These are some utilities that make administering and even running Windows more tolerable to hardcore CompSci/IT types. It gives you a level of transparency that makes you feel more in control like on Linux. Process explorer (combines ps, lsof, netstat, kill, ldd, pstree etc.) Filemon (like lsof but implemented as callbacks) Regmon (same as filemon but for the registry) Tcpview (like lsof ?i or netstat ?a) http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx Sendsignal (lets you do kill ?KILL) http://www.latenighthacking.com/projects/2003/sendSignal/ Baretail (like tail -f) http://www.baremetalsoft.com/baretail/ Now if I could just ?aptitude install? them :)