1.) Apache OpenOffice (AOO) is an open-source office productivity software suite. www.openoffice.org/
2.) PhotoScape is a easy photo editing software. photos. www.photoscape.org/ps/main/index.php
3.) 7-Zip is a data compression program with a high compression rate. www.7-zip.de

 

Last edited: Dec 8, 2021

It has more fuctionality. For me for instance the the network function is very useful for copying the snippets to all connected computers in the network.

 

Last edited: Dec 8, 2021

WinDirStat is a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool. Quick way to see which are the biggest files/folders taking up space on your drives

 

1. Autohotkey https://www.autohotkey.com (Amazing software to remap any keyboard with multiple key-press shortcuts on single keys etc)
2. Blender https://www.blender.org (The best completely free 3D animation and modelling software there is)
3. Simple Wall https://www.henrypp.org (Fantastic easy to use security tool for controlling windows 10 firewall incoming and outgoing net traffic)
4. UltraCopier Ultimate http://ultracopier.first-world.info/ (Copy/Transfer files a lot faster than the Windows operating system can)
5. HOSTS Manager https://www.henrypp.org/ (Nice application to edit your host file website listings to safeguard your computer)
   
6. Irfanview https://www.irfanview.com (Lovely free picture viewer for all your cough cough porn pictures)
   
7. Q-Dir http://www.softwareok.com/ (Nice multi window file explorer Q as in quad view four explorer windows to work with)
   
8. Rufus https://rufus.ie/en/ (The best software to make external pen drive bootable versions of Windows ISO files)
   
9. Sysinternals Suite https://www.techspot.com/downloads/4680-sysinternals-suite.html (Must have suite of important windows tools)
   
10. VLC Media Player https://www.videolan.org/vlc/ (Well it's the most used multi media video player codec software)
    
11. 7-Zip https://www.7-zip.org/ (For all your file compression and decompression needs)
    
12. PeaZip https://peazip.github.io/ (Lovely alternative to 7Zip for all your file compression and decompression needs)
13. WinMerge https://winmerge.org/ WinMerge (A handy difference and merging tool for comparing both folders and files)
    
14. GodMode https://www.peusens-software.nl/ (Easy on off switch to Windows 10 God Mode all Windows customisation options menu)
15. Optimizer https://github.com/hellzerg/optimizer (Portable utility that helps you tweak and restore your Windows privacy and increase your security)
16. Office Tool Plus https://otp.landian.vip/en-us/ (Extremely handy MS Office deployment, configure, fix, manage and download software tool)
17. Mini Mouse Macro https://www.turnssoft.com/mini-mouse-macro.html (Easy macro mouse and keyboard recorder for repetitive tasks)
18. Nirsoft Ultilities http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/index.html (Various small extremely useful Windows software utilities of all sorts)

 

Last edited: Dec 9, 2021

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Last edited by a moderator: Dec 20, 2021

Clonespy 64
after a bit of tweaking is a wonderfully useful and powerful tool to get rid of file doubles.

 

Hot damn. You're right. In my over-enthusiasm I just listed every thing I use. Sorry, I missed the 'free' bit. My bad. Still it might be useful to some.

Having said that. A lot of those programs are free. Or have free versions. Or are contained as 'free' software on distros like Sergei Strelec's boot images.

Forgive me, I jumped the gun on that one. I'll edit it to say that they aren't all free, but I'll leave it up coz it might be useful to someone.

 

This thing is fantastic, I've been looking for something like this on windows for so long and I didn't even know it until today.

 

My go to tools are:

iNfekt NFO Viewer
the best NFO viewer out there



ColorMania
very handy tool to pick/select or create colors and show them in different formats (html, rgb, delphi hex, etc.)
pretty useful when creating GUI/VST skins, web designs



Notepad2-mod
the dev is an asshole and doesn't allow any changes in his open source mod (I did it anyways for myself)
but this tool is the fastest editor out there. I use it for coding/scripting and nearly every text related task.
It supports multiple syntaxes (NFO, batch, c, delphi, python, vb script, inno setup, nsis, autoit, ini, javascript, css, html,...)
and loads as fast as Windows notepad.



Shutter 2.90
a little tool to shut down the PC with a bunch of options.
Lets say you watch a movie before going to sleep. Set shutter on its duration and select the event
(shutdown, sleep, hibernate, logoff or whatever). In my opinion v2.90 is the best version.
More recent versions have some "pro/paid" features that aren't needed.



x64dbg
one of the best debuggers on windows. You can use it for actual debugging but also reversing of 32Bit and 64Bit binaries



diablo2oo2's Universal Patcher
This is used to create patchers. Lets say you reversed something and want to share your results.
dUP2 allows you to create a patcher to apply your results with no need of coding skills.



Deemix GUI
This tool allows you to download any music from Deezer and Spotify in the lossless flac format.
To get flac's from deezer, you need a deezer hi-fi account. With the free account you still can download
in 320kbps mp3 format. Direct download of latest updates: deemix.app



Resonic Player Free
One of the best music/sample players for windows. The free version only comes with a light theme which hurts the eyes
at night but there once was a free "v0.7.1b Methlab Edition" with dark theme which isn't available to download on their
website anymore... but I still have it here if you need it (yes, it's also free): ResonicMethLab.7z
I use the Methlab edition since it got released.



