Utilities to report on status of PC, hardware and software

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
39,344
9,231
136
I'm in the process of upgrading several PCs, either OS upgrades and in the case of two, new motherboard/CPU etc.

When I upgrade systems I'm always faced with the prospect of reinstalling various programs and utilities, drivers, etc. I sometimes create a list, just work the thing up myself from what I see in Add/Remove Programs or the Start menu or my own launch folder that I have pinned to my task bar.

I have used Everest Home Edition (free), which works up a nice report on the system components, really nothing on the software.

Are there some nice utilities out that that you can run to outline your system, possibly the drivers and the installed programs and utilities?
 

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
14,558
248
106
A program that I use on a Daily Basis is Screenshot Captor. Most of the time I use it to capture a selected region. I would just use to to take pictures of the Programs and Features page.

If you are upgrading hardware, most of the time the drivers will need to be updated as well, and in most cases the drivers will come with the board.

Another idea - if we aren't talking about a HUGE change (e.g AMD to Intel or vice versa), there is a very good chance you can make the upgrades and boot off the hard drive as-is.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
39,344
9,231
136
Belarc adviser
I found this yesterday in a Google search. I'd heard of it before. I then Googled the name to see if there was any flack against it and didn't see any, so I downloaded and installed and ran it. It produces a very nice pretty thorough (my first impression) web-based report. Now, for my usage here (wanting to know what WAS on my system before an upgrade or reinstall), I want something persistent. Maybe it lets me create an HTML report I can save to HD, flash, whatever. That would be nice and would serve my purpose here. Everest Home Edition does let you save reports to disk. I would suppose that Belarc Advisor would also, but don't know it for a fact.

To test this further I'm going to install it on this, my main midtower PC. In point of fact I have 4 PCs that are candidates for upgrade/overhaul. My two midtowers require new mainboards, CPU, RAM, HDs, OSs! Two of my laptops I plan to upgrade to Win10 imminently. I don't feel right just jumping in without checking the waters. I'm a PC veteran and have fought many battles on the PC turf. Many many battles! :D However, I don't upgrade often. My more current midtower's mainboard I ordered in March 2008. That system won't run Win7, period! My other midtower is older and is running, are you ready for this?
Windows 2000 Professional :biggrin:
... I almost never turn that machine on but it saved me the last 2 months because the other midtower's PSU burned out... I only found out what had burned out over the weekend, that it was just the PSU was very much a relief.
 
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Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
39,344
9,231
136
So, I install Belarc Advisor on my number one desktop and it creates a web based report. In my browser I do a File/Save Page As, give it a name I like, save it on my NAS. From there I can launch the report from any of my machines.