Pavel's Essential List of Windows Programs

[Vyacheslav]

Alrighty folks! I've been meaning to do this for a while but just haven't had the time. Here goes. Programs listed are freeware unless I specify they aren't.

Adobe Photoshop (http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/family/) - The quintessential image editing program. If you don't have the money to buy it, you can get this freeware alternative: The GIMP http://www.gimp.org/

AIM Adhack (http://www.aimadhack.net/) For AIM users, it removes ads and other annoyances in AIM software. If you prefer the old version of AIM, their website offers a version of Adhack for it. You don't need to have AIM installed before installing this program, as it can download and install AIM for you, (optional).

Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) Audio recorder/editor. Supports editing of mp3s as well, (lame_enc plugin required).

CD Burner XP (http://cdburnerxp.se/) Free CD/DVD/Blu-Ray burning software that works very well and efficiently, with lots of options. Burns ISO images as well.

Convert (http://joshmadison.com/article/convert-for-windows/) Awesome unit conversion utility. Convert measures of speed, acceleration, temperature, power, time, force, light, etc. Great for physics and math students.

DAEMON Tools (http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/announcements.php) DAEMON Tools creates virtual CD and/or DVD drives in My Computer so you can mount ISO images without burning them.

DOS Box (http://www.dosbox.com/) Need to run old DOS programs/games? This neat program creates a DOS environment which is highly customizable.

File Date Changer (http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Util ... anger.html) Allows modification of any file's creation date.

Foxit Reader (http://www.download.com/Foxit-Reader/30 ... 13206.html) Lightweight alternative to Adobe Reader for viewing PDF files.

Frostwire (http://www.frostwire.com/) For your P2P needs. Very similar to Limewire, but without the nagging of upgrading to a pro version. Also contains no spyware whatsoever.

Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/) Look up any place in the world! Great for stalking that girl you lov-er, finding directions to a nearby restaurant.

Graph Calc (http://www.graphcalc.com/) It's a graphing calculator for Windows. Great for high school math students.

hott notes (http://www.hottnotes.com/) Post-its on your desktop.

IrfanView (http://www.irfanview.com/) Popular image viewer, lightweight, works very well, and supports a wide variety of formats.

Micro$oft Virtual PC 2007 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en) Free virtual PC software that allows you to install an OS on an emulated computer. Does NOT affect your current setup.

Mozilla Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/) Award-winning browser. Fast, reliable, very customizable.

Opera (http://www.opera.com/) Another excellent Internet Explorer alternative.

Process Explorer (http://www.download.com/Process-Explore ... 23605.html) Basically a more powerful task manager.

Songbird (http://getsongbird.com/) It's a music player and a browser in one! A Mozilla product, also manages mp3 players, including iPod support. System requirements are a little high: 1.5GHz, 512mb RAM, 150+mb free space.

TagScanner (http://www.xdlab.ru/en/) Edit mp3 tags. Allows you to mass-edit files.

uTorrent (http://www.utorrent.com/) Small, fast, efficient bittorrent client.

Video LAN (http://www.videolan.org/) One of the best video players out there.

WinAMP (http://www.winamp.com/) Great media player. Handles mp3 players as well, lower requirements than Songbird. Tons of skins and plugins available.

WinDirStat (http://windirstat.info/) View and manage your hard drive's space. Shows a tree map of used and free space on your hard drive(s).

Windows Live Messenger (http://get.live.com/messenger/overview) Hold conversations with your MSN buddies.

Windows Media Encoder (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/window ... fault.aspx) Edit and capture video and audio.

WinRAR (http://www.rarlab.com/) Shareware. Extract .RAR, .ZIP, .7z and other common compressed formats easily.

XVI32 (http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/f ... /xvi32.htm) Hex editor.

[T3chno]

Nice list, Pavs.

/goes off to download the AIM AdHack software.

[smartalco]

AIM Adhack (http://www.aimadhack.net/) For AIM users, it removes ads and other annoyances in AIM software. If you prefer the old version of AIM, their website offers a version of Adhack for it. You don't need to have AIM installed before installing this program, as it can download and install AIM for you, (optional).

Better yet, stop using the bad AIM client and go use Pidgin (formally gaim).

Other then that, excellent list, I can't actually think of anything I use regularly that isn't there.

