Top 10 Best System Info Tools for Windows PCs
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Desktop Info
A lightweight and simple application designed to display system information on your desktop, such as the operating system or network adapter details.
Desktop Info is a very simple system information tool that displays all computer details on your desktop, without comprising a dedicated interface in this regard.
Once launched, the application automatically scans the system and shows the available information, with different colours for each category.
Desktop Info shows date and time, hostname, uptime, CPU temperature, battery level in case you’re using a laptop, CPU usage, process count, top process when it comes to CPU or memory usage, physical RAM, network adapter and IP address, DNS servers, disk space and security events.
Obviously, you can move the information panel anywhere on your screen, with a “Show Desktop” option to let you click the items under the displayed details.
The most important drawback concerns the settings screen. Right-clicking the information panel and hitting the “Configuration” option launches an INI configuration file that prompts the user to input the desired parameters for every line of information, colours or font options.
While this isn’t quite a problem for those with a bit more computer experience, it’s almost impossible for a beginner to tweak the available settings, not only because it all comes down to an INI file, but also due to the fact that there’s no help manual to explain the whole thing.
On the other hand, Desktop Info works smoothly on all Windows versions and quietly sits on the desktop. It runs on low resources and doesn’t affect the overall system performance at all, not even when refreshing the data.
All in all, Desktop Info is a handy tool, but it’s kind of obvious that a lot of improvements still need to be made. The configuration screen is a nightmare for rookies, while the available documentation is not at all helpful.
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SIW (System Information for Windows)
Displays information about your computer's hardware and software configuration, featuring support for reports, notifications and customization options.
SIW (System Information for Windows) is a resourceful software application that aims to provide you with a full report on the hardware and software components that reside on your system. It is a general info utility that inspects your system configuration and displays it in a comprehensive manner.
Whether you’re a system administrator or a simple user, there are situations that involve knowing what’s under the hood of your machine. There are a bunch of applications that can accomplish that, but only a few that display complete reports. One of these is SIW, a well-known piece of software that investigates even the deepest characteristics of your system.
Speedy setup and neatly organized interface
The application is very easy to install, and the interface is quite intuitive and most certainly user-friendly. Whether you are a newbie or a hardcore user, it's easy to get around SIW. Once you launch it, you get acquainted with a very long list of categories and features found in Windows, such as software, hardware, and network-related.
A large amount of hardware and software information
So, if you have ever wanted to learn more about system files, installed programs, audio and video codecs, motherboard, CPU info, memory, storage devices, battery, network information, or others, this tool is a pretty good choice.
Generate reports and configure settings
For each section you can create a report file that could come in handy at a later time, for exampled if you want to compare statistics. There's a MAC address changer at your disposal (for both wireless and LAN connections), and you can also check the current CPU and memory usage of your system.
As far as customization is concerned, you can perform it from the Options window. This is the place you should access if you wish to personalize the way warnings and reports are displayed, among others.
Conclusion
In conclusion, SIW is able to perform a thorough background check on your computer. The program itself is not overwhelming, but the array of details it displays is most certainly rich, to say the least.
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Download Hubs
SIW (System Information for Windows) is part of these download collections: System Information Viewers, Monitor Uptime
USB HID Logger
You can use this program to constantly monitor the activity of USB HID devices, such as a mouse or a keyboard and generate a log file.
USB HID Logger is designed to capture, log and export data from USB HID devices. The application can also detect inconsistencies or missing software components required for the selected devices to properly run. Moreover, it can monitor several such devices at the same time.
Detect errors in USB HID devices
USB HID (human interface device) are a special class of USB devices designed to interact directly with humans, without the need for installing additional drivers. The mouse, keyboard, gamepad are examples of such devices. The specifications of the HID interface makes it possible for devices that do not interact directly with people to use this particular interface to transfer data.
USB HID Logger is designed to monitor USB HIDs, regardless if they interact with people or not. It can capture data from devices such as barcode readers, RFID, measurement instruments, fingerprint scanners and supplement or replace their native software.
Supervise several HIDs at the same time
USB HID Logger allows you to configure the monitoring process and to include several devices. The program can detect the supported HIDs and allows you to add or remove them from the list, using the dedicated window.
The logged data can be encoded and exported to Excel, CSV and other supported formats. Moreover, the program allows you to analyze received data and process events, such as sending an email when a certain value reaches the specified limit. You may configure these events, as well as create data filters and only log the information that interests you.
