A few recommended tools

Working between Windows and Unix systems, you find from time to time, tools that you wish you could have on both systems. Generally, I find I'm missing some Unix command on Windows. So I've compile a few links here for tools that I find handy.

Text Editor
You can never underestimate the value of a good text editor. I do a lot of log file reading, and a good text editor is required. Some of the files can get rather large in size, and they tend to be in a Unix format, so they don't work in Notepad. vi is the tool of choice on a Unix system. Here are few good ones for Windows (some free, some not)

• vim : There is an actual port of vi to windows. This includes both a command line option, and an GUI option.
  See http://www.vim.org
  
• Textpad: Textpad is a good, free text editor. It handles large files sizes, and different file formats.
  See http://www.textpad.com
  
• EditPad: This is my tool of choice. It's not free, but it offers a lot of different features. It receognizes many extensions and does syntax highlighting, so if your looking at Java code, or SQL Queries, it automatically colors the commands for easier viewing.
  See http://www.editpadpro.com/

Tail
Tail is a great utility available on most Unix systems. Tail allows you to watch a log file in real time.

• tail: The tail command is actually availble in the Windows 2003 Resource kit. Note: This will also work on Vista and XP systems.
  See: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9D467A69-57FF-4AE7-96EE-B18C4790CFFD&displaylang=en
  There are a lot of other tools in the resource kit that can be useful, but you can choose which ones to install.
  
• Tail For Windows: This is an open source project for a GUI version of the tail command. See: http://tailforwin32.sourceforge.net/

Grep
Grep is very handy for searching a group of logs for a specific string.

• grep: The grep commandis actually availble in the Windows 2003 Resource kit. Note: This will also work on Vista and XP systems.
  See: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9D467A69-57FF-4AE7-96EE-B18C4790CFFD&displaylang=en
  There are a lot of other tools in the resource kit that can be useful, but you can choose which ones to install.
• Grep for Windows: This is an open source port of the Unix grep command.
  See: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/grep.htm
• Windows Grep: This is a GUI version of the Grep tool.
  See: http://www.wingrep.com/

These are all essential tools for log file analysis.