This article originally appeared on
SearchWinIT.com.Users of Sysinternals free Windows administration tools can
relax a bit.
IN July 2006, Microsoft
took ownership of Winternals Software and
its sister site Sysinternals, which offers for free the widely
used troubleshooting tools --
Filemon, Regmon and Process Explorer. Since
the acquisition, some IT administrators said they feared that
Microsoft might alter the way the free tools are
distributed.
But Winternals cofounder and tool developer Mark Russinovich,
who nows works for Microsoft, told administrators last week on his
popular Sysinternals blog that Microsoft's priority is to keep the
tools freely available. He also said that Microsoft intends to keep
intact the Sysinternals community, which includes a newsletter, a
forum and Russinovich's blog.
Microsoft is continuing discussions on how to keep the program
successful in the long term, Russinovich said. So far, the company
has introduced a Sysinternals end user license agreement, which
"allows for wider use of Sysinternals utilities within a company,"
he said.
Russinovich said the tools will eventually be moved to the
Microsoft download center, which will increase download capacity.
The tools will not be wrapped in .MSI files, he said.
"Rest assured that Sysinternals, though it might end up looking
different, is here to stay," Russinovich said in his blog.