Author Topic: Must-have Windows Programs (Read 75617 times)

yksyks · « **Reply #50 on:** December 29, 2009, 08:20 AM »

Dormouse, you're not alone. All my computers' desktops are just empty areas filled with a solid color, no icons, no pictures. Since then my systems are more responsive, which was the primary reason to get rid of everything there. However, I let all important applications create theirs icons on desktop despite they are not visible, because FARR can find them faster.

hwtan · « **Reply #51 on:** December 29, 2009, 11:14 AM »

Glad you like the program, Curt.

Just tested that it works on Windows 2008 Server 64 bit edition, so there's a good chance it might work on Win7 and Vista 64 bit.

As for my must-have Windows Programs :

- Total Commander
- FirstDefence ISR
- ESET Smart Security
- Sandboxie
- Editpad Pro
- SecureCRT
- Visual Studio 2005

(edit 1: add must-have programs, edit 2: added Sandboxie to list of must-have programs)

Yesterday I updated Desktop Icon Toy to version 4, and when I tested it, I saw all the icons on my desktop and was reminded of a small but necessary, well, a must-have program for Windows: deskicons. On 2000 and on XP it was fairly easy to hide the desktop icons, but on Vista it isn't. Except if you have this program. One Run, and they are hidden, one more Run and they will show. The program closes when the job is done.

I don't know if hwtan wrote this program himself, but I have not been able to find deskicons.exe anywhere else, so maybe he did.

_ (see attachment in previous post)

Edited:
I am using it on Vista 32-bits.
[hint] It would be nice to know if it also works on Win 7, and on 64-bits. [/hint]
-Curt (December 28, 2009, 03:38 AM)

Curt · « **Reply #52 on:** December 29, 2009, 01:23 PM »

The time I appreciate my desktop-folder solution the most is, when I have installed a new program and it creates a shortcut (on the desktop) with a name beginning different from the program's name. As an example, the common but stupid habit (original from Microsoft?): "Launch Babylon". Now who the f#©◊ is going to look under "L" to find a name beginning with "B"??? It may be a really fine program, but the naming of this shortcut was so STUPID, it made me shiver; I couldn't find the bloody icon on the desktop!

In a folder this will never be a problem. Quickly change the listed order, with a single click, and Voila!, the newest is the first to see.

tranglos · « **Reply #53 on:** December 29, 2009, 01:47 PM »

The time I appreciate my desktop-folder solution the most is, when I have installed a new program and it creates a shortcut (on the desktop) with a name beginning different from the program's name. As an example, the common but stupid habit (original from Microsoft?): "Launch Babylon". Now who the f#©◊ is going to look under "L" to find a name beginning with "B"???
-Curt (December 29, 2009, 01:23 PM)

This is so true! Of course all Office apps are listed as "Microsoft Word", "Microsoft Excel", etc., immediately preempting any attempt at incremental search. This is one of the many reasons FARR is so immensely good.

Darwin · « **Reply #54 on:** December 29, 2009, 02:15 PM »

- yes, Mike, but I was concerned with the 400 other icons...

The text in the box sounds to me as if it only concerns the (approx) five system icons. Am I wrong (again)? Anyway, deskicons.exe is an excellent program, and is only 1½ kb!!!
-Curt (December 28, 2009, 05:01 PM)

Ah... yes, you are correct. I thought you were concerned about getting rid of the default windows icons

cyberdiva · « **Reply #55 on:** December 29, 2009, 03:01 PM »

All my computers' desktops are just empty areas filled with a solid color, no icons, no pictures. Since then my systems are more responsive, which was the primary reason to get rid of everything there.
-yksyks (December 29, 2009, 08:20 AM)

Are you saying that simply putting the icons on the desktop slows down a system? I have a bunch of icons on my desktop, mostly for programs I want to be able to access even if for some reason LaunchBar Commander fails to load. However, I also have shortcut icons to 17 folders that I access frequently. If I were to remove the 17 folder icons, would there be a noticeable speedup, or would I simply be shaving a second or two off the startup time? Is it documented somewhere that icons on the desktop slow down a system? I'm currently thinking about my desktop computer, which runs WinXP Pro SP2, but I'd be interested in knowing whether this is also true in Windows 7.

yksyks · « **Reply #56 on:** December 29, 2009, 03:29 PM »

To cyberdiva:

I began experimenting with the desktop icons on my old Win2000 machine, where the delay of redrawing all the icons was really serious. The icons are cached by the system, but sometimes, usually after not displaying the desktop for some time, the cache gets refreshed. On startup they are usually read from the cache, though.

