What programs do you load after a clean Windows install?

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

Here at Download Squad HQ, we install and uninstall a lot of applications, tweak a lot of settings, and do a whole bunch of other things that generally makes Windows unhappy with us.

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)

Internet applications

Firefox (web browser)
Filezilla (FTP client)
Opera (web browser)
Pidgin (chat client)
Skype (VoIP)

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)

Utilities

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)

So what's on your PC?

Tags: applications, clean-install, fresh-install, system-restore, windows-vista

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)

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.

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.

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

Jabapyth said 3:29PM on 11-16-2007

Wow! Thanks for this great list! (i use ubuntu, but ill send this to my parents)

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.

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

murph said 3:31PM on 11-16-2007

doPDF is a new one for me. is it better than CutePDF?

robotrock said 3:31PM on 11-16-2007

Unlocker Assistant! (XP Install)

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.

philosopherdog said 3:48PM on 11-16-2007

I'd second unlocker and add Clipmate 7, T-clock 32, Onenote 2007, VLC.

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.

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

Halo2Master said 3:57PM on 11-16-2007

My list:

Firefox
iTunes/QT
VLC
Launchy
Xplorer2

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.

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.

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.

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.

Lane said 4:11PM on 11-16-2007

VLC???

Josh said 4:11PM on 11-16-2007

In no order:

Internet:
Firefox
Windows Live Messenger
AIM
uTorrent

Media:
iTunes
Last.fm
VLC
Miro
VeohTV
Joost

Security:
AVG
Spybot
Ad-Aware SE

Other:
Photoshop
Dreamweaver
Flash
RkLauncher
Taskbar Shuffle
Styler
Winrar
OpenOffice.org

I also almost immediately hack my uxtheme.dll and get something usable up and running

Halo2Master said 4:20PM on 11-16-2007

Lane:

VLC is an open source media player. Simple and small, it will play nearly any format you can think to throw at it. If you want to check it out, Google it.

I don't use it for music files, because iTunes is so full of features. But for video, its the way to go; Windows Media Player should hang its head in shame.

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