Security Tools (20)

The 20 utilities gathered under Security Tools split cleanly into two philosophies, and it is worth understanding the difference before you use any of them. One half of the category reports on the security posture Windows already has configured — is Secure Boot on, is BitLocker protecting this drive, is a TPM present and what version, is Windows Defender's real-time protection active, is the current user actually an administrator. The other half performs an action — generating a strong password, hashing a file, permanently shredding one, or recovering a credential you saved yourself on this same machine. Every tool in the second half was deliberately scoped to avoid behaving like the credential-stealing malware that shares surface-level similarities with legitimate recovery utilities; where a real password-recovery tool would decrypt and display a saved secret, the tools here that touch Windows' credential stores stop at listing what account or connection name exists, never the secret itself.

Status and posture checking covers the firmware and platform security layer first. Secure Boot Checker and UEFI Legacy Boot Checker (the latter cross-listed in System Information) confirm the firmware chain of trust; TPM Version Checker and TPM Information Viewer read the Trusted Platform Module's specification version, manufacturer and ownership state; BitLocker Status Viewer reports per-volume encryption status; Windows Hello Status checks whether a PIN or biometric sign-in is actually configured, and Administrator Rights Checker confirms exactly what privilege level the current process is running under. Windows Firewall Status and Windows Defender Status close out this half, reporting each firewall profile's enabled state and Defender's real-time protection and signature freshness.

Recovery and inventory tools make up the more sensitive half of the category, and each one is scoped narrowly on purpose. VNCPassView decrypts a locally saved VNC server password using the classic, publicly documented reversible VNC cipher — useful for recovering access to your own remote-desktop setup after forgetting a password you set months ago. WirelessKeyView reads saved Wi-Fi credentials for networks this specific PC has already connected to. BulletsPassView reveals the real text behind bullet-masked password fields in other currently open windows, which only ever works on your own active session, never remotely. VaultPasswordView lists Windows Credential Vault entry names and usernames — and deliberately stops there, never reading the encrypted secret itself. HashCheck Shell Extension and QuickHash GUI round out the practical toolkit: batch-verifying files against a published MD5/SHA1/SHA256 checksum manifest, and computing hashes for typed text or any file on demand.

Two tools handle destructive operations that deserve a moment's extra attention before you click anything. File Shredder overwrites file contents with multiple passes of random data before deletion, so the original bytes cannot be recovered by conventional undelete tools — appropriate for sensitive documents you genuinely need gone, not for routine cleanup. Secure Delete Tool offers a faster single-pass version of the same idea for less sensitive data. Both ask for confirmation before they touch anything, because unlike almost every other tool on this site, these two cannot be undone.

Finally, Password Generator earns its place simply by doing one thing extremely well: producing long, genuinely random passwords using a cryptographically secure random number generator rather than the weaker System.Random class many quick-and-dirty generators rely on, with configurable length and character sets so the output fits whatever password policy you are working against.