Run as service mode
USB HID Logger can run as a Windows service, thus allowing you to capture data as soon as the operating system starts, even before you can log on. Moreover, the program can run in the background even if you log off. The application is simple to use, features a straightforward interface and enables you to constantly monitor the USB HIDs.
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FullEventLogView
Simple-to-use event log viewer that you can use to browse all the errors, warnings and notifications in the Windows logs, and export the data as HTML reports.
FullEventLogView makes it easier for you to access the Windows event logs and browse through notifications, warnings, and errors to check the state of your computer.
The application ensures compatibility with the event log system of Windows Vista, and above so if you are still using Windows XP or earlier OS editions, you can use MyEventViewer, an older application cut out for the same purpose.
Displays detailed information about Windows events
No installation is required so you can start FullEventLogView immediately. By default, it displays the event log for the last seven days, a setting that you can modify from the 'Advanced Options' window. It takes a bit of time for the application to extract data from the Windows logs and load all the events in its main window. Nevertheless, it's worth the wait, as you can then browse all the alerts from a single intuitive interface.
Items in the table include the event time, the ID or the record and the incident itself, the type of the event (error, information, warning, critical or undefined issue), the application that generated it, accompanied by a short description of the event. Furthermore, FullEventLogView reports about tasks related to the events, associated keywords, the corresponding process and thread IDs, and the user's name.
Read logs from remote PCs or event log files, and create reports
FullEventLogView can be used for the continuous monitoring of Windows event logs, as you can configure it to automatically refresh data once every second or more. In other words, it can serve as a real-time monitoring tool of Windows incidents.
Not only that this application reads event logs from the local computer, but you can also use it to extract Windows logs from a remote workstation or from an .EVTX log file.
All or selected items in the event table can be exported as text, CSV, or XML files. HTML reports can be created just as easy, and you can specify the data (table columns) to include in them.
An easy-to-use alternative to the standard Windows log viewer
FullEventLogView is particularly useful to administrators who want to monitor warnings and errors that one or more systems trigger. Focusing on ease of use, it is less feature-packed than other tools in its category, but it keeps things simple, which means both beginners and experts can use it. Furthermore, it can also be executed via the command console.
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Rainmeter
Highly versatile app that can help customize your Windows OS, add various design improvements to on-screen widgets, help manage user-designed add-ons, and manage your system like a pro.
Rainmeter is a versatile application that enables users to customize their PCs, add extra functionality to their desktops for enhanced control, closely monitor some important aspects of their machine's processes, or visually interact differently with some existing features of their systems.
Opening the tool for the first time, defaults, and available options
After a quick and uneventful installation process, when opening Rainmeter for the first time, the program will display a set of basic system information and memory management statistics (CPU usage, RAM usage, SWAP usage, storage levels, etc.).
Rainmeter comes with a set of basic, starter skins. These are a nice starting point and can illustrate what this app can do and how you can customize the design and the content of the information.
The program is highly customizable in terms of both design and the type of information it displays.
What is a 'skin' and how can you add them?
In this case, the 'skin' refers to an add-on (a digital asset, like a framework, with distinctive UI) that you can add and manage from within Rainmeter's dedicated dashboard. As such, this application acts as an add-on management panel that allows you to closely define how certain extra additions interact with your system and between each other.
In order to browse through your options, you could go to an online discovery page where multiple sources of user-created and -customized skins have been added (e.g., Reddit, Discord, DeviantArt, etc.)
After downloading an add-on of your choice (with a RMSKIN file format), you must double-click it, and it will automatically be opened with Rainmeter. The installation must be confirmed. If added to your dashboard, all skins can be partially or totally disabled; as such, certain parts of their display or functioning mechanisms could be hidden, for example. But most times, it depends on the actual skin and what it does.
Summary
To conclude, this app is great because it allows you to display information, enclose certain background activity processes in on-screen containers, add widgets, bridge other apps' activity, and so much more.
Each skin is different and offers other functionality or UI. As such, for passionate tech-savvy individuals, they can change a skin's functionality by adjusting code parameters.
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Download Hubs
Rainmeter is part of these download collections: System Information Viewers
Argus Monitor
Monitor temperatures and status of system components such as CPU, GPU and hard disk drive, run SMART analysis and make sure your computer is healthy.
