Essential Windows Software

[Roalith]

Bit late now, but in future you might want to try Drivergrabber - it pulls a copy of every driver your system uses and dumps them in a subfolder.

You can then use N-lite to create a slipstreamed install including all your regular drivers

Also - try Alcohol 120%. Has a very easy to use virtual drive to mount .iso images etc etc, and great for burning images to a dvds/cds too.

Edit: Also, get spywareblaster (www.javacoolsoftware.com) - very good for preventing ad/tracking cookies etc from installing themselves.

 

[Lamp]

Turbo Notes is a nice useful program - basically Post-It notes for your PC - and its free !

Now I can open the window in my bedroom without worrying all my notes are gonna fly off !

http://turbonote.com/

 

[atos]

Bit late now, but in future you might want to try Drivergrabber - it pulls a copy of every driver your system uses and dumps them in a subfolder.
You can then use N-lite to create a slipstreamed install including all your regular drivers

Marvelous program if it does what you say. Have a rep for that one. Gonna check it when I get home.

 

[Raven]

Nero
VLC media player...yes i know you said you prefer media player, which i also use, but now and again i find something that doesnt work on it, never had anything that didnt run on VLC.
Netleech
BitComet
Ventrilo
Daemon tools

 

[Roalith]

Marvelous program if it does what you say. Have a rep for that one. Gonna check it when I get home.

Well - when I say all drivers I mean the ones that aren't on a standard Win XP install

 

[crispy]

Firefox
Winrar
Winamp
Miranda IM
SmartFTP
Media Player Classic (along with FreeDVD, ffdshow, ac3decoder)
Daemon Tools
Open Office
AVG (Free antivirus, REALLY good)

 

[Lamp]

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Aqua_Dock_d4176.html

This gives a task switcher like in Mac OSX

 

[Ryuno]

I think Winzip is the most apawling compression program currently available. Instead of winrar I would recommend Filzip. Its free without any catches, and supports pretty much every compression type commonly used (and some uncommon ones too).

http://www.filzip.com/en/index.html

 

[Fana]

All Windows XP service packs & Patches

No thanks, i prefer my machine running withour Microsoft spyware and Digital Restrictions Managment tools thanks If you install everything MS wants you to install you might as well pack up the computer and send it to them since they own it anyway.

 

[Alan]

No thanks, i prefer my machine running withour Microsoft spyware and Digital Restrictions Managment tools thanks If you install everything MS wants you to install you might as well pack up the computer and send it to them since they own it anyway.

yeah... urm... right.... ok

 

[Mojo]

No thanks, i prefer my machine running withour Microsoft spyware and Digital Restrictions Managment tools thanks If you install everything MS wants you to install you might as well pack up the computer and send it to them since they own it anyway.

Such noobness.

 

[Chronictank]

No thanks, i prefer my machine running withour Microsoft spyware and Digital Restrictions Managment tools thanks If you install everything MS wants you to install you might as well pack up the computer and send it to them since they own it anyway.

you do realise most of those "patches of evil" are security corrections and bug fixes dont you?
The digital management tools are not on your system they are done by the distributor of the media, you simply download a liscence along with the media. If you have a older version of media player (than 7 i think), you wont even be able to decrypt the files you will simply get rubbish played usually accomapnied by a high piched noise.
if your making your own media (by ripping cd's for example) you dont have to use media player to do it, meaning you have no DML encryption on it anyway.
All this along side the fact, you should be running a personal firewall independant of windows and you are able to pick and choose the traffic leaving your pc even if microsoft was tryng to get at your info
its PC's like yours that are the scourge of the internet as they are usually the ones used to relay viruses and spam as they do not have a up-to-date copy of windows.
Besides the fact if you wanted a bloatware free program you would either be running a customised install or a linux variant of some sorts

/end rant

 

[Ryuno]

Well said chronic

 

[chretien]

Google Earth.

 

[Joor]

Nod32
Comodo Firewall
Utorrent
Newsleecher
Quickpar
Winrar
Foobar2000
Xvid, x264, Haali Media Splitter, Ac3filter.
Sony Vegas6
Firefox
Everest Ultimate Edition 2006
Mirc
Media Player Classic