SystemTools

A collection of .NET utilities from LTR Data for system inspection, disk-image operations, networking, process/window waits, and Windows session automation. Each tool is a separate executable project.

Tools

Tool	Purpose	Platform and requirements
AppxActivate	Activate a packaged Windows application by its AppUserModelID. Returns the activated process ID as its exit code.	Windows application-activation COM API; .NET Framework 4.6.
DiskVolumes	List Windows volumes, device-object names and links, mount points, and physical disk extents. /S includes contained volume mount points.	Windows native volume APIs.
GetProductKey	Display Windows installation details and stored product-key data from a running system, offline installation, or disk/ISO/WIM image.	Live local/remote registry queries require Windows; the local firmware-key query uses CIM. Disk image file parsing uses DiscUtils and is available on all supported platforms.
ImageMBR2GPT	Inspect a partition table or replace it in place with an MBR or GPT table using the existing partition extents.	DiscUtils disk images and raw files; also handles Windows physical-drive paths. See conversion limits below.
PowerShellFs	Expose PowerShell drives through a read-only filesystem mounted at Q:. Can use a local runspace or a remote host over WSMan.	Windows, .NET Framework 4.8, Windows PowerShell 5, and a Dokany installation compatible with the restored DokanNet package.
RecentCleanup	Repeatedly remove shortcuts from the current user's Recent folder when their targets are not found.	Windows Script Host COM interop; includes an interop assembly in the project.
SessionPowerSaver	Suspend selected CPU-consuming GUI processes in a disconnected user session and resume tracked processes when it reconnects.	Windows session/process APIs; runs for the current user and session.
StripeBlockSwap	Copy data while exchanging the positions of adjacent blocks of a specified size.	File/stream operations; output must be seekable. Windows device paths also use native disk access.
dssearch	Search Directory Services with LDAP filters and print matching objects' properties, including formatted GUIDs and SIDs.	Windows Directory Services and an accessible directory context; defaults to the current user's parent container.
ipcalc	Calculate IPv4 network, broadcast, mask, and prefix information from an address range, CIDR prefix, or explicit mask.	Managed networking code using LTRData.Net.
telnets	Connect an external telnet client to a TLS-protected remote endpoint through a local loopback forwarder.	Requires a telnet executable and a server accepting TLS immediately on connection. Default port: 992.
waitps	Wait for existing processes selected by PID or name; wait for all by default, or any with -a.	.NET process APIs and permission to inspect the selected processes.
waitwin	Wait for existing windows to close, selected by title or numeric handle; supports -a to wait for any.	Windows UI Automation and User32.

ODBC Dataviewer has moved to LTRData/WindowsTools.

Build and run

Use a .NET 10 SDK for the current .NET 10 targets. For example:

git clone https://github.com/LTRData/SystemTools.git
cd SystemTools
dotnet build ipcalc/ipcalc.csproj -c Release -f net10.0
dotnet Release/net10.0/ipcalc.dll 192.0.2.25/24

All projects except AppxActivate and PowerShellFs declare .NET 8, 9, and 10 targets. SessionPowerSaver and waitwin use the corresponding net8.0-windows, net9.0-windows, and net10.0-windows names. AppxActivate targets net46 only; PowerShellFs targets net48 only. Most other tools also retain .NET Framework targets, and ipcalc additionally declares netstandard2.1. Check each project file for its exact target list.

Build individual projects with -f to select a declared framework. Windows tools require Windows at runtime even when their framework name has no -windows suffix. The managed file/network tools have fewer OS dependencies; this repository does not contain an automated cross-platform test matrix.

Directory.Build.props places outputs in the root Release/<framework>/ or Debug/<framework>/ directory. SystemTools.slnx includes all 13 projects and needs an IDE/MSBuild version that understands .slnx.

For .NET Framework builds, install the relevant reference assemblies. For Windows desktop targets, use the Windows desktop build components. PowerShellFs also needs the native Dokany runtime when mounting; restoring its managed NuGet references alone does not install the driver. Many package references use floating versions (* or a version range), so dependency resolution can change between restores.

There is currently no test project or CI workflow in this repository.

Usage examples

After building the corresponding projects for net10.0:

dotnet Release/net10.0/ipcalc.dll 192.0.2.0-192.0.2.255
dotnet Release/net10.0/ipcalc.dll "192.0.2.25%255.255.255.0"
dotnet Release/net10.0/ImageMBR2GPT.dll disk.vhdx
dotnet Release/net10.0/waitps.dll -a 1234 5678
dotnet Release/net10.0/telnets.dll server.example.com 992

The ImageMBR2GPT example only displays the existing layout. Replace the example PIDs and server name with real targets.

On Windows, after building DiskVolumes for net10.0:

dotnet Release/net10.0/DiskVolumes.dll /S

PowerShellFs uses its .NET Framework executable:

dotnet build PowerShellFs/PowerShellFs.csproj -c Release -f net48
& .\Release\net48\PowerShellFs.exe

With no arguments it uses a local runspace; supplying a host name selects a remote WSMan runspace and requires working PowerShell remoting. The mount point is fixed at Q:; Ctrl+C removes it. Writes are not implemented, and readable content depends on the provider/object type.

Options differ by tool. Examples of help commands are ImageMBR2GPT --help, StripeBlockSwap --help, waitps --help, waitwin --help, and GetProductKey /?. Each project's Program.cs contains its argument handling; DiskVolumes delegates to DiskVolumes.cs.

Behavior to know before use

Disk operations: ImageMBR2GPT's --gpt and --mbr options replace the partition table after an interactive confirmation. It recreates partition extents but does not migrate boot files or configure Windows/UEFI booting. Partition types are mapped with limited rules; GPT-to-MBR skips Microsoft Reserved partitions and rejects more than four remaining partitions. Work on a copy of an image before converting it.

StripeBlockSwap writes reordered blocks to the destination. A normal output file is truncated when the output offset is zero; choose a separate destination. The implementation seeks for every output block, so an ordinary stdout pipe cannot serve as its output despite the default stdout option.

Background utilities: RecentCleanup is a continuing watcher, and missing targets include paths on unavailable removable or network storage. It deletes the shortcut, not the target. --trace enables console diagnostics. SessionPowerSaver actually suspends processes. Its selection uses accumulated CPU time and lifetime-average CPU usage, and it writes Session_<session-id>.log in the user's profile.

TLS forwarding: telnets uses SslStream with normal certificate validation. It starts a separate telnet executable, selected through the TELNET environment variable or the platform default (telnet.exe in the Windows system directory, telnet elsewhere). Options before the host are passed to that client; when supplying options, also supply the port. It does not perform STARTTLS negotiation.

Wait results: waitps and waitwin find their targets when invoked; they do not wait for a future process or window to appear. On success, waitps returns the number of selected processes observed to have exited, so a positive exit code is expected. With -a, waitwin returns the zero-based index of the signaled wait handle; otherwise its normal result is zero.