A utility I have written about in the past is Sysinternal’s BgInfo which takes a snapshot of your system info and resources and then overlays this information on your desktop background. While I do not see this as something the everyday user would find useful, it is an incredibly useful tool for system admins.

For example, I have several servers I have to manage. Whenever I login via Terminal Services, I have a shortcut in my startup folder which runs the following command:

bginfo.exe /timer:0

This command drops the current server information I have specified to display (i.e. machine name, free hard drive space, IP addresses, etc.) as the desktop backup when I login. Having this information immediately available is very useful as it allows me to see anything alarming, such as low hard drive space, without manually checking.

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