A computer’s life can be considerably lengthened if you take care of it. Argus Monitor is a light tool that runs as a background task and constantly monitors the health of the hard disk.
The app has a simple interface that should be quite easy to figure out, thanks to the intuitive layout
As mentioned, Argus Monitor can keep track of the health status of the hard disks and lets you know if any of the values reach a critical level. Thus, if any of the S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) attributes goes over a vendor specified threshold, the program lets you know that the hard drive is likely to fail within 24 hours. In this way, you have plenty of time to create a backup of the files in case anything happens.
Also, the program monitors the CPU and GPU temperatures, as well as that of the hard disk. The S.M.A.R.T attributes are also being watched over, such as the raw read error rate, the spin up time, the spin retry count and airflow temperature, to name just a few. These are set in a list that comes complete with the current values, worst performance, the developer-specified threshold and its status.
The CPU’s speed is also monitored, as well as its power levels
All in all, Argus Monitor is a nice tool that can be quite useful. Less experienced individuals shouldn’t have any troubles while installing and working with it, thanks to the intuitive layout.
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All Dlls Dependencies
Perform a static analysis of the DLL dependencies so that you can find strings that may belong to various potentially unwanted programs.
In the eventuality that you attempted to open a program only to get an error message stating that the application cannot run because a specific DLL is missing from your computer, do not fret. While reinstalling the program can usually solve this issue, most of the times the problem is related to actual missing DLL or interferences from malware.
All Dlls Dependencies is a tool designed to act as a static analyzer for DLL dependencies that scans your system and that can help you figure out more about these missing strings.
It scans the dependent modules and displays them in a hierarchical view
The program comes with an intuitive interface and you can get started by specifying the DLL file you are looking for. The program starts by scanning the root module along with its import table to build a potential list of required dependent modules. You will be happy to learn that once a module is found, the app does not process it again if found in another module to prevent a possible infinite circular loop.
The application also performs several validity checks during the scans as well as the corresponding import and export functions. You can explore the errors found during this analysis in the dedicated tab. The app organizes its findings in dedicated tabs such as Exports, Parent Imports, Imports, Forward Exports and Unresolved DLLs.
A tool that can lend a hand with finding the DLL files needs for various apps to work
It is worth mentioning that the tool solely scans the dependent modules and hence, you cannot monitor and override any functions or processes. Therefore, if you need to perform a dynamic analysis for the DLL files, then the developer recommends you use WinAPIOverride – preferably with LoadedLib.txt or Loadedfunc.txt - for this purpose.
In conclusion, All Dlls Dependencies is a simple and straightforward tool designed to help you perform a static analysis for the DLL dependencies and help find strings corrupted or needed for various applications to run on your system.
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SysGauge
Keep an eye on the memory status, CPU usage, as well as disk and network activities with the help of this responsive software utility.
Assessing your computer’s performance should not be an approximate task, and there are capable software solutions that can take the reins and provide you with comprehensive details about the matter.
One of them is SysGauge, a program that can monitor the CPU and memory usage, analyze network and disk activity, interpret process status, USB performance, and much more.
Easy-to-handle system and performance monitoring tool
First things first, a few words about the application’s user interface, which is clutter-free, features multiple layouts and allows you to easily employ all the goodies it bundles.
While at the top of the main window lie all the menus, the middle section is occupied by a gauge as well as a graphic displaying in real time the results of each counter in part.
All you have to do to start interpreting the performance of your PC is go to the “Command” menu, where a complete list of counters is available. You can opt for all of them simultaneously or any of the following: CPU usage, memory usage, disk activity, network activity, operating system, process status, file system, and USB activity.
Packs a multitude of counters that can generate detailed reports
The ones you select are shown at the bottom of the main window, with each monitored instance being listed as well as with detailed statistics on its current, average, minimum and maximum performance. You can pause the monitoring process, and resetting is also an option in order to start from scratch and have a relevant analysis.
Reports can also be generated in order to prepare the outcome for further interpretation. What’s more, you also have the possibility of creating profiles where you can include multiple counters monitoring what interests you at a particular moment and effortlessly switch from one another.
As for how you can tweak the software utility’s behavior, the “Options” menu provides you with a series of goodies for this specific purpose. You can show or hide the main toolbar, minimize it to systray, automate reports, edit hotkeys, change audio alerts and even enable email notifications.
