Chrono Shutdown Timer......http://www.easycommander.com/telecharger/chrono-shutdown
Iobit Uninstaller............https://www.iobit.com/en/recommend/iu.php

 

I don't know what's the norm nowadays, but back then..
there was this thing called K-Lite Codec Pack which had all the video Codecs one could imagine..
https://codecguide.com/download_kl.htm

And also the MPC that you mentioned earlier..
https://mpc-hc.org/


For video Converter I always used this very strange one called Xvid4PSP..
https://winnydows.com/en/

There's probably better things nowadays, but I always found it handy,
in comparison with more rigid, or obfuscated methods of usual video editors..

 

Last edited: Dec 11, 2021

I don't know, maybe because it's ugly and if you use it skinned, it somehow doesn't run as smooth as the non skinned player.

Some years ago I switched to PotPlayer. It plays nearly everything, has an option to hide borders (neccessary elements will fade in
by hovering), has great options for skins & designs (you can create your own), you can fit any video to your screen with 1 key to
get a "no black bar" experience, etc. I just love it.
Only bad thing is, it contains some ads which you have to turn off manually (or by patching it as I did).



And the ammount of usable plugins is huge. You even can use old Winamp plugins like the VST bridge to load VST effects
while watching movies or hearing music and an EQ + limiter are also integrated - means you can increase the volume of
very quiet audio in some video files without the need to edit them. And it also works as Twitch & Youtube player (by hitting ctrl + U).

If needed, here's my custom installer for PotPlayer with some extras:
- no ads & popups
- no sponsoring stuff like playlists, url lists
- custom skin, custom file & app icons
- no browser opening up after installation
- simplified 2 page installer for 32Bit & 64Bit OS

PotPlayer 1.7.21419 Setup.7z

 

Last edited: Dec 13, 2021

I would love to see a list of simply the best windows tools. Paid and unpaid. Thank you for this list everyone. I made a document of every comment and will have a look at each item. I switched a year ago from Mac to Windows in the studio. I only had a PC at home as my wife requires that I have a gaming machine to play together. I don't hate Windows 10. I simply miss some Mac features and utilities that I need to replace.

 

https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-numberer
“7+ Taskbar Numberer” solves this problem by numbering sequentially, left to right:
– the icons for the open and close-but-pinned windows applications.
– all the visible tray icons.
When there are many open applications, or when the user has a significant amount of tray icons, it can become quite cumbersome to count by hand the number of icons in order to identify the sequence of the intended application or tray icon.

So you can use Win+# keyboard shortcuts
(You can use the Windows key+number keyboard shortcut to refer to a taskbar item.)

 

Everything from Voidtools
Regseeker from Hoverdesk
Bleachbit
Notepad++
Technitium mac changer
Bulk rename utility
WSL
Audacity
Wavosaur

 

I used to use Gom Player back in 2012 but changed for VLC after the whole adware nag and also due to the fact that VLC was way lighter. I see a lot of people criticizing VLC and I think that's fine but it would be nice if all you other people would also link to other simple alternative options similar to VLC, like PotPlayer (for the sake of this thread)

 

I use 7+ Taskbar Tweaker recently just for one simple feature when sometime I want to change order of icons of multiple same application on taskbar.
https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-tweaker-v2-0

Potplayer is my main vid player too. I also have vlc installed (why not) for play .iso file which I think it can handle smoothly than potplayer on my system.


yt-dlp (youtube-dl fork)
https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

 

I have been using this diagnostic program for 10 years https://www.hwinfo.com/download/

 

lol, I use the exact same tools for the exact same reasons.
If PotPlayer could load ISO's a little smoother, I'd quit using VLC

 

Pretty much every tool I use has already been mentioned (incl. some audio tools), so here's a nice open-source image viewer nomacs and some graphics stuff.

https://nomacs.org/download/

Inkscape is useful for converting .svg vectors when either Illustrator or CorelDraw can't open them or read them properly. It's saved me numerous times as a graphic designer on deadlines.

https://inkscape.org/

LICEcap isn't as advanced as something like ShareX but when all you want is a quick .gif for a tutorial or something, it gets the job done.

https://www.cockos.com/licecap/

I'm too lazy to reinstall all of my software as well (especially after the yearly purge, as I like calling it) so I used MSMG, SYSPREP, DISM and the Windows ADK to make a custom Windows ISO with all of my stuff already installed and pre-patched.

On that note, the Windows ADK is free.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...d/adk-install#download-the-adk-for-windows-11

 

No good to me then

 

For me best mass-rename tool with the most features is Lupas Rename. (Old but still the best)

Features:

Lupas Rename is a FREEWARE program developed to rename a big number of files.
It works on Win95, Win98, WinME, WinNT, Win2K, WinXP, Windows 7 and Windows 8.
It is a simple .EXE file and doesn't need any other external libraries.

