SIW - Technician's Version 2008.07.15

SIW - Technician's Version is an advanced System Information tool that gathers detailed information about your system properties and settings and displays it in an extremely comprehensible manner.

The application will display all relevant data in a tree located on the left hand side of the window. The system information is divided into three major categories: Software, Hardware and Network information.

The Software info category contains details regarding all installed applications, licenses ans serial numbers, drivers, services, installed codecs, databases, ActiveX controls, Groups and Users. What I found very interesting was the 'Secrets' section: here, I could see all usernames and passwords from online and offline forms stored by browsers or other applications.

The Hardware info includes detailed specs for Motherboard, BIOS, CPU, Devices, Memory, Video, Drives, Ports, Printers, etc. In the 'Network' section You will find relevant data about your network settings, open ports, shares, RAS connections, network neighborhood, etc.

Besides detailed system information, the program includes also real-time monitors for CPU, Memory, Page File usage and network traffic. A few extra and very useful tools are bundled as well, such as: Eureka! (password revealer), MAC address changer, Win98 password cracker, ping, traceroute, OpenGL test tool, etc.

The interface has a nice design and appears to be very intuitive. The system information can be displayed either accessing the tree on the left hand side of the window or by using the menu on the top of the program window. Information can be printed out or exported in CSV, HTML, XML, and TXT file format.

Pluses:

Drawbacks / flaws: The passwords revealing utility failed to reveal Yahoo Messenger passwords.

In conclusion: Although the price seems to be a little bit to high, this program really does it all. In my opinion, it's worth every penny.

version reviewed: 2008-10-28