Your Windows Still Has Secrets?

Some programs are designed to accomplish a single simple task, while their opposites are the all-in-one software suites that try to take over the IT world and your computer...so today I got my hands on such an application, designed as a suite of small utilities that work together in a Windows Console.

WinGuruXP Console can be compared to other all-in-one suites, but I can say that it's the first one of its kind, at least for me. Its first version was released over one year ago and unfortunately there wasn't any follower to that. This program is free and comes packed into a ZIP file a bit smaller than 2MB.

All you have to do in order to have this program up and running is unpack the content of the archive to a folder on your hard drive and fire up the 6HTWinGuruXPConsole.exe file. Now let's see...

The interface of this program is very easy to use, although it looks a bit old and unpolished. The program starts up with an Internet browser window opened inside the Single Window Virtual Environment, which reminds me of an operating system running inside a virtual machine...and the Console, of course. What about this console?

The console is a command center that gathers all the tools available inside WinGuruXP and earns you a little time, compared to the situation when you start the tools using the menus. We have three menus, and there are also three tabs with the same names and tools inside the console - System, Network and Windows. Let's take them down one by one and see what's behind!

The System menu/console tab has eighteen tools, and I'll tell you a few things about the most important ones, starting with the Web browsers.

SixHat Technologies, the producer of this program, offers a wide range of online resources, but unfortunately it seems that most links are dead by now. Leaving this little/ big problem behind, you don't have to use the built in browser for accessing SixHat's website, because you're free to go wherever you want on the Internet.

There are two ways to browse the web with WinGuruXP - inside a single IE-like window or using the Multi-Browser Console, a browser having six tabs available. Unfortunately you can't open new tabs, but six should be enough. The browser windows can also be used to surf your own folders, instead of remote locations.

Did I say "remote locations"? It seems so, and when I hear that, I think about FTP servers. The idea is that you can't use FTP servers without clients...so here it is: a FTP client built into WinGuruXP, of course! All you have to do is go to the Network area and choose the FTP command. The FTP client available here is a basic one, but despite its simplicity, incorporates a site management feature, which is excellent.

In the Network area you can find an army of features that include an external tool called Local Connections Monitor, some links to various Windows components like Network, Internet and Modem Settings or User Accounts, and, of course, a lot of tools that belong to WinGuruXP. Apart from the FTP client that I already told you about, here you can find a Personal Web Server, Traceroute, Ping, a Traffic Monitor and a WinVNC host that enables you to allow remote user to connect to your computers. The list doesn't end here, and I'll leave the pleasure of exploring the Network area to you, while I go back to the System tools, passing through the Windows menu. Are you ready to continue?

The Windows area doesn't have any interesting tools, but only commands that allow you to change the way your windows are displayed inside WinGuruXP. You can control the active windows display mode (normal, maximized and minimized are the available options), their placement inside the console (cascaded and tiled horizontally or vertically) and minimize/restore them all.

Now, back to the System menu/console tools...where was I? Let's see...

The System Calendar is a tool built to help you organize your time better, but unfortunately it doesn't have a notification feature, so you can only use it as a notebook, but not as a scheduler able to warn you when you should remember a meeting or something similar.

The console also has replicas of windows standard applications such as the Calculator, Paint, WordPad and others. Why would you use them instead of those built into your operating system? The answer is easy - resource saving. All these run inside WinGuru's virtual environment, and so they need fewer resources than standard applications.

The last tools available here that I'll tell you about can have their own review, because they have an incredible amount of features. Just think about a complete System Information tool, an excellent System Monitor with customizable sensors, tools for managing services and processes, but there's even more...

This program may be outdated, but nobody can deny that it can prove quite useful for most of us, and now all I can do is draw the conclusions...

The Good

The best things about WinGuruXP Console are its ease of use, the excellent features and the fact that it's completely free. The rest of the goodies are left for you to discover, because I don't want to spoil your fun...

The Bad

Unfortunately and obviously, the worst thing about this program is that there wasn't any update done for such a long time, but I don't want to call this a dead project, because it would be a real shame. Smaller issues can be its old-looking interface and the lack of any built in Help content.

The Truth

It's a real pity that this program stopped after the starting line, because there's a lot to do with it, and all I can do is hope they'll bring it back to life someday. As long as there are Windows XP users around, WinGuruXP won't cease to be an interesting and useful free software package, and my advice is to get it now!

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: