In-Depth

Editor's Choice: Products We Love

</i>MCP Magazine<i>'s</i> experts name the products they can't live without. See what you may want to add to your Windows network management operations.

WE ASKED A GOODLY NUMBER of our contributing editors and expert reviewers to name the products they can’t live without, the products they dream about at night, the ones that cause a Pavlovian drool reflex when they think about them awake. Remember, it’s not “Products We Like,” or “Products That Get the Job Done Acceptably.” Besides being a boring headline, those products simply don’t cut the mustard. “Good enough” products just aren’t good enough for this compendium. Of course, as in all matters of love, you don’t always get what you want. Sometimes, you get what you need. Therefore, in the interest of playing the field, we also offer alternatives that we’d be perfectly happy to work with. They too deserve your admiration, respect and consideration. Try any of the 22 products mentioned in this roundup on your Windows network, and you just might fall in love, too:

NT 4.0 to Windows Migration: Tranxition Software Personality Tranxport Professional 3.0/Altiris eXpress Migration Suite

IIS Monitoring: Parker Software Ltd. Who's On/NetIQ WebTrends

Exchange Anti-Virus: GFI Ltd. MailEssentials for Exchange/SMTP 7/Network Associates McAfee GroupShield

Security: @stake LC4/Microsoft Corp. MSDN Universal Subscription

Backup: CommVault Systems Galaxy/Ultrabac Software UltraBac 7

Windows 2000 Administration: Microsoft Press Windows 2000 Resource Kit/Aelita Software Aelita ERDisk

Scripting: Sapien Technologies Primalscript/Adersoft VbsEdit

Defragmentation: O&O Software O&O Defrag 4 Professional/Executive Software Diskeeper

DNS Name Resolution: Visualware VisualRoute 6.1a/Nessoft Ping Plotter

Active Directory Management and Migration: Full Armor Software FAZAM 2000 3/Aelita Controlled Migration Suite

Training: DameWare Development DameWare NT Utilities/VMware Workstation

(Products listed indicate winner/honorable mention. Click on a category to view.)

About the Author

Kristen McCarthy is Senior Editor, Reviews of MCP Magazine.

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