My favorite software! What's yours?

[wreckedcarzz]

- Sygate Personal Firewall

Sygate was purchased by Symantec about a year ago...the firewall is outdated (and no longer offered or supported). Its sad cause it was my favorite firewall...

[jeromg]

Now, my list:
  - powerpro: can't live without it for years
  - autohotkey: might replace powerpro if I can rewrite my shortcuts and scripts
  - al ex-sysinternals utilities (mostly: ProcessExplorer, PsTools, Handle.exe), now property of Microsoft
  - maxthon: so time-saving, can't imagine browsing without it
  - IZArc: clean, fast, reliable
  - IrfanView: what else?
  - FileZilla: easy, efficient
  - ScreenshotCaptor: no other screenshot tool can match it
  - VisualStudio 2005: mostly because of intellisense (as mentioned earlier in this thread)
  - DeepBurner Pro: burning made easy
  - Orb: access my pictures and music from everywhere
  - Vim: spent too many years on Unix machines to work without it
  - EmEditor: slowly replacing vim on my boxes

[Dirhael]

1. Directory Opus
- By far the best file manager available, and well worth the asking price. Excellent support & the application just feels "right." It handles most of my image-management-, S/FTP- & global hotkey-needs in addition to the excellent file handling. The search functions are among the best I've ever seen, rivaling even most of the dedicated search apps. Probably the worlds most customizable application, something that just adds to the value. My only issue with it is that the license is a bit restrictive, but that's not really related to the program itself.

2. Total Commander
- The second best file manager, that complements Dopus well with its large collection of file-system plugins. My only real problem with it is not the application itself, but rather the fact that it's a pain in the read-end to actually buy/register it. Buying applications online should never be as hard as this, ever! Also, the program itself could use some more options to configure its core functions, as there is no reason to force me to press "yes, I'm sure for the 1000th damn time that I want to delete this folder, even if there's a system file in it!" Other than those issues, I mostly love it

3. Find And Run Robot.
- I have barely touched the start-menu since I installed this. It's fast, easy to use & in general makes my life easier. I like that!

4. Zoom Player WMV Professional
Watching videos without Zoom Player is a pain. While it's not for everyone, I absolutely love the filter-management features, and the full-screen navigators in the latest 5 betas are excellent. Really makes it easier to watch videos from the PC on the old 'tube'. The only thing it needs to be perfect is internal subtitle parsing so that you could have re-synced them using hotkeys, instead of having to open the Directvobsub interface.

5. Foobar 2000
- After discovering Foobar 2k, all other audio-players got uninstalled. There's no need for anything else when you already have the perfect player right here. It's fast, has excellent unicode handling (which is more than you can say for WMP & WinAMP ), handles any format I throw at it, it's playlist-centric & I can customize it to do just about anything.

6. True Launch Bar
- Quick-launch toolbars the way it should be done. The fact that it supports plugins only makes it better, as today I wouldn't dream of not having a media toolbar for controlling my audio player of choice.

7. Taskbar Shuffle
- Why this function never was implemented in Windows is a mystery, but who really cares when there's excellent freeware applications that makes re-ordering taskbar items as easy as this?

8. Opera
- This is exactly how a browser should be made. About as close to perfect as such an application can be.

9. Ad Muncher
- The best ad-filtering utility available. Really, it's brilliant. Just looking at the stats since my last OS installation makes me smile

Ad Muncher Usage Statistics for v4.7 Build 27105/1416
Adverts removed by Ad Muncher:  46,690
Approximate bandwidth saved:    364 MB
Counter started:                oktober 28, 2006

10. Faststone Image Viewer
- I think I've tried close to all available image browsers, but this is what use when I have to do more with the image than Dopus can take care of. My favourite feature is probably the superb wallpaper functions and the full-screen browser/editing functions. If not for the fact that it uses one of those terrible skinned interfaces (it's really bad, without any option to use the Windows default), I'd give it a close-to-perfect score.

[rjbull]

Gyula's Navigator : I use this file manager at work and I have never found one that has a great combination of features that I need:  It is freeware, is completely portable

Tekzel,

Do you have an old version with a different license, or work in a college?  I just looked at their license terms, and it's only free for personal or educational use, otherwise $20 for 5 licenses.  Cheap, but not free for business use.

