Add as a preferred source on Google


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.

Featured

  • Microsoft Dismantles RedVDS Cybercrime Marketplace Linked to $40M in Phishing Fraud

    In a coordinated action spanning the United States and the United Kingdom, Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) and international law enforcement collaborators have taken down RedVDS, a subscription based cybercrime platform tied to an estimated $40 million in fraud losses in the U.S. since March 2025.

  • Sound Wave Illustration

    CrowdStrike's Acquisition of SGNL Aims to Strengthen Identity Security

    CrowdStrike signs definitive agreement to purchase SGNL, an identity security specialist, in a deal valued at about $740 million.

  • Microsoft Acquires Osmos, Automating Data Engineering inside Fabric

    In a strategic move to reduce time-consuming manual data preparation, Microsoft has acquired Seattle-based startup Osmos, specializing in agentic AI for data engineering.

  • Linux Foundation Unites Major Tech Firms to Launch Agentic AI Foundation

    The Linux Foundation today announced the creation of a new collaborative initiative — the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) — bringing together major AI and cloud players such as Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic and other major tech companies.

Most   Popular