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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,

  • 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

Communication Utilities

  1. Kitty - Takes the actual Putty code base and improves the interface with the following key features. For a quick setup you can download my personalized kitty setup which contains a configuration file and adjustments to the defaults per my note on Putty. Here are the details of my personal configuration file,
    1. Portable option - instead of Windows Registry saves to local file in the directory
    2. Transparent Windows (CTRL-Up Arror and CTRL-Down Arrow)
    3. CTRL-F7 Pin Window to always be on top (useful with Transparency and especially with second or third monitor)
    4. Improved sizeable session manager, but still not as good as Putty Connection Manager
  2. Putty - I find this to be the most reliable compatible and universal. However, the interface is dated and Kitty is much better. I only install this today to run with Putty Connection Manager. Generally I adjust the defaults to:
    1. Window - Columns = 100, Lines of scrollback to 2000
    2. Window, Translation - Received data assumed to be in which character set: UTF-8
  3. Putty Connection Manager An updated tabbed and tree based listing interface to Putty (no install, though it does use the registry consider talking to this developers about not doing this)
    1. For convenience I create a manual package. Just download the manual package and unzip to your "Program Files" and then execute puttycm.exe.
  4. ExpandDrive (create a map drive over SSH for easy development)
  5. BitVise Tunnelier
    1. No Putty Interation (console included is not as universally compatible)
    2. GUI for tunneling
    3. Hides in System tray
    4. Does not support drag and drop from desktop
  6. Firefox US version for compatilbility + plugins, 
    1. Highlighter by Terry Yen - My favourite highlighter but it no longer works with Firefox 3.6.3. Update, the latest working version is now at http://netticat.ath.cx/MyAddons/MyAddons.htm
    2. Highlighter TexMarker Go - The simplest alternative I found (I don't like the other ones that might slow down my system)
    3. Proxy Switchers: Have not settled on one I like yet:
      1. MM3-ProxySwitch - Simple UI for switching proxies but still a bit too complicated for novices.
        1. After install Right click on white space beside the help and choose Customize
        2. Scroll down and look for the mm3 icon
        3. Drag icon to where you want on the browser, I put it on the right of my address bar
      2. Proxy Switcher - nice and simple UI but *warning v1.4.1 one as of Jan 5, 2010 does not work with Firefox 3.5.6 and it does not allow no proxy list. (Find a replacement that is better than MM3-ProxySwitch)
      3. Complicated - Foxy Proxy is complicated but more flexible. I don't like the interface to switch proxies, it requires too many click.
    4. Spell checking in forms will only be enabled unless if you have a dictionary. Right-click on a form field and Add Dictionaries...
    5. Disable anti-virus scanning on downloads
      1. about:config
      2. browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone
    6. New Tab Homepage - show homepage on new tab create.
    7. English Canadian dictionary or whatever dictionary you want and change it to the default.
    8. ...
  7. TCP View (Systernal utility to watch all open connections, good for network troubleshooting)
  8. IE 6 (If in VM do not upgrade for testing purposes)
    1. Proxy Switcher Lite (only free decent utility to quickly proxy switch)

Developer Utilities

General

  1. eWatch (watch all details of traffic flow in browser)
  2. Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers where I manually bundle Java and Tomcat.
  3. TortoiseSVN + configure to integrate with Araxis
  4. Adobe Photoshop 7.01 - Small and light and does everything I need compared to the newer editions.
  5. Tail for Win32 - Nice tail utility which can watch files. Got it from Dimitri.
  6. JAD (JAva Decompiler)
  7. WinTask - Record Windows actions as macros. Great for repetitive testing of websites.
  8. Notepad++ - Recommend by Shawn. No installer required. No install necessary. There is also an option to make it portable so nothing is kept in the registry. It's on their FAQ. More neat options,
    1. "Alt + Left Mouse Click" puts you in Column Mode Select
    2. To select columns without using the mouse use ALT+SHIFT and the cursor keys

LDAP Browsers

  1. JXplorer - recommended by Shawn who's a PKI expert so it must be good.
  2. Softerra - first one I found, did not like or understand it much, most likely will use JXplorer given Shawn's recommendation... eventually remove this off the list.

Database Clients

I am still trying to find a good one.http://www.razorsql.com/download_win.html - what I have tradtionally used but no Visual Query Builder.http://www.sqlite.org/cvstrac/wiki?p=ManagementTools - looks promising.

Power User Utilities Usually (Not Installed Until Needed)

  1. cpuz - find details on your memory speed ect...
  2. Partition Magic - When in a pinch this is good to re-partition stuff.
  3. Acronis Imaging - I used to use Ghost but you can nolonger create a simple boot disk. Acronis you can.
  4. Virtual Clone Drive - Mount an ISO file as a CD-ROM. Free and no spyware.
  5. AC3Filter - When playing video that only has 5.1 Digital Audio the automatic downstream to Stero Surround sound sometimes has issues with the voice channel (the middle channel) being too low where you can not hear the voice acting. Example, for Star Wars Episode IV - Revisited and even dvds you might rent. The following settings work for me: Main (change Master and Gain), Mixer (change Voice, Surround, LFE), Gains (no change), Equalizer (no change),SPDIF (no change), System (no change).
  6. Empty Recycle Bin - Empty your Windows XP recycling bin with a shortcut key. I hook this up with Winkey. Looking for a Vista version.
  7. Wink - Super easy way to capture screen clicks and turn into flash movies. Great for giving a visual tutorial.
  8. HTTrack - Use it to easily download an entire website for offline viewing. Open source and it allows you to define levels (how deep to go into the site) and limit external sites crawling. Links are also automatically adjusted for local viewing. In the 90's I used Teleport Pro which even back then was more feature rich. I have not looked at it since though.

Web Master

http://www.lipsum.com/ - Generator of Lorem Ipsum dummy text. The standard text in of the printing and typesetting industry.

To Do

Update Kitty to at minimal change font colour for blue which is too dark. Consider other things too included in this article, http://dag.wieers.com/blog/improving-putty-settings-on-windows

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