[mikedutch]

Links to lots of good tools:  http://home.comcast.net/~mike.dutch/wsb/html/view.cgi-showresources.html-TopRes-General.html

Enjoy

[txx28]

My Favorite Software List.
Some software I consider to be "part and parcel" of Windows. I can't live without them.

• IrfanView

The fastest Image Viewer.

• FireFox

I never use IE. Only exception is Microsoft sites.

• WinRAR

THE best compression tool

Lastly Notepad. Note this "normal" Notepad and not Notepad2. I like it so much because its tremendously fast and contains no unnecessary bells and whistles.

[brotherS]

Lastly Notepad. Note this "normal" Notepad and not Notepad2. I like it so much because its tremendously fast and contains no unnecessary bells and whistles.

Then it's time for you to discover win32pad! At least as fast as the ugly Notepad and more options!
http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=1000

[rjbull]

Then it's time for you to discover win32pad!

If you must have a Windows Notepad-style editor instead of a proper WordStar-style one, don't overlook
TED Notepad

Small, fast, freeware, no-install version if preferred, many more features than Microsoft Notepad.

[urlwolf]

hehe, time for me to make a vim plug
As fast as Notepad, and, well, more features that you can learn in years, see:

rayninfo.co.uk/vimtips.html

David Rayner (zzapper) 15 Years of Vi + 5 years of Vim and still learning

Available on any OS pretty much, you can work over a shell (no graphical interface) and be happy, faster than any other editor once you know the basics.

And of course, people looking at you editing code may think that you have mental powers and control the editing changes by pure force of will

[Curt]

Flashnote by Softvoile Company http://softvoile.com/flashnote/

M8 Free Clipboard http://m8software.com/clipboards/freeclip/freeclip.htm

QLiner Hotkeys makes the fastest way the prettiest way
... (but their zip is too simple) http://qliner.com/hotkeys/overview.htm

7-zip - the free $20 way. http://www.7-zip.org/

Process Explorer & Procmon by SysInternals http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx

PS Tray Factory - $25 at http://www.pssoftlab.com/

Process Tamer was well needed at this old 500 MHz, 320 RAM, Win2K.

StartRight by the Jackass.. http://www.joejoesoft.com/vcms/113/

Quick ShutDown by ShatRan Software at http://www.winutility.com/qsd/

COA2 (send "change of address" notifications to Windows if you relocate a program) http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,9505,00.asp - has not been updated since 2001  and yet is $8 (and not for XP) !!!  - but I don't know of any other program with this 'coa' feature. Do you?

CCleaner from http://www.ccleaner.com

TClockEx - (I run Win2K) - http://www.rcis.co.za/dale/tclockex/

Volumouse to adjust volume, free at http://www.snapfiles.com/get/volumouse.html

NOD32 + Outpost Pro 4 (with Anti-SpywareScanner, and Blockpost) + BlockList Manager and blocklists + Zoned Out and IE-SPYAD for ZonedOut, + SysInternals Rootkit Revealer and F-Secure Blacklight Beta - for some safety of a kind.

That will do for now - it's suppertime in Denmark

[AndyM]

I have dozens of favorite utilities, tools, shell extensions, etc. most that I couldn't live without.

But I have to say that my two favorite programs, the one's I use the most to get the bulk of my work done are Excel and Word (both 2002).  Incredibly customizable (Excel needs a little AutoHotkey to fully customize well) and extremely powerful.  Yes, to get the most out of them involves a long learning curve, but the time invested has been worthwhile.

[f0dder]

That will do for now - it's suppertime in Denmark

Haha, ja - we've just gotten the first hint of frost in Århus, though - so we might end seeing something resembling winter after all

[cthorpe]

For starters, I am running Windows XP Professional SP2.  I am not affiliated with any of the software products listed below.  I've marked payware with a $$ after the link.  Everything else is freeware or donationware.

Opera (http://www.opera.com) -  I absolutely love this browser.  I think it is more polished than firefox, and more secure than IE.  I admit that I miss some of the extensions in firefox, but not enough to switch back.