Here are a few features to help you rename the files:

• Rename files and folders
• Rename files in recursive subdirectories
• Shell Integration (right click on a folder in the explorer to start LupasRename on these folder)
• Instant Preview (Optional)
• Undo the last rename operation
• Make a Batch file to rename from a DOS Console
• Make a Batch file for UNDO operation from a DOS Console
• Save and Load your options into an INI File
• Filter by any masks: *.mp3;*.mp2 or ???a*.txt...
• Load/Edit a Text Files in a Small Editor to help renaming files
• Sort Ascendent/Descendent by any column (name, path, size...)
• It display the next columns:
  • Name
  • Path
  • Size
  • Type
  • Ext
  • Creation Date
  • Modification Date
  • Accessed Date
  • Attributes
• Replace the name by any text
• Replace a substring by other with Matchcase Optional
• Crop n Chars (Left and/or Right)
• Insert any string before and/or after the Filename
• Convert to Upper Case (filename)
• Convert to Lower Case (filename)
• Convert to Upper only the First Letter Of Any Word (filename)
• Convert to Lower oNLY tHE fIRST lLETTER (filename)
• Replace the extension by any text
• Replace a substring by other with Matchcase Optional in Extension
• Crop n Chars in Extension (Left and/or Right)
• Insert any string before/after the extension
• Convert to Upper Case (extension)
• Convert to Lower Case (extension)
• Convert to Upper only the First Letter Of Any Word (extension)
• Convert to Lower oNLY tHE fIRST lLETTER (extension)
• Remove the accent symbols
• Support for autorename the Display Comic Reader extensions
• Autonumbering in any place of the name or extension of the filename (Optional autostart by Folder in recursive mode)
  • Starting at any number
  • Incrementing by any number (positive or negative)
  • Adding n zeros to the number
  • In Decimal, Hexadecimal, Octal, Binary, Excel Mode and Manual Excel Mode formats
• Also With TAGS it supports any Base Number
• Option to view folders or not
• Option to work with folders as files or not
• Option to view files or not
• Option to remember the Last Path
• Option to remember Windows position and size
• The Main Window is sizable
• It allow a couple of languages
• ...
• You can use TAGs in any text box to use special features when renaming:
  • TAGs to use the Current Date with any format you want
    • Day, Mont, year, Hour, Minutes and Seconds
  • TAGs for MP3 Files (Title, Artist, Album, Year and Comment)
  • for RA Files (Title, Author and Copyright)
  • for Graphic Files (JPG, GIF, TIF, BMP, PSD, PNG, TGA, LBM and PCX)
    • Width, Height, Bits and Color
  • to extract the original name from Nintendo 64 Roms
  • to Create random names
  • to use the Date of Files
  • to use Manual Numbering
    • In any base numeric format and in Excel Format by using the characters you need
  • to insert Data from external Files
  • to extract the titles from HTML pages

https://rename.lupasfreeware.org/lupasrename.php

 

...

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 20, 2021

EQ APO is very nice but it doesn't want to work together with Sonarworks Reference (just as a short info).

And yes, YouTube Vanced is something you have to mention. It's the best modification of the Youtube App out there.
I use it since years. Side fact: Vanced existed in the XDA Developers forums before any YouTube premium subscription
was planned. So YT Premium basically is YT Vanced for money, not the other way around.

The best thing is, they also integrated the "Sponsor blocking API" with which you can skip any sponsoring
in any video and there are plenty of options to customize youtube to your favor (for example you can turn
off youtube shorts aka google's version of TikTok or disable polls or whatever). But the main feature is:
there are absolutely no ads. It's a completely adfree experience of Youtube.

 

Ant Renamer can do a lot without cluttering my nerves.

Can't change Damn NFO Viewer since this release. Old school but gold!
Update: iNFekt now my new NFO viewer...

My go-to Open Video Downloader.

KeePassXC to didn't trust cloud shit!

Great free DB Browser for SQLite (..and editor).

Mentioned already but can't live without Search Everything anymore!

Lively Wallpaper ....eyecandy for desktop or lets show your stock. I love it.

My go-to text editor: NotePad3

Sumatra PDF, didn't need more from a PDF viewer.

TeraCopy is standard for me since ages now. No parallel copy anymore. Have the pro version but usable as free also.

wxMP3val (GUI for MP3val) for fixing some MP3 errors. If you didn't ever used something like this over your 10.000.000 MP3s then try this.

PsTools to batch automate things in Windows.

Registry Finder a modern registry editor with favorites and fast searching.

W10Privacy for pro's only. ;)

Windows Firewall Control (WFC) and some timebombs can't trigger aynmore..

 

Last edited: Feb 20, 2023

https://www.coretechnologies.com/products/ServiceCommander/

• Start / stop / restart your important services easily from the Windows Taskbar ("system tray")
• Quickly discover if your important services are running
• Assemble a set of services from any computers on your network - local or remote
• Manipulate all services as a group
• A friendly alternative to the Windows Service Control Manager (SCM)
• Avoid having to rely on the net.exe and sc.exe utilities at the command line

 

Hands down, Calibre is the only e-book management tool out there that does anything useful. I have (an extensive) e-book collection, and it does a great job of tagging, metadata scraping (series, ratings, synopsis, images). But the UI is dreadful, now I'm talking mid 90s dreadful. Fortunately there is a nice solution to this.

https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web

I have this in a Docker container, hosted on AWS and linked through a CDN (Cloudflare), now I have e-books in my pocket wherever I am.

 

Sysinternals Suite - there's so much shit going on in Windows I need a proper diagnostics toolkit

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/

FreeFileSync - this is a multiplatform open-source Compare&Sync utility, because neither Windows File Explorer or MacOS Finder are capable of reliable file operations at larger scales or on external/network locations

https://freefilesync.org/

 

Autoruns, ProcessExplorer, ProcessMonitor

These should be baked into Windows