I don't think there's a significant delay caused by displaying the folder icon, but for many different applications scattered all over the disk the delay was noticeable even on newer WinXP machine, so I decided to get rid of them all. Since then I'm quite happy and used to the tidy desktop, and FARR does the rest.

Maybe on Win7 the caching mechanism is better. I just tried to enable the desktop icons temporarily and on my WinXP machine it took over 30 seconds of heavy disk activity to display them all (some 150, or so), and on my Vista notebook about 15 seconds (some 100 icons).

(Sorry for off-topic.)

Dormouse · « **Reply #57 on:** December 29, 2009, 04:02 PM »

I have some difficulty with the concept of a 'must have' prog since I nearly always two or more alternatives in every genre of software I use.

USB Safely Remove is one I always use and would miss. I haven't seen an alternative that I would use instead. Works simply, saves me time.

Most of my digital music is from CDs that I have ripped, but I haven't bought that many since I started to use Spotify. I know most readers won't be able to access it and invites to the free version are also less available than they were, but I'm sure that will change in the near future. For me, it works better than the alternative streamers I have tried. I don't know if this sort of service is the future of music, but there's a lot more development possible, and it is much better than the previous options. The big risk is the music I like disappearing - but then what disappears can only be what I didn't have in the first place. I don't have quite so much control or searchability as on my own music - but then I have a lot more music I can try. I use Spider for music I have as mp3s or flacs and do listen to internet radio too when I'm in the mood to hear the unexpected. I also use Replay Music as a way of time shifting streams or getting details of what was played (when I don't want to interrupt what I'm doing to look), but most of the time now I just listen via Spotify.

I also use TrueCrypt and Hashcalc fairly constantly too. And Lastpass and RoboForm.

I still use Calimanjaro for my calendar - mostly because of its 1year + year planner. I do not understand why digital calendar programs mostly can't show their data in a year or 2 year view; how can you plan if you can't see over that sort of period?
Out of the vast number of text editors/word processor/note making programs I have (or have tried), I use TreeDBnotes virtually all the time for writing and note keeping. I also use AbstractSpoon's ToDoList2 as my main ToDoList; and ListPro as my main instant list (frequently shopping list) type prog - partly because it syncs so well with my mobile phone.

cyberdiva · « **Reply #58 on:** December 29, 2009, 04:35 PM »

Thanks, yksyks, for your response. Since I don't have anywhere near the number of icons on my desktop that you did, I guess I won't worry about keeping them there.

And now back to our regularly scheduled topic

.

Curt · « **Reply #59 on:** December 29, 2009, 05:17 PM »

USB Safely Remove is one I always use and would miss. I haven't seen an alternative that I would use instead. Works simply, saves me time.
-Dormouse (December 29, 2009, 04:02 PM)

Can someone explain to me the need for such a program? If I want to add some USB drive / stick / printer, etcetera, I put in the plug, and if I want to remove the thing, I pull out the plug - and has done so for many years. To my understanding this is the very concept of Plug&Play. What is the problem with this?

Dormouse · « **Reply #60 on:** December 29, 2009, 05:28 PM »

Programs can be in the middle of writing to the stick. If they are, then the info on the stick can be corrupted.

Shades · « **Reply #61 on:** December 29, 2009, 05:30 PM »

@ Curt:
There can be a time difference between you giving the command to write to your USB stick and your system actually doing the writing to the USB stick. If the pulling out trick went good for you all this time you can be considered lucky. Speaking from personal experience, the file-system on your stick can be damaged in such a way that only formatting can fix.

Curt · « **Reply #62 on:** December 29, 2009, 05:40 PM »

"I am LUCKY"??!! Wow, I will read those words some more times!

Thankx, to both of you. I have been offered 'USB Safely Remove ' for free several times within the last couple of weeks, but didn't take any of the offers. Now that I understand that I should have, it is not free any more! Sigh sigh.. But of course, if I really am LUCKY, it should be offered for free quite soon, shouldn't it?

Dormouse · « **Reply #63 on:** December 29, 2009, 05:55 PM »

You get away with it for 95%, or even 99%, of the time, so it is easy to think that a safe removal is an unnecessary inconvenience. But sooner or later it will get you unless you are VERY VERY LUCKY.

USB Safely Remove does seem to have lots of free offers (usually for a limited period of use) and discounts. I started off with a free period, but then paid up when a decent discount came round. I would have felt bad not to have paid for something I found so useful and which is so reasonably priced even without a discount.

f0dder · « **Reply #64 on:** December 29, 2009, 06:07 PM »

Curt: just use windows' built-in "safely remove" feature, no need for an extra app for that. But it is dangerous to just yank out your stick... I wouldn't even consider doing that anymore. Also, as an advantage to always doing things the proper way

, you can set the properties of the USB disk to "optimize for performance" which can mean tremendous speed boost for file operations on those devices.