System monitoring tool with a rich feature set
On an ending note, SystemGauge is a reliable application that can monitor not only the local computer but also remote PCs and analyze their performance from a multitude of points of view. It proved highly responsive throughout the testing process, with its array of counters recommending it as an all-encompassing solution.
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SysGauge Server
Create resource monitors for nearly every hardware component of your PC to keep an eye on local and network computer resource consumption.
Although using your own computer for personal activities might not require heavy resource monitoring, keeping an entire group of computers running at peak performance does. In this regard, SysGauge Server comes with the means to enable monitoring of system resource consumption and other variables on multiple computers.
Add and customize resource monitors
Once installed and launched, the application starts to monitor computer resource consumption. But most importantly you might want to first pay attention to the setup process, because you’re asked to configure a couple of port values to be able to connect via LAN or a web browser.
You’re greeted by a fairly intuitive and pleasant interface. It comes with a default, dual-pane visualization of CPU consumption, but it can be switched to display resource consumption for different values and in different styles. By default, you can view a gauge, chart, as well as list, all of them updating in real-time.
At its core, the application is specialized in monitoring computer resources, providing complex reports, but also taking action when necessary. On the bright side of things, the application lets you add custom counters to the dashboard. You can do this for CPU, memory usage, disk I/O activity, operating system, process status, file system, as well as USB activity.
Connect to remote PCs, view logs, and generate reports
Defining a new counter doesn’t really require a lot of effort. Categories are easy to select, unveiling the type of monitoring to perform, as well as the exact target. For example, the program can simply monitor interrupt time for CPU 3, sent packets errors from Local Area Connection 2, disk write activity on a particular drive, and a lot more.
The difference in this edition is the emphasis on batch monitoring. The application is specialized on working on a LAN environment, letting you set up counters and monitors for all computers in your network. Connecting to a target PC requires appropriate privileges and connection details.
Custom monitor profiles can be created, with the possibility to export them for use on other machines. Additionally, you can access the message console, or view server debug log. It’s possible to generate reports and view activity history.
Last but not least, the application can also take action when particular rules are met. You can have emails sent to your account, play notification sound, send message to system log, restart the PC, or forcefully shut it down.
A few last words
Bottom line is that being aware of resource distribution and consumption on computers is an efficient way of maximizing productivity and performance. As such, SysGauge Server delivers a comprehensive set of tools with which to monitor resource consumption on multiple computers.
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PC Info
Find out all about your computer's hardware configuration with the help of this user-friendly program whose behavior you can easily tweak.
If you really want to call yourself a responsible user, you must first and foremost know everything about your computer, starting from hardware and ending with software.
PC Info is a software solution that centralizes all the necessary data belonging to the former category in order to make users aware of their machine’s capabilities as well as how they could exploit it more efficiently.
Keeps you informed about your PC’s hardware configuration
Before anything else, it must be mentioned that the program sports a straightforward user interface that organizes information about the hardware configuration of your computer in an intelligible manner.
The application’s capabilities have an obvious informative and descriptive core purpose, with a series of sections you can switch between by clicking their names at the top of the main window. OS, CPU, GPU, RAM, Storage, Optical Devices, Motherboard, Sound Devices, Network, and Periferal should summarize everything there is to know about the physical parts you interact with when using your PC.
Gives you quick access to a multitude of controls
However, besides this rather static purpose, the software utility encompasses a “Settings” category, where you actually get to interact with the program itself. That it because it provides you with quick access to a series of application settings, useful commands, as well as services, processes, and applications.
Truth be told, there is nothing you couldn’t access on your own, simply by turning to Windows’ capabilities, but having all of these controls bundled together should definitely cut down on the time required by these tasks.
Lets you configure its own behavior as well
For instance, any of the following commands is at one click away: accessing the Recycle Bin, going to the Task Manager, exploring Control Panel, tweaking Windows Firewall, adjusting the date and time, and much more.
As for the options regarding strictly PC Info itself, they allow you to customize its behavior so that to make it as non-intrusive as possible. You can ask it to run at Windows startup, to be always on top, reset to default settings, close or minimize to systray, and others.
Handy tool favoring the informative side
On an ending note, PC Info is a reliable tool providing you with a handful of precious info about your computer’s hardware configuration, all in a clear-cut and easily accessible way. At the same time, it gives you access to a series of controls you frequently use so that to reduce the time spent on such actions.
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