[TheSeer]

ShadowExplorer (http://www.shadowexplorer.com/) for Vista Home Premium (or basic) users. "From time to time, Windows® VistaTM creates point-in-time copies of your files. This allows you to retrieve older versions from files you accidentally deleted or altered."

[Tanner]

Foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org/) Lightweight, customizable music player with a lot of supported media types.

CCleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com) One of the few good crap cleaners.

Open Office (http://www.openoffice.org) An above par replacement for the Microsoft Office Suite.

Handbrake (http://www.handbrake.fr) The only thing I'll use for video conversion. Cross-platform, open-source, awesome.

GIMP (http://www.gimp.org) A free Photoshop replacement with all of the same basic and many of the same advanced features.

Launchy (http://www.launchy.net) It's no Quicksilver but it's does its thing and it does it well.

[a happy song]

QuickKill (QK download) - Shut down all none essential processess in one click! A handy little tool for quickly freeing up resources for gaming, etc...

Threads like these are great, thank you!

[乳头的早餐谷物]

List!

metapad (http://www.liquidninja.com/metapad/) - lightweight text editor (for replacing Notepad).
ConTEXT (http://www.contexteditor.org/) - welterweight text editor (for programming).

[Vyacheslav]

Tanner: Good call. I forgot about Foobar 2000 and CCleaner, as well as Open Office. Glad you all find this thread handy.

[wedgie]

I'm surprised no-one has said mIRC or Ventrillo.

Nice one though Pavel, this is an awesome list. ATOB, your one is excellent, thanks!

[darkshadow]

Nice list. I personally prefer azureus to utorrent though.

Edit: I keep forgetting that they call it vuze now.

[jean-luc]

My additions to the list:
(All programs are free unless noted, most are open source)

Piriform Defraggler - An excellent defragmenting tool from the makers of CCleaner. Faster and more effective than Windows' default tool.

RTT R-Studio - A file recovery suite for recovering corrupt, deleted, or lost files, as well as more advanced issues like partition table corruption. Most computer repair shops use this software (I myself swear by it), and they pay $900 for it. Luckily, for individual users, it's just $50 (or $80 with support for both NTFS and FAT).
- OR -
Piriform Recuva - A utility for recovering deleted files. The best free file recovery system I've tried.

WinAmp - I like WinAmp a lot more than Windows Media Player. This seems to be a matter of opinion, though, as many people by far prefer WMP.

X-Chat Silverex - X-Chat is absolutely the best IRC client. Although it's open-source, the official Windows build costs $20. Silverex is a free Windows port (it's usually slightly behind X-Chat linux in versions, as it's built by a single guy in his spare time).

7-zip - Imagine WinRAR, but open source and 6 times better. That's 7-zip. 7-zip fully supports ZIP, RAR, and it's own 7z archives and reads from virtually everything. 7-zip reads from more formats than WinRAR, and it's 7z archive format is more efficient than RAR. All WinRAR users should switch to 7-zip. immediately (I'm sick of WinRAR being a de facto standard on the internet, as it's highly proprietary and not really that great).

Picasa Photo Viewer - Whether or not you like Picasa itself, it comes bundled with an absolutely fantastic little program: the Picasa Photo Viewer. The Photo Viewer is intended to replace the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer as a lightweight program for viewing your images. it's superior in every imaginable way.

TrueCrypt - TrueCrypt is a fantastic program to store data under strong encryption. TrueCrypt allows you to easily create volumes encrypted using standards such as Blowfish and DES, many of which meet and surpass US Department of Defense requirements for classified data handling. TrueCrypt offers a number of plausible deniability features, including hidden subvolumes. TrueCrypt also supports whole-disc encryption with preboot authentication.

Launchy - For the XP users, Launchy is a lightweight but powerful command launcher. It'll let you quickly start applications and find documents using only your keyboard - much faster than finding them in the start menu. (Vista includes this functionality already)

[Donfuy]

SlickRun - It's a text-shortcut-bar.

Really: Fast
Lightweight
Easy to use


Oh, and a side-note, Pidgin handles since IRC to MSN and multiple accounts, and that's great.

[George]

PowerISO - Does what Daemon does and plenty more. Overall, I find it a lot more useful.

Rainlendar - One of the best Desktop calendars.

XviD4PSP - Converts video files into formats for your portal music/videos players.

AVG Antivirus Free - Best free antivirus software on the Net.

I've got plenty more, but they're a lot more specialized.