Dormouse · « **Reply #65 on:** December 29, 2009, 09:16 PM »

Curt: just use windows' built-in "safely remove" feature,
-f0dder (December 29, 2009, 06:07 PM)

Whilst that certainly works, it is so much less convenient and functional than the extra app in question

Darwin · « **Reply #66 on:** December 29, 2009, 11:03 PM »

USB Safely Remove[/url] is one I always use and would miss. I haven't seen an alternative that I would use instead. Works simply, saves me time.
-Dormouse (December 29, 2009, 04:02 PM)

Dang! Forgot about this one - sits in my system tray and is invaluable. I'll add it to my own list

EDIT: have now read the follow-on posts. Just want to add the for me the great thing about USB Safely Remove is the ability to re-attach the device if you change your mind right after removing it. Sounds silly, but it is very useful. You can also have it remove (or re-attach, for that matter) all devices at once, which is handy as well.

Curt · « **Reply #67 on:** December 30, 2009, 03:07 AM »

Curt: just use windows' built-in "safely remove" feature, no need for an extra app for that. But it is dangerous to just yank out your stick... I wouldn't even consider doing that anymore. Also, as an advantage to always doing things the proper way , you can set the properties of the USB disk to "optimize for performance" which can mean tremendous speed boost for file operations on those devices.
-f0dder (December 29, 2009, 06:07 PM)

I think this was a contradiction, f0dder. Window's 'Safely Remove' is based on cache and prohibits Optimize For Performance. It is one or the other: Optimize For either fast but safe removal, or for fast working speeds.

f0dder · « **Reply #68 on:** December 30, 2009, 05:50 AM »

Curt: no, it's not a contradiction... the proper way is to always use safe remove, whether you have the device set for speed or quick removal. Once you get into the habit of doing things the proper way, then it's safe to optimize for performance. But even with optimize for quick removal, you risk data corruption if you just yank out the device. Doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

koro · « **Reply #69 on:** December 30, 2009, 08:29 PM »

*Really* must have:

PuTTy (Tray)
WinSCP
Firefox
Acrobat Reader or Foxit Reader

Would suffer without:

Unison
Thunderbird
7-zip
Skype
Comodo Firewall
Avira Antivir
Process Explorer
VLC
Notepad++
Autohotkey
OpenOffice
PDFCreator
Calibre
WinDjView
Ghostscript and GSView
MikTeX
LatexEditor
FARR

I'm probably forgetting some...

zridling · « **Reply #70 on:** January 01, 2010, 06:56 PM »

For me (using a virtualized Win7), it has to be a file manager of the caliber of XYplorer or Directory Opus. After that, everything else is second place.

shobazi · « **Reply #71 on:** January 01, 2010, 07:57 PM »

Thanks for sharing the useful tools..nice stuff

vetegr · « **Reply #72 on:** February 10, 2010, 07:56 PM »

All freeware:

Everything - File finder. Finds files instantly. Honest. Often before you finish typing the name.

JBMail - Email reader. Doesn't download emails (unless you tell it to). Leaves them on the server and shows you the headers. Double-click to read. Since it doesn't download them all, it's super fast. Can be set to strip away everything except text so that you Never get a virus from the message body. All the basic functions -- address books, reply, attach, spam filters, etc.

WinPatrol - Monitors critical files, registry, startup, etc., tells if you something messes with them. Lets you delay the launch of some of your startup programs, for faster booting. Many other functions. Easy to use.

ERUNT - Backup and restore the registry.

Exact Audio Copy

Sandboxie - Run your browser, or any other program, in a sandbox. If you get malware, just delete the sandbox and your real system is untouched. Easy to use.

VLC - Media player that reads virtually every format. Launches quickly. Functional real-time controls for color, brightness, playback speed, etc.

Foxit Reader - Read and edit PDF files. Launches much faster than Adobe, runs faster too. If you turn javascript off, it's far less vulnerable to infection than Adobe.

SharpKeys - Change any key to anything else. I made the irritating CapsLock key into an extra Alt key.

Curt · « **Reply #73 on:** February 10, 2010, 11:41 PM »

delete

Curt · « **Reply #74 on:** February 10, 2010, 11:42 PM »

- welcome at DC, vetegr :-) and Thanks for telling.

I didn't know about JBMail; will go and try to test it.

Edited:
eh... not updated for six years?!!