Tools

Here are several FREE, must-have tools for the SharePoint Administrator.

  • Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Administration Toolkit v2.0
    Contains several good tools, in particular the SharePoint Diagnostic Studio.
  • SharePoint Manager 2010
    It enables you to browse every site on the local farm and view every property. It also enables you to change the properties.  Make sure to “Run as Administrator”.
  • Show or Hide SharePoint 2010 Ribbon based on Group membership
    This SharePoint 2010 solution allow site administrator to define who can or cannot see the SharePoint ribbon.
  • FilterZen
    Do you want for your users to be able to dynamically filter list content?  Do you need more than the limited functionality of the Content Query Web Part (CQWP) on a site?  FilterZen dynamically filters Lists, Document Libraries, Data Views and other Web Parts on the fly, automatically or interactively, choosing from a wide range of specialized filtering mechanisms.
  • Metro Studio
    Easily and quickly create Metro-style icons.  It’s a 100% free product plus the images are all 100% royalty-free, even for commercial applications you create.  Rather than sending you directly to the product page, the link sends you to the blog site of Microsoft Senior Program Manager Beth Massi.  She does a nice overview of Metro Studio (with screenshots) and you can get to the product page from there.
  • 3-D Tag Cloud for SharePoint 2010
    A simple Flash based 3D TagCloud WebPart for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010.  Does not work with SharePoint Foundation 2010.
  • Network Topology Add-In for Visio 2010
    The Add-In enables SharePoint administrators to automatically create and publish dynamically-refreshing Visio Services diagrams to actively monitor the performance of their infrastructure.
  • SharePoint admin toolset v3.0
    7 essential tools for monitoring, securing and administering SharePoint from Idera.
  • VM Console
    Shutdown and restart VMs without having to log in.  Plus, you can track up/down status, take snapshots, and restart VMs without logging in either.  This is a great, free tool from SolarWinds.