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)
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They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 4)
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
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Bart said 4:26PM on 11-16-2007
Revo Uninstaller is a great freeware program and should be on the list!
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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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Jake said 4:22PM on 11-16-2007
Probably something like the below.
1) Firefox
2) AVG Free
3) OpenOffice.org
4) Paint.NET
5) VLC
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Alessandro Piana Bianco said 4:28PM on 11-16-2007
Once you try them, you hardly can live without ditto (http://ditto-cp.sourceforge.net/) and Dexpot (http://www.dexpot.de/) and Universal Extractor (http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/).
Tudumo was a recent graceful surprise.
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SDreamer said 4:31PM on 11-16-2007
Security:
AVG
Windows Defender
Internet:
Pidgin
Media:
VLC
Other:
Cyberlink Power2Go (came with the computer)
WinRar
CCleaner
Paint.net
Onenote 2003
OpenOffice 2.3
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Jack said 4:32PM on 11-16-2007
My list:
1. Google Pack
(Firefox, Google Earth, Google Desktop, Adobe Reader, Google Toolbar for IE, Picasa, Google Photos Screensaver, Google Talk)
2. Avast Home Edition
3. Spybot S&D, Spyware Blaster, a-Squared Free
4. Pidgin
5. iTunes/QuickTime
6. Paint.NET
7. Mozilla Prism
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Ray Balhorn said 4:32PM on 11-16-2007
assuming you are sticking to freeware...
what you have is about right except
----------------------------------------
notepad++ for quick coding needs
filezila 2 (3 sucks)
Thunderbird with Lightning - not great if you need PDA syncing but I only sync ftp for my work and home computer/laptop
SMPlayer - VLC is good but SMPlayer has a nicer interface.
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Punchy said 4:34PM on 11-16-2007
In addition to all of the above excellent choices I would add Foxit Reader for viewing pdf's.
Adobe Reader is so bloated and slow now, Foxit is light and fast. A must have for me after a new install.
Also for those of you looking for an excellent free security suite, check out Comodo. It includes, anti-virus, firewall and anti-spyware, web site authentication and even an email security certificate.
And at Comodo free means free as in no upgrades or updates to pay for. Very nice.
Punchy
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Salsa Shark said 4:42PM on 11-16-2007
VLC needs a real playlist. That's the only thing keeping me from booting MPC.
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booblik said 4:49PM on 11-16-2007
- Firefox
- uTorrent (torrent client)
- Foxit Reader (faster alternative for Adobe Reader)
- Ziepod (podcast aggregator and very good one)
- K-Lite Codec pack (for audio/video playback)
- Faststone ImageViewer
- IZArc (free file archiver)
- AVG Antivirus
- Google Earth (mostly to deal with my curiosity)
- Apollo 37zz audio player (very fast, does what I
need, great structuring of files, free).
- MS Office 2003
- Skype (until Google Talk gets video support)
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Jason said 4:53PM on 11-16-2007
Firefox, NOD32, Sygate Personal Firewall, xplorer2, Daemon Tools, Acronis True Image, Picasa, WinAmp, Ventrilo, Trillian, EasyCleaner, Gadwin Printscreen, UltraISO, WinDVD, FRAPS, CDburnerXP, K-Lite Codec Pack, Google Earth, HDD Health, 7Zip...did I miss anything? I keep a network drive full of my favorite apps so re-installing is pretty fast.
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put-it said 5:59PM on 11-16-2007
opera
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kerry said 6:07PM on 11-16-2007
a clean install is great but you still have the bull shit hassel of registering windows again after each fresh install !!!!!!!!!!!
I know there is some one out there that has a program that can put your oem nos. on while doing a fresh install without the hassel of calling to register !!!????????
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Javier said 6:19PM on 11-16-2007
For my job: Ms office 2007,Autocad 2007,Adobe Professional 8,Filezilla,free commander, Thunderbird portable, winrar.
security: AVG free, spybot.
maintenance:Ccleaner
internet:Firefox,MS messenger,google earth,utorrent.
Media:Winamp5,alsong,winDVD7,media player classic,total video converter,nero 6.
others:
Ardamax and wireless keyview(for hack)
google hacks (for search)
kee pass portable (for save passwords)
everest (for analyze the pc)
rs somnifero (for automatic shout down)
Folder Lockbox (to hide porn and private stuff)
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nazzareno said 6:22PM on 11-16-2007
First and formost...all windows updates
Vista Codec package for all my video and audio needs
Foxit PDF Reader
Cute PDF
MS Office
Firefox -although I don't know about anyone else, but on multiple computers of mine firefox is a memory whore. Even on machines with PLENTY of ram. I've actually -gasp!- have been using IE7 way more lately and have been quite happy.
CCleaner
Pidgin
AVG free
7zip
IsoBuster
utorrent
VLC
Nero
Soundforge
Flash
Dreamweaver
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Pepe Lepew said 6:24PM on 11-16-2007
Firefox for browser
Thunderbird for email
avast for security (great and free)
pidgin for multi IMing
Skype to call my family overseas
irfanview for pic browsing
primoPDF virtual printer to create PDF docs.
MusicMatch until Yahoo bought it. Looking for replacement
NHC to control my laptop speed/temp
Lenovo (IBM) ThinkVantage Access Conection (laptop wireless driver)
NetsEgg Screen Capture (suggestions for better?)
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Kevin said 6:56PM on 11-16-2007
Patches.
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XGX07 said 7:11PM on 11-16-2007
first program is safari, then firefox, pidgin, vlc, iTunes/QT, tweak vi (it lets me put the core of vista all in RAM...much faster!), then after vista installs all updates and restarts, I boot ubuntu for my main os.
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Milan said 9:44PM on 11-16-2007
First and foremost you should disable the Windows firewall and install a decent one. My firewall of choice is Outpost Pro 4 but any other will do.
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