FinalGen

      FinalGen is a program you might find handy, but I would recommend it only if you have a lot of HD space on your computer.

       What is FinalGen? FinalGen is a FREE endgame tablebase generator for Windows.It generates tablebases for endgames with up to one piece per side, and any number of pawns.
       A Search for draw option allows speeding up the process by searching only for drawn results, but can run up to 10 times faster.  You can pause and resume the process at any time. A very nice feature is that the program displays the estimated time remaining, the required hard disk space and the number of positions calculated.  It is available in English, French, Spanish, Russian.
       Most engines play endgames fairly well, but in some situations they exhibit serious defects and most engines can consult tablebases which help them decide whether to exchange down into an endgame covered by the tablebase.   Tablebases of all endgames with up to six pieces are available for free download but their size is enormous which means you need to consult online tablebases from sites like Shredder or Lokasoft.  FinalGen is able to solve chess positions with 7 or more pieces; it can also generate them for 8 or more pieces, but that is a very long process. For 7-piece positions, the process can take between 30 minutes and 3 hours.
       A major limitation is that it can only manage endgames with up to one piece per side, and any number of pawns. e.g endgames in which there are 3 knights and king versus a king cannot be solved. But, if you end up with an ending with a rook and two pawns versus a rook and two pawns you can use FinalGen to generate the tablebases for the position. What is nice is it will generate tablesbases for positions that are not available in the online Shredder and Lokasoft bases.  For example, in the 11-piece position shown.