FirstDefense-ISR (http://raxco.com/products/fdisr/) $$ - The ISR stands for Immediate System Recovery.  This program is amazing.  It allows you to have multiple snapshots of your operating system that you can switch to as quickly as you can reboot your computer.  It has saved me more than once in the 6 months that I have been using it.  As an example, I updated a security application recently and had to reboot to complete the update.  My machine proceeded to BSOD repeatedly when attempting to boot.  I simply hit the reset button, pressed F1 when the ISR logo appeared right after CMOS screen, selected an alternate snapshot and was up and running in less than a minute.  It also has a freeze function that reverts your computer to a preset state at each reboot.

NOD32 AV (http://eset.com) $$ , Jetico Firewall v1.0 (http://www.jetico.com/), and System Safety Monitor (http://www.syssafety.com/) $$ - Together, these three programs protect me from just about anything that is out there.  Along with the use of Opera for browsing and ISR waiting in the wings in case of a disaster, I feel invincible.  There was a brief problem with a new version of SSM not playing nice with Jetico, but a quick update by the authors fixed it.

Directory Opus (http://www.gpsoft.com) $$ - Amazing filemanager that does it all.  I tried quite a few, hoping to find something that was a lot cheaper than this one, but in the end I felt that it was worth every penny.  The best part about it is that you can customize it to do just about anything you could possibly want with your files.

FindAndRunRobot - Love it.  I am slowly getting used to being able to start programs by just hitting Break and typing.  I actually caught myself tryng it on a computer that didn't have it today.  That is a sure sign to me that the program is a hit.

Locate32 (http://locate32.webhop.org/) - Fast file search utility.  It creates a database of all your files.  I can search for a single filename on my computer (over 300gigs) and find it in seconds with this program.  I wish the documentation was better (or existed at all), but I loved it enough to donate to the author.

UltraVNC (http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/) - I use a ssh connection from work to my router (running dd--wrt http://www.dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv2/index.php) to tunnel into my home network and connect to my PC with this.

foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org) - My mp3 player of choice.  I don't care for skins, visualizations, etc.  Foobar plays my music, and plays it well.

Process Explorer (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/ProcessExplorer.mspx) - What task manager should have been.  This is one of the first programs I install when working with a PC, and I have it running all the time in my system tray.

ClipMate (http://www.thornsoft.com) $$ - I manipulate a lot of text for work, so this is invaluable.

TrueLaunchBar (http://truelaunchbar.com $$ - This just makes my computing life easier.  I actually run with my taskbar at the bottom (with a truelaunchbar enhanced quick launch) and a toolbar across the top of the screen with some truelaunch plugins and my clipmate toolbar.  I loose a tiny bit of screen real estate, but I work faster.

EditPad Lite (http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.html) - Free and powerful text editor.  I used it to write this post .

VMServer (http://www.vmware.com/products/server/) - Even though my computer is barely able to handle it, I still get a smile on my face when I boot up Windows XP inside Windows XP.  I'm just starting to use this program and learning to love it.  I can't believe it is free.

And that's just software that I use on a daily basis.

I'll be happy to discuss how I use any of those in more detail if you're interested.

Carl

[SeLo]

I usually use some cool softs for my PC:
MetaProducts Mass Downloader (http://www.metaproducts.com/mp/Mass_Downloader.htm) - This is my favorite Download Manager, it's faster and more compitible with many site.
And my best Web Browser: Mozilla Firefox (http://www.getfirefox.com)

Sharpdevelop 2 (http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/Download/) - An Open Source IDE for C#.

[Nighted]

Dirhael, Taskbar Shuffle is cool. Nice find!

[tomos]

TrueLaunchBar (http://truelaunchbar.com $$ - This just makes my computing life easier.  I actually run with my taskbar at the bottom (with a truelaunchbar enhanced quick launch) and a toolbar across the top of the screen with some truelaunch plugins and my clipmate toolbar.  I loose a tiny bit of screen real estate, but I work faster.

it'd be nice to see a screenshot if you could?

[cthorpe]

it'd be nice to see a screenshot if you could?

Of course.

Here is what my screen looks like:


The first two Quick Launch icons actually pop up menus when I click on them:



The weather plugin in the top left corner shows current conditions when you hover your mouse over it and forcast when you click on it:



The Window List plugin shows you a list of open windows and lets you switch to them just like clicking on them in the task bar.  This lets me access running programs without having to move the mouse down to the bottom of the screen.



