Essential Windows Programs, Tell us yours here. Options

[Swad]

It's time that we had a thread for you to let us know the Windows apps that you think are essential!

My list:

Firefox and Opera
I feel like you should have both. Opera is my main browser and use FF for a few other things.

Irfanview
This is the quickest image editing program I've seen - it's free, fast, and good for those times when photoshop is too much.

Flashget
Best downloading app ever.

Trillian
Until we get a Windows port of Adium, this is the IM client to go with

uTorrent
I switched from Azureus and have been very impressed. Small footprint.

SysSense
If you check your adsense totals a lot like I tend to do, this app sits in the taskbar and updates itself automatically. Very handy. (Google Ads are the only thing keeping this up, so it's always nice to know how much is in the bank)

NetStumbler
For finding free wifi.

Pixie
A great little app that tells you the color codes of whatever you mouseover.

FlashFXP
The best FTP app I've seen for Windows.

[Hagar]

AVG Antivirus
Possibly not the best, but free for personal use. (free.grisoft.com)

Sygate personal firewall
Too paranoid to use the windows firewall (appears to be discontinued by symantec, found it on tucows though)

Spybot s&d
Remove those annoyances that come with surfing irreputable websites (http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html)

These always go on my windows installs immediately.

Also, dont forget those essential tools for mac things:

Macdrive
Access your mac-formatted disks from windows.
(http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive6/)

Transmac
Like the above, but more an app than a driver.
(http://www.asy.com/sharetm.htm)

UltraISO
Manipulates ISO images, convert from one format to another etc..
(http://www.ezbsystems.com/ultraiso/)

[Callysto]

Adobe Photoshop

Soundforge favourite sound editor

ThumbsPlus basic image editor and image database

Nod32 antivirus software

Limewire for P2P

Roxio easy media creator because it's childsplay

[R. Bear Helms]

ISO Recorder v 2
Free, SP2 and Vista compatible, and extremely small download. It's very basic - adds ISO handling to right-click menus, so you can burn or rip.

Right click a directory and make an ISO, also.

[Shatai]

PuTTY
Tiny and intuitive fully-featured Telnet and SSH client, a must have on any Windows installation of mine.

PDFCreator
Another must-have for my systems, the free PDFCreator acts like a native printer driver for Windows, allowing one to essentially "print" to a PDF document from any application. This makes distributing professional publications online a world easier.

[Metrogirl]

winopen.exe - opens a window or windowed application from the command prompt

command here - (MS powertool) - opens a command prompt in the current or selected windows folder

I would love to have the latter feature in OSX - to open terminal already CD'd to the current directory from wherever you are in Finder.

Also VI and Grep.

ACDSee (older versions, not the current bloated do-everything-but-not-well version)
WSFTP Pro (V.8, the latest version sucks).

Winzip with Command Line extension (V.9 since V.10 is much slower), WinACE - love that one, WinRAR.

[netrat]

Laptop:
RMClock - reduce CPU voltage, thus reducing heat and lower power consumption

AceMegaCodecPack - codec pack that's huge, plays everything I throw at it. use "its Dashboard" to utilize it's full power

BitSpirit - BT Client. Looks like BitComet but 100% better. Can regulate reading/writing cycles to hd, excellent for huge RAM systems, and for people that don't want their HDD to die after a year to do the excessive reading/writing to the HDD BT requires

GraphCalc - my Window's Calculator

Everest Home - System information gathering tool

Xnews - my newsgroup reader/downloader

Tweak UI - remove bloated looks throughout XP

Foobar2000 - my music player. highly customizable

Miranda-IM - multi-protocol IM that has great customizable features

Daemon tools - reading cd/dvd images w/o burning

Firefox w/ Tabs, gestures, download manager, Adblock, NoScript = Disturbance free browsing

Synergy - maps one set if input device to multiple computer system. Clutter-free your work area from excessive input peripherals with this software.

[domino]

ActiveSync

Microsoft ActiveSync provides a great synchronization experience with Windows powered PCs and Microsoft Outlook right out of the box. ActiveSync acts as the gateway between your Windows powered PC and Windows Mobile powered device, enabling the transfer of Outlook information, Office documents, pictures, music, videos and applications from your desktop to your device. In addition to synchronizing with a desktop PC, ActiveSync can synchronize directly with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 so that you can keep your e-mail, Calendar, Notes, and Contacts updated wirelessly when you’re away from your PC.