Sysinternals tools by Microsoft
These tools are my basic tools to tweak windows here and there. There's for example the very best autostart manager AutoRuns
or one of the best task managers Process Explorer that allows you to really see what runs on your PC. I also like Process Monitor
very much as it allows me to monitor installers and other processes to analyze & rebuild them in Inno Setup. Thats pretty handy
when I want to do a repack/simple installer of something.



Treesize Free
This software allows you to show the contents of folders/disks very quickly. I use it to find large space consuming files & folders.



Bulk Rename Utility
The best app to rename files & folders quickly. I use it nearly every day. You can remove/add/replace letters, words and numbers
in file names, number files by date, alphabet,..., add pre- or suffixes, anything you can think of.
In a few seconds you can rename large contents of folders with 2 clicks.
Example:
You downloaded a new album of your fav artist and the files are named
album-(2021)-01_artist_-_name_of_the_song-20211207.flac
but you want it to be named
01 Artist - Name Of The Song.flac
In the rename utility you just set "replace _ with a spaces", "remove the first 13 and the last 7 characters" and set the word case to "title".
Then you select all the files and hit "rename". Done.

ExeInfo PE
Pretty neat and fast little helper to view informations about executables and dll files

NSudo
NSudo allows you to run tools/processes with privileges higher than your user account.
This should be handled with care. I use it to manipulate/modify files in system folders or to edit special keys in the registry.
But don't use windows explorer with NSudo as it could cause problems/damage your system if you forget to close the elevated window.
I recommend XYplorer for these purposes but any other file explorer alternative should work as well.

MSMG Toolkit
MSMG Toolkit is a free alternative to NTLite which is used to customize windows installation images before they get installed.
You can delete useless apps/bloatware, disable processes, delete files, apply updates, add custom features, edit the registry, etc.
With NSudo from above you also can open the folder of the mounted image and replace wallpapers and other things but don't
change too much using that method as it could damage the image... and don't delete random files.

KDE Mover-Sizer
The perfect tool for smaller screens/displays. It allows you to move & resize windows, even windows that normally don't
allow resizing or windows that are in the background of other windows. You can drag windows by hitting the alt key without
the need of grabbing them on the title bar. I use this on smaller laptops where the screen resolution often isn't enough to
see everything.

_____________________________

And then there are a lot of other tools (already mentioned) that I use regularly like:
Everything Search Engine, SimpleWall, JDownloader2, Sandboxie Plus, Rufus, 7Zip, Sordum Tools, ...

edit:
added some more tools to my list

 

Last edited: Dec 9, 2021

Great List r4e , but I think you can replace both of those with micosoft powertoys with extra additional very helpful tools

 

Ye but the Powertoys need the .NET Core Desktop Runtime and the tools I use
just work out of the box without any extra steps. I'm also very used to these tools
so it wouldn't make sense for me to switch to similar apps.

Here a little comparison between colormania and the powertoys color picker.
Its a difference like day and night, I'd miss a lot of options but I also like Powertoys (for its other features).

 

Last edited: Dec 9, 2021

1. Chocolatey THE PACKAGE MANAGER FOR WINDOWS Modern Software Automation. Command-line installer
(eg. choco install googlechrome discord vlc will install all these 3)
2. QuickLook It allows users to peek into a file content at lightning speed by just pressing the Space key

 

Bulk Rename Utility is seriously much better than the one from Powertoys.

UniExtract 2

Universal Extractor 2 is a tool designed to extract files from any type of extractable file. Supports 500+ formats. Integrates with Windows through context menus. If I find a file with an unknown extension, this is the first thing I do, even if it can't be extracted, the included tools do give some type of information usually.

 

@Xupito I knew you would agree with this. We are the two who advertise the app here the most.
Pro bono of course as it's just a painkiller in day-to-day work

 

https://www.tpgi.com/color-contrast-checker/

 

If you, like me, have several machines (say, 2 desktop pcs & a laptop) and want to control all of them with only 1 keyboard and 1 mouse, you should give Mouse without Borders a chance. This free tool from Microsoft Garage let's you control up to 4 machines (one master, 3 clients) in the same network. Once connected (passkey protected), just move your mouse pointer to the screen you want to control and have it ready. Very useful.

 

Launchy is a keystroke launcher, a bit like Spotlight on OSX. Extremely customizable and powerful, can launch programs, searches, etc.

Everything is a search tool that when combined with Launchy above can completely replace the abysmally slow Windows Search.

Winaero Tweaker is a handy all-in-one tweaking tool for Windows, making tweaks (and reversing them too) that would normally require registry editing/command line scripts as easy as clicking a few buttons.

waifu2x-caffe is a GPU-powered image upscaling tool (works best on Nvidia)

Sekaiju is a free and open-source MIDI sequencer and editor (useful for us Live users to see program/bank change CCs)

Falcosoft Soundfont MIDI Player is a very complete MIDI player which supports soundfonts as well as VSTs, useful for us HyperCanvas/Sound Canvas VA users & other MIDI module-like plugins.

 

I never use any optimizer tools anymore they moe often f*ck up the system then help it believe me i tried most of them from the earlyest ones that was released for win 95

 

CCleaner is the only tool that does not negatively change the system. I know what you say Tune Up and the PC becomes unstable.

 

I.m.o the best NFO viewer is just simply to right click on the Nfo file and choose show list