Most if the tools seem to be just a gui around some windows api call. Which is exactly what you sometimes want. Especially when diagnosing problems. Clear, no nonsense. Nirsoft has helped me so much. Thank you!
Nirsoft utilities are invaluable. I usually always pull down some of their tools on a new build. DNS sniffer is one I use often these days to blacklist domains using Pihole.
As the seemingly designated computer person in the family, I always have them on a USB drive along with some stuff I wrote as well to help with repairing/reinstalling Windows.
For another interesting list of freeware with clean GUIs made by a smallish team (although all mostly dated now), check out AnalogX (https://www.analogx.com/).
Most of the stuff is no longer useful, but back in the 95/98/2k days this stuff was invaluable.
Current PowerToys are really bloated in comparison. SVG thumbnailer gets stuck sometimes and Explorer stops responding, even when installed from MS Store it nags for updates when it should autoupdate and so on. It is not like old Win32 PowerToys where I haven't seen side effects just improvements to Windows behaviour.
Had high hopes but was underwhelmed with the new PowerToys, definitely some good stuff in there but I don't see why every product owner at Microsoft has to build a dashboard into their product and the fact it doesn't just have a seamless autoupdate option and instead becomes another thing I have to be nagged about and baby sit is a misstep
I've been very much enjoying WSCC for around 8 years. It has a nice interface to more than just NirSoft utilities, and allows for mass-updating. There's also portable version, which is convenient to have for diagnostics in remote areas.
Nirsoft is timeless. Been using it for decades (although not lately). Volumemouse is as good today as it was in 2000. And highly as I regard Mark Russinovich (SysInternals), Nirsoft was way ahead of him.
