Filed under: Audio, Internet, Security, Utilities, Video, Windows, Office, Productivity, Commercial, Freeware, Ask DLS
What programs do you load after a clean Windows install? - Ask DLS
by Brad Linder Nov 16th 2007 at 3:00PM
When I brought home my shiny new laptop running Windows Vista Home Premium earlier this year, I didn't know how lucky I was. My new PC shut down when I asked it to, slept when I closed the lid, and didn't cause glitches every time I started playing audio.
After spending some time pulling my hair out trying to get to the bottom of things, I figured the easiest way to solve some of my problems would be just to do a clean install of Windows. While programs like CCleaner are great for dusting the cobwebs of your windows registry, nothing works as well as reformatting the hard drive.
Of course, this was also an excellent opportunity to make sure I have a good backup of all my important data files, and to download and install just the applications that are most important to me in daily life. So after the jump is a list of the applications I started loading on my PC after restoring Windows. We'd love to know what programs you can't live without and what are the first things you load on a new PC?
Security applications
- AVG Free (anti-virus)
- Windows Defender (anti-spyware)
Graphics and video applications
- Irfanview (image viewer/editor)
- Media Player Classic (movie player)
- Quicktime Alternative
- RealAlternative
- AllCapture (screencasting application)
Office applications
- OpenOffice.org (office suite)
- AbiWord (A great light-weight word processor for when you don't need all of OpenOffice.org's features)
- Microsoft Outlook (mostly for synchronizing data with my Windows Mobile PDA)
- Windows Mobile Device Center (for syncing with my PDA)
Audio applications
- Audacity (audio editor)
- Cool Edit 2000 (yeah, I know, old school, but I've had a licensed copy lying around for years)
- Reaper (audio editor)
- Winamp (no, really)
- Juice (podcast aggregator)
- WinLAME (audio compression utility)
- Levelator (excellent tool for making your audio recordings sound good)
- Sandboxie (lets you install applications in an isolated environment)
- 7-Zip (compression utility)
- Absolute Uninstaller (alternative to Windows uninstaller
- doPDF (install a virtual printer that lets you print any document as a PDF)
Get a WordPress.com Blog
With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet.
They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Marco Falco said 9:52AM on 2-03-2008
AVG free, firefox, tweak ui, office 2007, uTorrent, iTunes, Zune, DVD Shrink, Rocketdock, 7-zip, K-Lite Codec Pack, etc.
Reply
Conda said 3:05PM on 11-16-2007
funny, i just did a clean install yesterday on a spare hard drive to try and solve a problem (another story not for here). first things i installed were Avast, Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice.
Reply
Conda said 3:05PM on 11-16-2007
funny, i just did a clean install yesterday on a spare hard drive to try and solve a problem (another story not for here). first things i installed were Avast, Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice.
Reply
Jon said 3:29PM on 11-16-2007
CCleaner , Firefox, Good ole spybot , AVG free , Nero 8 ultra , DVDFab Platinum, 7-zip, and Bit tornado experimental ... I just had to reinstall last friday because MS auto downloaded a Nvida video card driver that killed my Vista
Reply
Jabapyth said 3:29PM on 11-16-2007
Wow! Thanks for this great list! (i use ubuntu, but ill send this to my parents)
Reply
mayhew1956 said 3:29PM on 11-16-2007
Some similarities but I also use Google pack for all in one Firefox, Picasa, Adobe and Google Earth.
Then Alzip and Alshow for effortless archives and divx playback.
RedKawa software for video conversions for portable devices (psp & iPod).
Lastly iTunes because I have to but it really doesn't play nice with Windows.
Reply
dagwood said 3:30PM on 11-16-2007
I install Ubuntu after a new install of Windows. That way my dual boot works properly, and I have two fresh OS's to work with. Then I leave the windows one alone until I absolutely need it.
shortlist for windows
firefox
avast
windows defender
VLC
MS Office
Reply
murph said 3:31PM on 11-16-2007
doPDF is a new one for me. is it better than CutePDF?
Reply
robotrock said 3:31PM on 11-16-2007
Unlocker Assistant! (XP Install)
Reply
westudi said 3:41PM on 11-16-2007
I have a fairly extensive install list after a clean install (which I do at least once a month on our various systems). Firefox is at the top of the list, but I also install programs like SMPlayer, tweakers for the specific OS, Eraser, Daemon Tools, Avast, etc.
Reply
philosopherdog said 3:48PM on 11-16-2007
I'd second unlocker and add Clipmate 7, T-clock 32, Onenote 2007, VLC.
Reply
yofadahead said 3:48PM on 11-16-2007
Everything on Microsoft Update, ACDSee 5.0, Nero 6, Symantec Antivirus 10, Symantec pcAnywhere, 7-Zip, dopdf, Foldershare, vlc, Powertoy Calculator, MS Office 2007, uTorrent, Winamp 2.81, Webrunner, DUMeter, and Google Pack with Adobe Reader, Google Desktop, Earth, and Photos Screensaver, and Firefox, and iTunes.
Reply
francesco said 3:54PM on 11-16-2007
Nice list.
1) why don't use VLC instead of MediaPlayerClassic, Quicktimealternative and Realalternative?
2) You don't need outlook. Your PDA can be syncronized with Thunderbird and Lightning with BirdieSync
Reply
Halo2Master said 3:57PM on 11-16-2007
My list:
Firefox
iTunes/QT
VLC
Launchy
Xplorer2
Reply
Brad Linder said 3:59PM on 11-16-2007
francesco:
Honestly, I've never liked VLC's interface that much. And I didn't realize until just now that it sported a Firefox plugin. Knowing that, I might just have to go check it out for my Quicktime needs. But it dosn't player RealVideo files, so it's not a perfect solution.
Reply
maniu said 5:59PM on 11-16-2007
4+ years without format.... its still running great:)(i know it might be hard to believe...)
guess it would be:
utorrent
picassa
firefox
nero
winamp
photoshop
dreamweaver
and i am all good:)
Reply
Sam said 4:04PM on 11-16-2007
dude, VLC is where its at with audio and video playback
and what exactly do you have that plays realplayer? real is garbage software
and if you have the option to stream media, do it with quicktime or windows media player. there much more efficient then real.
welcome to 2007.
Reply
Jake said 4:04PM on 11-16-2007
Firefox (wiith FireFTP and ScribeFire), Office (only Word, Excel, and Outlook), uTorrent, Pidgen, Paint.NET, iTunes, SUPER, Audacity, Windows Live Writer, Flickr Uploadr, FreeOCR.
Reply
Brad Linder said 4:05PM on 11-16-2007
Oh yeah, I completely forgot to mention that I use FEBE and CLEO to backup my Firefox extensions before starting.
As for RealVideo, when I have the choice I choose to use Windows Media or QuickTime. But you don't always have a choice, so I like to have my bases covered.
Reply
Lane said 4:11PM on 11-16-2007
VLC???
Reply