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Essential Windows Programs

Swad

By Swad,
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Wrenbird
Wrenbird
Posted
Posted

7-Zip - Do I have to explain this one?

 

Apex Video Converter Pro - Amazingly simple all-inone video converter.

 

Azureus - Can't use it in osx86 because it causes me to lose a connection after ~2 minutes

 

CCleaner - Can't live with {censored} cluttering my HDD

 

CPU-Z - For making sure overclocks went well

 

Defraggler - Possibly the best defragger. Ever.

 

Easy Cleaner - Best startup item manager I've ever used.

 

Mozilla Firefox - It must be self-explanatory at this point.

 

HD Tune - I can make sure my HDD's are running smoothly.

 

Imgburn - Multi disk image burner without the bloat.

 

K-Lite codec pack - Note sure if it can be classified as a program, but I can't live without it.

 

Macdrive - What would I do with out Windows access to my osx86 drive?

 

Magicdisk - When I don't feel like burning that Office disk image. :thumbsup_anim:

 

Microsoft Office - Yep, I'm a victim. It's actually not that bad.

 

Rocketdock - I have to have something to keep the fact that I'm using Windows off my mind.

 

Speedfan - Kinda ties in with CPU-Z, making sure overclocks don't mean overheats.

 

Trillan - Best windows IM client ever.

 

 

I think that's it for my Windows essentials.

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XweAponX
XweAponX
Posted
Posted

Whats Essential?

 

1) Ripit4me, DVD Decryptor, DVD Shrink, and IMGburn... With FixVTS and IFOedit, cos we NEED to be able to copy DVDs, and EDIT

our Full DVD rips

 

2) OFFICE: Office 2000, 2003, or 2007: FULL OFFICE, that means the program is worthless unless you install the WHOLE thing, minus maybe

a couple of the irritating things like Infopath and Groove-whatever-it-is-called. Office 2000 has better Templates, especially for making

Invoices.

 

3) Alcohol 120%, PowerISO, maybe UltraISO: Cos we GOT to be able to make ISO Images and MOUNT them, instead of keeping 5 Billion

CDs all over the place. Also, Alcohol to MAKE an ISO Image, with A-Ray Scanner to tell you what protection is on it, and IMGburn to

Burn and verify any real disks you gotta boin- Cos Nero and Roxio do NOT verify the burn (Except for Toast on a MAC, which verifies

after burning).

 

4) VIDEOLAN - So we can delete and/or STOP HAVING TO USE Cyberlink PowerDVD, Windows Media Player, and especially that POS,

Windows MEDIA CENTER. Also replaces WinAMP unless you need to make MP3s.

 

5) WINAMP and WINLAME for making and manipulating MP3s.

 

6) MS Virtual PC and Virtual Server. I have only been able lately to use these features, your CPU has to have Virtualisation (Vanderpool)

Virtual Server is swell, I can run a Term Server under my regular Windows MCE and it does not bother me a bit. All the work is done

on the workstations, which are all on remote machines... Cos we HAVE to be able to mount OS's and run them before we build

a machine with that OS- Except for OSx86: You need VMware, OSx86 will not boot so far, on my AM2 system.

 

7) {censored} Cleaner, Ad Aware SE Pro, NOD32 version 2.7: Cos we gotta keep our systems CLEAN. NOD32 2.7 is the easiest on the system,

The Active Monitor uses much less resources than Norton or Mcafee. Ad Aware SE Personal will work if you do not have Pro: But Ad-

Aware 2007 and 2008 versions took out all the important scanning options, you have to buy it now to get what was in the free edition.

Ergo, go to TPB and find Ad Aware SE Pro... Cos they are still making the def files for it. GrGrGrRrRr, I have bloatware. If you must

spend money on an AV program, AVIRA is better than AVG, Norton and Mcafee

 

8) LVIEW PRO 1D/32: This little proggy has been around since Windows 3.11 and it still works great in Vista: It is a simple 32 bit

program for messing with Images. You can scan right into it and not have to fire up Adobe PHOTOSHOP.

PHOTOSHOP, Corel X, Illustrator, and most important, Adobe Acrobat 3D- Which allows you to MAKE PDFs.

 

9) For MUSIC, I use SONAR Producer's Edition version 5- Which reads input from my Digi 001. But I also have Pro Tools, which limits me

to version 6.4 due to the hardware. SONIC FOUNDRY SOUND FORGE 5 and 6 (As opposed to SONY Sound Forge) - WaVELAB 3 and 4,

Cool Edit Pro, or rather Slow Edit Pro, And as many DX and VST plugins as I can grab. I used to spend up to 60 bucks an hour for

recording, now I do it all on my PC and MAC and I come up with better content.

 

10) Cos you still got to manipulate things, VISTA Has a Unix Shell: Includes Perl and Korn. I believe there is the same thing for XP Pro

but that is harder to find. I keep these programs installed, even though I do not use them much, just so when I do need them they

are at hand. OllyDebug, so I can take EXEs apart once a while, - UltraEdit to PASTE the Disassembled Code, cos Notepad wont

let you paste 5 MB's of Code- and UltraEdit 12 has lightning search.