F-Secure SSH Client

Reflection for Secure IT (formerly F-Secure SSH) is WRQ’s SSH-based security solution. Built for both UNIX and Windows environments, Reflection for Secure IT protects networks from spies, hackers, and industrial espionage.

Mozilla products: Self explanatory

EditPlus

EditPlus is an Internet-ready 32-bit text editor, HTML editor and programmer's editor for Windows. While it can serve as a good replacement for Notepad, it also offers many powerful features for Web page authors and programmers.

TopStyle pro

Then tap into the power of cascading style sheets (CSS) and XHTML

DaemonTools

DAEMON Tools is an advanced application for multiprotection emulation. It is further development of Generic Safedisc emulator and incorporates all its features. This program allows running Backup Copies of SafeDisc (C-Dilla), Securom, Laserlock, CDCOPS, StarForce and Protect CD (and many others) protected games. Also included is a Virtual DVDROM drive (Generic DVD-ROM) enabling you to use your CD images as if they were already burned to CD! DAEMON Tools works under Windows9x/ME/NT/2000/XP with all types of CD/DVDROM drives (IDE/SCSI) and supports nearly any CD protection.

Diskeeper

Diskeeper 10 Professional Edition provides high-speed automatic defrag along with advanced settings and features that allow you to fine-tune its operation.

UltraIso

UltraISO is an ISO CD/DVD image file creating/editing/converting tool and a bootable CD/DVD maker , it can directly edit the CD/DVD image file and extract files and folders from it, as well as directly make ISO files from your CD/DVD-ROM or hard disk. At the same time, you can maintain the ISO bootable information, thus creating your own bootable CD/DVDs. You now have the power to make and edit your own ISO files, and then burn them to CD/DVD for your own needs.

HiJackThis

HijackThis examines certain key areas of the Registry and Hard Drive and lists their contents. These are areas which are used by both legitimate programmers and hijackers. It's up to you to decide what should be removed. Some items are perfectly fine. You should not remove them. Never remove everything. Doing that could leave you with missing items needed to run legitimate programs and add-ins. This Page will help you work with the Experts to clean up your system. For those of you needing instructions on how to Copy and Paste the contents of a text file into a Forum Post, please look at the Table of Contents. A link to the instructions is included.

NOD32

NOD32 Antivirus System provides well balanced, state-of-the-art protection against threats endangering your PC and enterprise systems running various platforms from Microsoft Windows 95 / 98 / ME / NT / 2000 / 2003 / XP, through a number of UNIX/Linux, Novell, MS DOS operating systems to Microsoft Exchange Server, Lotus Domino and other mail servers.

WinRar

WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format.

Windows AntiSpyware

Windows AntiSpyware (Beta) is a security technology that helps protect Windows users from spyware and other potentially unwanted software. Known spyware on your PC can be detected and removed. This helps reduce negative effects caused by spyware including slow PC performance, annoying pop-up ads, unwanted changes to Internet settings, and unauthorized use of your private information. Continuous protection improves Internet browsing safety by guarding over fifty (50) ways spyware can enter your PC.

VMware:

VMware Workstation is powerful desktop virtualization software for software developers/testers and enterprise IT professionals that runs multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single PC. Users can run Windows, Linux, NetWare, or Solaris x86 in fully networked, portable virtual machines.

Photoshop: Self explanatory

Nero: Self explanatory

[U.C.]

Norton Antivirus Corporate - It is the best in terms of protection and resource usage

Sygate Personal Firewall - The Best. I love it

Window Blinds 5, Logon Studio, Boot Skin, Icon Packager - Make my comp look sweet. hate the XP theme

Nero - Burn stuff

Paint Shop Pro - Picture Editing

WMP10 - Music

WinRAR - Extract stuff

Alcohol/Daemon 4 - Virtual Drives

VMWare - My main OS is emulated, the base is a performance oriented gaming OS.......i have like 5 services running

Firefox

Flashget - Perfect Downloader

Drivers - MB, nVidia

[teeching]

Firefox and its extensions

Mcafee Security 2006 : security

Nero : 7 premium

Bittornado : the ebst client ive ever seen

Adobe Acrobat : pdf editing

Office 2003 : AUK

Progdvb : Technisat satellite receiver software

Itunes & Jriver media Center : itunes for ipod ..jriver for PC

WinRar & Winzip : archiving utilities

Klite codecs pack & Bsplayer : for viewing movies

Flashget & flashgit : downlaod manager

Alcohol % 120 : virtual disx

Torrent harvester : Best torrent search proggie

Real Draw : Vector editing

StyleXP : themes for XP

and some games for killing time

[ozzie123]

I wonder why no one listed MS Office yet. Well here's my list:

Zone alarm + AVG (free edition). Both are free and a deadly combination for your internet security

Firefox + Thunderbird. I prefer browsing with Safari though (although its KHTML engine sometime failed to render certain pages).

