1GbUsbKeyMy USB Key goes everywhere with me, mostly because it stays in my wallet.  There is a piccy over there (US readers can substitute a dime for the 5c piece), The usb key is the blue Sony MicroVault in the middle — and yes it is really a USB key

My USB key has wealth of life saving utilities and programs on it.  With everything that has happened in the last few days, I thought I’d post my Top 10 VHD virtualization utilities:

  1. VHD Expand - simple no nonsense tool to make VHD files bigger
  2. VMDK2VHD - again, a simple no nonense way to convert a Vmware VMDK to a Microsoft VHD
  3. Whitney Defrag - a portable an beautiful solution  to defrag, speed up and make smaller any 2003 or XP Virtualmachine or host
  4. PageDefrag - same as above, but for your Pagefile.  Works great both in a Virtualmachine and on the host.
  5. Angry IPScan - brilliant for quickly scanning a subnet and looking for the the default OUI (”00-03-ff”) of Virtualmachines
  6. Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 - VHDMount = good ’nuff said!
  7. VMRCplus - Manage Virtual Server without IIS
  8. Robocopy - Copy big files over bad networks and not worry about it failing.
  9. vXCopy -   Multithreaded copy tool , copy big files fast
  10. Process Explorer - Task manager on steroids, know exactly what your host (or virtual machines) are doing.
  11. UPDATE:  WinImage - Just too good not to mention, perfect for making ISOs from CDs and disk images and stuff. 

I didn’t want to list all the stuff on my USB key today, and there is a mix of scripts, utilities and programs (VirtualPC 2007 for instance).  But this will do for starters. 

How about you guys?  Any tools you can’t live without?