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Here's my list of Windows software I feel essential to my work as an Everyday User, IT Person and Developer.
Items marked 64-bit simply mean that a 64-bit version exists. 
The following colour codes compensate for Windows 7,
Here's my list of Windows software I feel essential to my work as an Everyday User, IT Person and Developer.

Items marked 64-bit simply mean that a 64-bit version exists. 

The following colour codes compensate for Windows 7,

  • Does not work in Windows 7, looking for alternative.
  • Now included with Windows 7.

Office and Day to Day

  1. PicaView 2.0 (Old but really great for previewing multiple images and converting images with a right-click) *special install instructions for XP SP2+ but strangely works perfectly on Vista
    1. Right-Click My Computer
    2. Properties, Advanced
    3. Startup and Recovery Settings
    4. Edit
    5. Change /NoExecute=OptIn to /NoExecute=AlwaysOff
    6. Reboot
    7. Right-Click image and turn off:
      • PicaView Options
        1. Image file extensions only
        2. Uncheck Preview Multimedia Files
      • Displays
        1. Uncheck Zoom to fit resized window
  2. PDF-XChange Viewer 64-bit (fastest and most stable one out there + allows basic editing)
    • I find I like to Uncheck add in for browsers (makes things more stable)
    • It comes packaged now with two files, you just need PDFXVwer_zzzzz.exe
  3. PDF Creators
    1. PrimoPDF (Note this is still not as good as Adobe's PDF creator. You might want to verify the output on an Adobe Reader first). However, it is the only free product so far that passes the printing of a Word Document with an embedded Visio diagram test.
  4. http://www.avast.com/ (Dickson recommended top rated Anti-Virus that you can choose not to sit in memory)
  5. VLC Media Player - play DVDs and almost any video format
  6. Roxio Creator DE - I used to be a Nero fan until I found Roxio to be easier to use and more stable
  7. Microsoft Office - Really I tried alternatives but this is the de facto standard for work.
  8. Microsoft Visio Professional - Again the best drawing tool out there.

Essential Utilities

  1. HoeKey - FINALLY an alternative to WinKey that works with Windows 7! A little more complicated to setup but it is shapping out to be more powerful than WinKey ever was. Here are my keys combinations.
  2. WinKey - find out more details here, (export regkey = HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Copernic Technologies\WinKey)
    1. i = Internet Explorer
    2. 0 = Firefox
    3. j = Jump to DOS on C:\ Drive
    4. n = notepad
    5. p = Putty Manager
    6. ctrl-p = Putty or PuttyTray
    7. shift-p = Bitvise Tunnelier (load previously blank connection)
    8. x = Metapad (change startup folder to desktop if you want to default save to desktop)
    9. a = Araxis Merge
    10. h = Load hosts file in metapad
    11. t = transportable media (my external drive)
    12. s = ExpandDrive (SFTP Drive Mapper)
    13. w = wordpad
    14. q = call command line utility Empty Recycling Bin with /Q option to empty the recyling bin.
    15. ...
    16. q = host work directory, C:\Tin\ directory (keep path small for long file names, easy place for keyboard shortcut)
    17. c = host code directory
    18. ...
    19. The following windows key plus letters are reserved by Windows XP & 7
          b, e, s
  3. PureText (Strips away formating when you paste using Winkey-V) As there is no install,
    1. Copy to the directory of your choice
    2. Start the program and it will appear as a PT icon on your system tray
    3. Right click the icon and choose options
    4. Check the box to "Automatically run PureText each time...."
  4. Araxis Merge 64-bit - Best diff tool I have ever found. (disable Ribbon Interface, check do not show splash window, add folder filter to ignore .svn folders and make the default encoding UTF-8 No BOM). DetalWalker looks promising and cheaper.
  5. Metapad - almost as tiny and fast as notepad but with unlimited undo's and a couple of other nice features
  6. Quick SFV 64-bit (use md5 or sfv files to ensure integrity during transport of files)
  7. EMEditor (good with distinguishing and using UTF-8, ISO ect.. fast, light with text highlighting)
  8. WinRar 64-bit - better than winzip (does all the same stuff with zip files) plus allows you to create self-extracting splittable files and has a superior compression format called rar.
  9. Erase - with a right-click you can securely delete or move confidential file
    1. Disable running of scheduled tasks
  10. VMWare Workstation - allows you to virtualize operating systems. If you do not know what this means you are missing out.
  11. Any Password - centralize your passwords. Now I am looking at an open source alternative called KeePass which I can hopefully hook up to an application server and make online. Even more ideal, I can perhaps hook up KeePass with a java web app with 2-Factor authentication.
  12. AntiVirus I use different ones on different computers. As a power user I disable the on the fly scanning to conserve cpu and memory.
    1. Avira Personal Edition - has highest detection rate as measured at .... but has pop-up advertisement. Though it can be disabled.
    2. Avast Home Edition - Recommended by Dickson. Very good but I don't like having to renew my keys every once in a while.
    3. AVG - Free version does not check for malware.
  13. Quickly launch programs from the start menu for Windows XP. Windows 7 now has this built in, just hit the windows key and start typing.
    1. Launchy - Have not tried Launchy yet as I am in evaluation mode. This article looks promising.
    2. Enso - Also looks good.
    3. ...http://lifehacker.com/392569/best-application-launchers
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