Useful Software (Windows)

Personal useful software list for Windows. Contains a list of software that I routinely install on my own machines.

Security

 * Password Safe - a password manager of some kind is absolutely essential these days.
 * Keepass Both of these are open source.


 * Microsoft Security Essentials - These days, MSE is considered a rather poor antivirus. That said, it is the least intrusive of them all, as it's free, stops the warnings, and doesn't require payment.
 * ESET NOD32 is the most consistently highly-rated for-pay antivirus software, if you are looking to go that route.
 * Malwarebytes also comes highly recommended. Antimalware focus rather than antivirus.


 * HiJackThis is not something I use to combat malware anymore. Rather it gives a list of what's being loaded on my machine so I can deal with it appropriately.

When it hits the fan
The above said, there is simply no substitute these days for being mindful of what you do on-line. If I am absolutely forced to try to recover someone's machine, and I can't scan the disk safely for some reason, I use a combination of Malwarebytes (above) and


 * RKill
 * ComboFix

Properly repairing a compromised system in this fashion is beyond the scope of this page. The TL;DR is to boot into safe mode with command prompt only, run a known clean copy of ComboFix, boot into safe mode with command prompt only and run it again, boot into safe mode with command prompt only and run Malwarebytes. This works, if rather slow.

Capability
A catch-all category for "Why can't I handle X on my machine?"


 * Java. It used to be important to clear out old java versions, though more recent versions of java take care of this.
 * Adobe Flash. Note that IE and Firefox use separate versions - as does Chrome, but Chrome bundles its own version of Flash.


 * Microsoft VC++ 2010 Redistributable These two (You'll eventually want both the 32-bit and 64-bit packages on a 64-bit machine) are the redistributable packages for programs compiled with Visual Studio. A number of open source programs make use of them, but don't come with the redistributable package.
 * Microsoft VC++ 2013 Redistributable


 * Combined Community Codec Pack A catch-all, rather simplified bundle of codec packs, useful for video playback and editing.


 * 7-Zip Don't settle for naggy, bloated, inferior archive utilities. 7-Zip does it all, and is open source.

Audio

 * Audacity A pretty slick piece of audio editing software. I've taught 80-year old grandfathers how to use this.

Graphics

 * Paint.NET is the most popular free raster graphics editor (that is, what you are probably looking for).
 * Pinta is an open-source program based on the above.
 * Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor. Unlike GIMP, it's actually far more competitive with its commercial counterparts.

Video

 * Note: You'll want the codec pack listed above (CCCP)


 * Virtual Dub a basic video editor. While not exactly great for composition, it can clip, trim, reverse, etc. raw video to make it easier to make professional-ish videos with.
 * CamStudio Can do a few things that FRAPS can't, so I keep it around.

Office

 * Notepad++ I'd go insane without this. Essential Notepad replacement/general text editor. Has some limited usefulness as an IDE, though not recommended for large applications.


 * AbiWord For people who want a full-fledged document editor but don't want LibreOffice or OpenOffice.


 * LibreOffice is a full-fledged suite comparable to Microsoft Office in scope. Writer is a document editor a la Word, Calc is a spreadsheet editor like Excel, Impress is a presentation program like Powerpoint, Base is a database manager like Access, Draw is a drawing program. The team behind this has some seriously top notch development.

Browsers

 * Firefox remains my preferred browser, even in the face of Chrome. In addition to not being in the run for world domination, it's a bit more stable than Google's offering.
 * Opera is still hugging the 1% mark. They've moved to Google's Blink engine, meaning they are consistently at rough feature parity with Chrome.

Chat

 * mIRC is nearly the default IRC client for Windows.
 * Miranda IM a lightweight, Windows-only multi-IM client.
 * Pidgin is another light multi-IM client, this one is cross-platform.

Utilities

 * CCleaner They've got pro versions, but Piriform has enough reputation behind them that they are worth some money.
 * dnGrep a grep utility for windows.

Gaming

 * Space Engine - effectively Celestia's successor in my mind, it goes well above and beyond everything Celestia has ever done. In addition to having a known stars catalog, it also includes procedurally generated moons, worlds, stars and galaxies.


 * Dwarf Fortress - not for the feint of heart. Dwarf Fortress has a solid learning cliff, and its followers have the mantra 'losing is fun'. You get to see all your hard work collapse about you, often. Now that workers can carry multiple items, I may look into this again. Watching workers carry single seeds has always been a special sort of frustrating for me.