Auditing a PC usually means picking the right tool for the operating system in front of you, installing it, and then copying details out of half a dozen utility windows into something you can hand to a customer. PCAudit, sold by CritchCorp Computers Ltd, takes a different approach: it ships preloaded on a USB flash drive, runs from the stick, and produces a single clean A4 PDF spec report per machine.
It takes roughly ten seconds per machine, installs nothing on the PC being audited, and leaves nothing behind. One licence covers both Windows and Linux from the same drive.
What PC Audit actually is
PCAudit is a read-only system information tool from CritchCorp Computers Ltd. It reads the specifications of the machine it is pointed at and formats them into a branded, printable A4 PDF report. That report can be saved, printed, or emailed to a customer.
It is a spec sheet generator, not a security testing tool. Nothing on the vendor page describes password recovery, credential auditing, vulnerability scanning, network probing, or forensic disk imaging, and those capabilities should not be assumed from the word “audit” in the name.
The important operational property is that it only reads. It never sends data anywhere unless you choose to email the report yourself, which is what makes it reasonable to run on a customer’s machine or a colleague’s workstation.
How it runs from a USB stick
The drive arrives preloaded. There is nothing to download and no installer. You plug it in and run the launcher for the platform you are on — Run-Windows.bat on Windows, or ./Run-Linux.sh on Linux.
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A bundled Python runtime is included, so it works on machines that have no Python installed. The process is the same three steps on a repair bench, at a customer’s site, or at the third desk of the morning: plug in the stick, run the launcher, hand over the PDF.
Because it is a launcher rather than a boot medium, the PC is audited from its own running operating system. Nothing is installed on the machine under test and no trace is left behind afterwards.
What the report contains
This is where the tool earns its keep. The report covers:
- Processor — model, physical and logical cores, clock speed and load.
- Memory and slot detail — total, used and available, plus a per-slot table giving manufacturer, DDR type, speed, capacity and part number, so a RAM upgrade can be quoted precisely rather than guessed.
- Motherboard and BIOS — make, model, revision, and BIOS vendor, version and date.
- Graphics — GPU name, VRAM and driver version.
- Storage and partitions — physical drives with model, serial, interface and size, plus logical partitions with letter, type, size and free space.
- Operating system — name, version and build, architecture, and install date.
- System identifiers — system, motherboard and BIOS serial numbers.
- Network adapters — adapters with IP and MAC addresses.
- Battery and power — charge, power source and time remaining on laptops.
- Installed software — the full program list with version, publisher and product key where the installer exposes one.
- Recent system log — recent error and warning events from the Windows System log or the Linux journal, which can surface a failing drive, a crash or a driver problem before the customer comes back.
- Temperatures — where the hardware reports them.
Who it suits
The vendor positions the product around three jobs. On a repair bench, it prints a spec report to hand over with the repair note. On site, a field engineer arrives with one stick, leaves with a full report, and has installed nothing on the customer’s machine. For corporate IT and MSPs, one licence covers auditing workstation after workstation, building a hardware, software and firmware picture across an estate for asset records and job tickets.
Buying it
PCAudit is £30 including VAT for one licence and one USB flash drive (a £25 licence plus VAT), and the licence is tied to the drive, so it follows the stick between a Windows PC and a Linux PC. You can buy a licence or view it in the CritchCorp store. Because the licence travels with the USB rather than installing per machine, one licence can be used across as many machines as you like.
There is a 30-day free trial. Because it is a physical product, refunds can be requested within 30 days before the licence is activated — once activated, or 30 days after delivery, it cannot be returned. Updates to the version purchased are included, with a discount offered to current licence holders on the next version.
The bottom line
PCAudit is a portable spec report generator for people who need to document what is inside a PC quickly and hand the result to someone else. The per-slot memory table, the system-log errors and the one-licence-for-both-platforms arrangement are the parts that genuinely save time on a bench. It does one job, and it is not a security testing tool.
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