The foobar2000 plugin only shows the foobar icon if the program is not running.  When you start the player by clicking the icon or some other method, player controls automatically appear in the toobar:



The foobar controls are actually part of the media player plugin.  That plugin can control various players:



The command line plugin lets you type commands just like you could with the Run command on the start menu, and even has autocompletion:



There are a lot more plugins available:




Carl

[vegas]

Wow, I like your setup cthorpe, I could implement an idea or two from that.  (I too am a True Launch Bar supporter and had no idea about the window plug-in) thanks for taking the time to post your set-up.  On a similar note, if you had a wider screen like say 24'' 1980x1200 would you run everything on the bottom of the screen because it might fit better, or do you prefer having it at the top regardless.  Cheers,  vegas

[tomos]

it'd be nice to see a screenshot if you could?

Of course.

Here is what my screen looks like:

You're giving me ideas !! 

[Curt]

Flashnote by Softvoile Company

Forgive me, brothers, for repeating it again, but I've really grown very attached to the free Flashnote, and think y'all should check it out.

File: flashnote_2.1.exe, 400 Kb
Version: 2.1
Release date: 15 December 2006.
OS Support: Windows 2000/2003/XP.

[zridling]

Okay Curt, FlashNote is a great idea, and I like it better than sticky apps by far. It sells itself as rough copy, but it's rather 'exact' copy, retaining the formatting of a php file I dumped inside it. Thanks for sharing!

[Curt]

Okay Curt, FlashNote is a great idea, and I like it better than sticky apps by far. It sells itself as rough copy, but it's rather 'exact' copy, retaining the formatting of a php file I dumped inside it. Thanks for sharing!

You're welcome!

---

I was almost forgetting my number one program; it is very old and have not been update since year 2002. I use it every time I install a program (= almost every day), or if I see a folder with an icon I don't like anymore: Right-click the folder, left-click 'Properties' > 'Customize' > 'Change Icon' - using Customize Folder Shell Extension 1.3.14  

I think you have a similar, but downgraded feature in XP - I use Win2K.

Customize Folder is an operating system shell extension that adds an additional page to the properties of a folder or drive. This additional page provides some additional customizations above those provided by Microsoft.

• Features : 
  
  Ability to alter appearance of folder contents including background and text colors..
  
  Ability to use image as folder background pattern
  
  Ability to associate descriptive text with a folder
  
  Ability to alter the icon associated with a folder or removable drive
  
  Over 330 [old] icon images included
  
  Translated to French, Spanish and German
  
  Online Help Available

• Developer Info :
  
  This application was written using the ATL and extends feature already built into the operating system.
  
  A couple of interesting features here are the use of owner drawn controls, unique user interface aspects and online help.

[cranioscopical]

Curt: Customize Folder Shell Extension 1.3.14

I agree with you about its appeal.  Been using it for years.  I rely on different folder backgrounds to tell me if I've mistakenly opened the wrong folder   

[Curt]

Curt: Customize Folder Shell Extension 1.3.14

I agree with you about its appeal.  Been using it for years.  I rely on different folder backgrounds to tell me if I've mistakenly opened the wrong folder   

(Customize Folder Shell Extension = CFSE) For long I would waiste a lot of time navigating from System32 (where CFSE have its DLL, next to Windows' Shell32 icon DLL) to the folder Icons, when I was looking for a new icon. One day I learned about soft and hard -linking. Today I have hardlinked five folders from Pictures > Icons, into System32, so the hole icon replacing process is really fast now.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
why can't I see the pics in preview?

[cranioscopical]

Curt: I have hardlinked five folders from Pictures > Icons, into System32, so the hole icon replacing process is really fast now.

That's a good idea, hard links are handy. I do it differently: long ago I set up a folder of the icons that I use, so it's always just one source for me...on a hot key.
Quick ways of doing things are very personal, aren't they? What's quick for you might be torture to me, and vice versa.
There's a lot to be learned about how people's brains function by analyzing those kinds of differences (sad to say, mine functions at the speed of treacle pouring over molasses - I need all the help I can get).