 

Finally, you have to be able to manipulate your hard Drives and Partitions and I use Acronis True Image Workstation to move OS's -

Acronis Disk Director to move Partitions, and also Paragon Partition manager and Disk Manager.

 

Paragon works better with Vista, Acronis {censored} Director is HARD BLOCKED with Vista Service Pack 1: So you have to use the Vista Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

 

Of course if you are dumb enough to be running VistPooP, then you need Yamicsoft Vista Manager and maybe TweakVI.

 

THESE programs are for my workstations... For my gaming rigs, I only have one major game installed at a time, that and the OS.

 

I guess I am silly cos if I need a system for a certain purpose, I build a new one, so I got all these Boxes sitting around. Eventually I end up selling the boxes I am not using.

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devilhood
devilhood
Posted
Posted

Here is my list of must have 1337 apps, freeware and commercial, that all PC enthusiasts should have installed:

 

{censored} Cleaner - Best file/registry cleaner

 

Windows Sysinternals Suite - Mostly for AutoRuns and its superior startup-management features

 

Total Commander or TCUP - Don't bother with Windows Explorer. Seriously.

 

Ultraedit - Great for those who want a zippy and complex text editor

 

Kaspersky® Anti-Virus 2009 - Don't even think about connecting your computer to the internet without this

 

Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2008 Free - If you have a habit of stumbling upon dodgy sites

 

Opera Browser 9.51 - If standards compliancy and safe browsing is your top priority

 

Alcohol 120% Virtual Drive Emulation and Burning Software - If you're into the scene, you'll want this

 

FlashFXP - Another one for people into the scene *_*

 

Nero Burning Rom Lite 7.11.10.0 - Nero without all the extra bloatware

 

K-Lite Codec Pack - By far the most comprehensive and up-to-date codec pack available

 

Exact Audio Copy - Professional CD Ripping software

 

foobar 0.9.5.3 - Low resource consuming Music Player with an incredibly flexible interface

 

7-Zip - Totally free file archiver with a very high compression ratio

 

WinRAR - If you deal with lots of RAR archives, then there really isn't any other alternative

 

Lavalys Everest Ultimate Edition - Great for those who like to know the ins and outs of your system, i.e. temp monitoring, voltages

 

Prime95 - If you're an overclocker, you'll want to test out the stability of your system with this

 

FlashGet - Totally free and easy to use download manager

 

uTorrent - The most lightweight and efficient torrent client

 

Neosmart EasyBCD - Complete control over Vista's bootloader

 

Mediafour MacDrive - If you want easy access to your HFS+ partitions

 

Paint.NET - The lightweight and feature-full alternative to Microsoft Paint

 

Paragon Partition Manager - Provides flawless partitioning operations of all kind

 

O&O Defrag - The better and more professional alternative to keeping your drives defragmented

 

There we have it. I'll probably think of some more, but for the time being, this will do.

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SDRacer48
SDRacer48
Posted
Posted

Mozilla Firefox 3 with Adblock Plus and Foxmarks

 

Mozilla Thunderbird 2 with Minimize to Tray and Lightning Calender

 

Pidgin Instant Messaging Client

 

Skype VOIP Client

 

uTorrent 1.7.7 Torrent Client

 

Zune Software for Syncing with Zune 30GB [black]

 

Windows Media Player 11 for Video, Audio, and Picture organization

 

Microsoft Office 2003 Professional [Full Install minus Outlook]

 

IMCH CmapTools for making conceptual maps

 

Adobe PhotoShop CS3

 

Flexible Renamer for mass file renaming

 

Media Coder

 

PowerISO for mounting images

 

WinRAR

 

Camtasia Studio

 

VLC Media Player

 

Real Player Media Player

 

Quicktime Media Player

 

Nero 7 Ultra

 

and last but not least, my most favorite app of all...

 

NOTEPAD... no joke.

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Jverse
Jverse
Posted
Posted

Seriously though, can we move the last post first on the topic? Having to go through 6 pages to find the most updated software posts that aren't 3 yeras old would be nice. Still a good post by all means. =)

 

And I would like to add a piece of software that no one should ever go without.

 

VLC Media Player - Will play any media file you can find, no codecs needed. (Atleast all the media files I could find and I have 2TB of storage.)

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french squared
french squared
Posted
Posted

Hamachi from LogMeIn

 

It creates a virtual network to access all you computer from any place.

I then map my network drives and have all my computer use ghost to remotely back up all files.

I can access any of my computers from anywhere that I have an internet connections.

 

Rocket Dock

creates a mac like dock on windows.

 

and all that other stuff you guys already listed.

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cinderella6
cinderella6
Posted
Posted
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.

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silaisa
silaisa
Posted
Posted

Some apps haven't mentioned:

 

-Dziobas Rar Player: For playing movies in multiple rar files without extracting. You know :)

 

-Notepadd++ Portable: Cool text editor

 

-Picasa

 

-STP MP3 Player: Ultra Light Tray MP3 player, reads folders / file estructure. I don't like playlists...

 

-Dexpose2: Expose for WinXP / Vista

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