MS Office, self explanatory isn't it? My job is mainly about writing and this is the only solutions for professional writings. I prefer using Apple's Pages which has a better rendered fonts. It's because of the OS I assume.

Photoshop, not a heavy user but I do install the whole suite of Adobe family on my laptop just in cases.

Macromedia Dreamweaver. Same as above, just an occassional user. Installed the whole suite on my PC.

iTunes, like it better than WinAmp.

I'll post more

[lazyilmaz]

NLITE!!!

Have you ever wanted to remove some Windows components like Media Player, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, MSN Explorer, Messenger...

How about not even to install them with Windows ?

nLite is a tool for permanent Windows component removal and pre-installation Windows setup. After removal there is an option to make bootable image ready for burning on cd or testing in virtual machines. With nLite you will be able to have Windows installation which on install doesn't include, or even contain on cd, unwanted components.

nLite Features

- Service Pack Integration
- Component Removal
- Unattended Setup
- Driver Integration *
- Hotfixes Integration **
- Tweaks
- Patches ***
- Bootable ISO creation

* - Textmode (CD Boot) and normal PnP
** - hotfixes with white icons, *KB*.exe
***- supports generic SFC, Uxtheme, TcpIp and Usb Polling patching.

So far it supports Windows 2000, XP x86/x64 and 2003 x86/x64 all languages.

It needs .NET Framework 2.0 in order to run it... Check if you have it already, maybe on some of your CDs before downloading if your connection is slow.

You may report on the forum any bugs or annoyances found. And remember it's freeware, meaning that only fuel is a good word or a donation.

[U.C.]

Dood does nlite work properly for u??? How?? All the CD's i made have some small bugs. ALWAYS some small {censored}.

[lazyilmaz]

Dood does nlite work properly for u??? How?? All the CD's i made have some small bugs. ALWAYS some small {censored}.

Maybe you used an old version? or you removed the wrong parts. I had never problems with it, works flawlessly

[weeguy]

float's Mobile Agent - For my Sony Ericsson phone

Ad Muncher - Does much more than just blocking ads

POP Peeper - Webmail/POP mail check + notifier

[FickleFlame]

Laptop Software

Windows Blinds :: OSX Theme

Reactor Server :: Apache 2, PHP 5, and MySQL

McAfee SDAT Scanning Engine (x5000) :: /adl /all /clean /delete /program /report report.txt

Macromedia Studio 8 :: DevTools Include

Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, GoLive, AfterEffects

CCleaner :: Beta Version

Mozilla Firefox :: Nightly Build Updated Daily

Mozilla Sunbird :: Nightly Build Updated Daily

VMWare Workstation :: Running Win98SE, Ubuntu Linux, and Caldera Linux - SCO Group

foorBAR :: Custom Design and Personal Plugs

RainMeter :: Custom Skin

Thats all I keep on the system by Default. Always looking for good stuff

[Eggman]

Heh... Couldn't tell you. I formatted my Windows drive a long time ago!

[Baliw]

Hiren's BootCD is a must for you using Windows OS

[Ouch]

Firefox, Outlook, iTunes, Remote Desktop, Alcohol 120%, Dreamweaver, Flash, Photoshop, Word, Putty, VMware, IntelliJ Idea

[domino]

Additions:

- Bluetooth for Windows
- Widcomm v5.0.1.802
- Skype


I have been tinkering around with my Bluetooth headset and the somewhat new and patched Widcomm driver stack v5.0.1.802 for the past few days. I finally figured out a way to use my Bluetooth headset as an audio gateway in conjuction with Skype, MSN, Yahoo, gtalk, and any other Windows messenger that allow voice or VOIP. I mostly use skype because the audio and video streams is so much more crisp than the other messengers I have used.