that using it can be a painstaking operation that requires you to type the IPConfig command over and over again with a different switch for each operation.

To alleviate some of that tedious labor, I created the Windows XP IP Configuration Tool several years ago. Recently, I created the Windows Vista IP Configuration Tool for Vista, whose IPConfig command offers five more options than XP and requires working through a UAC prompt.

In the discussion thread for the Vista version, TechRepublic member jvdgijp suggested that I convert the tool, which is an HTML application, into a Vista gadget. Several other members echoed that request, so I got to work and created the IPConfig Gadget.