Hardentools

Hardentools is an easy-to-use application dedicated to those who wish to increase Windows security with minimal effort. With one click, it disables some system tools which are useless for some casual users but leave the machine vulnerable to hijackers and other types of malware attacks.

Installation is not necessary so you can double-click the downloaded .exe to reach the app window right away. There are no software requirements involved either, like .NET Framework. However, because it gains access to Windows utilities to disable them, you have to run Hardentools as administrator or it won't work.

It's a good idea to create a system restore point before using this application because it doesn't offer to do this. Thanks to the fact that it's portable, you can store it to a USB flash drive and directly run it on any PC to boost its security, provided that you have administrative rights.

There's nothing impressive when it comes to the interface since Hardentools prefers to focus on functionality and strips down the main window of any unnecessary graphical elements.

With a click of the "Harden!" button, it immediately deactivates VBScript / Windows Script Host, Office packager objects, macros and ActiveX, JavaScript in Acrobat Reader, autorun and autoplay, PowerShell and Command Prompt, along with the openning of objects embedded in PDF documents.

If you want to learn more about these Windows utilities, you can check out references on the developer's website. Once the task is over, you're informed by a popup message to restart the computer in order to apply the modifications (this was actually necessary in our evaluation).

The application works fast and requires minimal intervention on your behalf. It didn't produce unstable tweaks in our tests. On the downside, it can be dangerous in the hands of inexperienced users, as warned by the developer.

We think that two important negative aspects about the program is that it doesn't inform users about the changes about to be made to their machines (a more in-your-face approach beyond the online documentation) as well as the fact that it cannot reactivate the affected Windows features to undo modifications just as easily as activating them.

Nevertheless, we're taking into account that Hardentools hasn't reached a stable version yet, so there's plenty of room for improvements. It certainly looks like a promising system tweaker for users looking for quick and easy security solutions.