Sysi: the ultimate administrators toolkit

I saw a typo in a magazine where someone referred to SysInternals as 'Sysinternal' (singular... they left the 's' off the end)

Take control of Windows with Sysinternal, the ultimate administrators toolkit

And this gave me a random idea: what if SysInternals provided a single tool, called 'Sysinternal'.

And it does everything. Just everything. Like the computer that Richard Pryor's character builds in Superman III. Got it?

So I told JoCo Loco this idea -- and he'd sweded up a Compleat Design within seconds:

SysInternal is a console app. The first parameter is the name of the specific SysInternals tool you want to use. The remaining parameters are passed to that tool.

You don't need to have all the tools from SysInternals on your machine already. SysInternal will get what's needed, by downloading from Live.Sysinternals.com.

Sysi.exe: ladies dont know bout my console colors

And if you pass the parameter "-?" (or no parameters) then it will screen-scrape Live.SysInternals.com to tell you all the available tools.

I quickly found that the name 'SysInternal.exe' was too long to type out, so I shortened it to 'Sysi.exe', pronounced Sissy. Hopefully this also stops me from violating their trademark. (Mark Russinovich is not a Sissy. Chuck Norris wishes he was Mark Russinovich)

I've released the code on CodePlex, at sysi.CodePlex.Com.

Go get it!

A console app? Seriously?! To quote the site itself (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/sysinternals/default.aspx): "... Sysinternals utilities to help you manage, troubleshoot and diagnose your Windows systems and applications". The keyword here being "Windows". Ponder that for a moment.

Don't get me wrong, your idea of a single application is great! I'd love to see one - but as a Windows GUI application. My days of buggerising about with the command-line to do my job are well over.

One of the great things about the Sysinternals tools is they are easy to use and that's thanks to the discoverable, familiar and self-explanatory GUI. I only use them once in a blue moon so I don't want to have to muck around trying to figure out command-line parameters. I just want to browser to the site; download the tool; run it. Done!

Why does it require .NET 4.0?? I want to put this on a USB stick to use at friends and relatives - not ready for the newest framework (don't care/don't have time/etc...)

I'd imagine this isn't invoking anything that requires a high framework. Perhaps the default download should only require 2.0 or something. I haven't yet tried downloading the source and compiling targeting a different framework.

Since I forgot on my previous post -
THANK YOU for this tool, it is great! Good idea and nice job actually executing it!

Don't listen to the haters, specifically that first comment...as he quoted: "Sysinternals utilities to help you manage, troubleshoot and diagnose your Windows systems and applications"...which if read correctly means it won't work on OSX, Linux, etc...just Microsoft Windows. Doesn't mean that all these tools have a GUI...in fact, all the really useful ones don't have a GUI. And we all know that you have to get crafty and script when you're admin, unless you have unlimited time to waste repeating three click for all 200+ users...so yeah, thanx for sysi!!!

Thanks @OJ, what a constructive reply…

Maybe my dislike for the command-line came across a little too strong in they way I wrote my first comment. If so I apologise because it wasn't meant to look like a shot at Leon.

For the record I think Leon's idea is great. It's one of those "it's so damn obvious it's great" type of greats. There are a lot of Sysinternals tools and having easy access to all of them would be a big help.

I just don't think command-line switches are the way. I know this is subjective but I ultimately think GUIs provide a better user experience over command-line - even for technically oriented users. With a good GUI you don't have to remember switches, have use correct spelling, set environmental variables, run from the correct location. In fact, I hardly have to think about the tool itself - which means I can spend more time worrying about the problem the tool is designed to solve (in this case getting information about my system). Most GUI based apps are very "discoverable" - meaning they can just be figured out, especially if used infrequently. Command-line, on the other hand, requires a good memory or a good help file.

I also realise some of the Sysinternals tools are command-line. It would be great to see those brought forward to a GUI too.

Requiring a not yet even released version of the framework renders this mostly useless for now, but it looks useful for the future.

I agree with an above poster, a .Net 2.0 framework version would just work most of the time.

Sorry about the .net 4.0 requirement. I've changed it so that it is hopefully back down to plain old .net 2.0

Also fixed the way the launched app would start in a new console window.

Thanks for the feedback!
lb

Alrighty. I tested the new version on a machine that only has .net 2.0 and it worked a treat.
Use download link (image) above.
Have at.
lb

That's really cool, well done Leon. A real Gem (well almost).

@JasonSnelders - Dude, it's kind of a shame you feel that way about the command-line. I'm guessing you don't leave the Microsoft dev stack much? How about some scripting? Powershell? IronPython? IronRuby?

Looking outside Microsoft you might find Apt-Get, RubyGems, and web dev frameworks Ruby on Rails, Django all make extensive use of the console.

Perhaps GUI apps are 'discoverable', but with that attitude towards the humble command-line there is plenty of stuff you'll never discover.

Anyways if you really want a GUI experience you could just use the website or contribute the GUI app yourself?

To be honest, I prefer the command line. GUIs can be cumbersome and slow. Try scripting one as well! I'll take a well written CMD line over a GUI app most days of the week.

1) Thanks for the 'downgrade' on the framework. I think this will be an app I regret not having around every moment.
2) As far as command line goes...yeah the MS dev stack makes things nice, but the command line is great for just 'getting things done'. That said, most young devs (perhaps) are less comfortable using it since they didn't grow up on it. (at least myself) I'm working on liking it more, and have written some console apps for simple things, but haven't really got into PowerShell, or really any other scripting lang.

It took all of 12 hours for this to become a tool I expect to be in the PATH on all the machines I use.

Well done, Leon.

hai scretgeek,

Thanks,good info for sharing.i like it.

from,
www.software100s.blogspot.com
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Sysi: the ultimate administrators toolkit

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