Well, of course Perl would have to be at the top of my list. I’ve been using it for so long, and done so much with it, that I’ve got a whole page devoted to it.
After using Hyena for the past two plus years, I cannot imagine administering a network without it. Just the fully automatic creation of user directories has more than paid for the product, and that’s just the beginning. It also has an integrated Server Manager replacement, with full right-click and multiple-selection support, the ability to view remote processes, shares, files in use, and so much more. This is what Microsoft wants the MMC to be.
For a long time, I did all my HTML and Perl development in Notepad+, a freeware Notepad replacement. I never liked FrontPage, because I wanted full control of my HTML code. (Plus, I never liked the fact that if I opened a 2K HTML file in FrontPage and saved it without making any changes, it ballooned up to 30K or more. What’s up with that?)
Then I decided to try AceHTML 4, which had a freeware version available. I was quickly hooked. It gave me what I wanted, but none of what I didn’t like in FrontPage. When version 5 came out, and no longer had a freeware version, I went ahead and spent the money for the Pro version. (You can still download a trial version and see how you like it.) I particularly like the fact that it handles both Perl and HTML syntax.
If you need to get ACLs off a whole drive, you cannot beat this piece of freeware. Nothing else does like this.
Another irreplaceable tool. You could, in theory, write a script to do this. And I’m sure there are other tools that will do the same thing. But you absolutely must have something that will tell you where the free space on your drive went, and I’ve yet to have a reason to look for anything else besides TreeSize to do the job.
I haven’t used it much since I got away from deskside support, but I really like this product. Basically, it lets you script for the Win32 GUI, including sending keystrokes to the windows. I’ve used it for two separate projects, first, to do two sequential flashes of the ROM on Practical Peripherals 28.8 PC Card modems, and later, to install McAfee SuperDAT updates. Oh, and you can compile the scripts, which is always nice.
Server Magic is the server version of Partition Magic, which lets you resize and otherwise manipulate the partitions on your hard drive. I have never lost data using these tools.
Again, I used this when I was doing deskside support. I loved the way it integrated with Partition Magic, to allow you to lay down the image and then manipulate the partitions as desired. And you could script it nicely, as well. Ghost is a similar product, and I cannot imagine trying to deploy systems without something like this.