Making the life of Windows power users easier
Amie
Regular
This thread is meant as a collection of (links to) applications and howto's / guides which make the life of windows power users easier. The main thing to focus on here is how to make windows run better and which applications make your life generally a whole lot easier when using a Windows OS, preferably without paying a dime. I'm far from an expert, but I think I can honestly call myself a power user. Most of what I'm posting here I've learned from surfing the internet, so don't complain when something in here breaks something.
This is NOT meant to be a best media player / best CD burning software / best Windows version / best browser / best anti-malware app thread, so please don't make it into one.
I might put all the links in the first post to make them easy to find and avoid reposts, I might not. Depends on how lazy I am going to be the next couple days.
Ok, let's get started.
Registry cleanup / Windows tweaking apps:
Iobit Advanced Systemcare - free edition: This usually makes Windows run a whole lot better. It optimizes system settings, can identify system chokepoints and turn them off and it cleans your registry - and best of all, there's a free edition without spyware which works very well.
Iobit Smart Defrag - free edition: This nifty little defragmenter not only defragments, but it can also put your most frequently accessed files in the fastest setors of your harddisk. Usually, a deep optimize of the system partition and a regular defrag of data storage partitions makes your computer purr like a kitten.
CCLeaner: Registry and useless files cleaner, always finds a couple things ASC does not find (and the reverse is true too).
Revo Uninstaller - free edition: Uninstalls applications and removes registry keys and left over files which arn't removed by the default uninstaller. In my experience, it works smoother than the ASC uninstaller, I don't know which one deletes most, if you want to, test 'em both in a sandbox on a couple things and post your findings here. Speaking of sandboxes:
Sandboxie: Sandbox for windows: install any apps in the sandbox, they can't touch the rest of your system and once you delete the sandbox they're gone forever. Shareware, will nag you to buy a paid license after 30 days. Very useful for testing applications from unknown / untrusted origins or for example testing the latest firefox beta without messing up your current firefox installation.
File management apps:
Unreal Commander: Unreal Commander is an orthodox file manager for Windows. First: why's an orthodox file manager so great? Well, simply put, it makes file management much easier.:cool: Too much to explain, but trust me, if you often move a lot of files or synchronize directories for backups / over LAN ... you'll love using this. You spend 5 minutes drag-and-dropping everything where it should go, among multiple folders / disks / computers, and the next half hour your computer does those operations one by one. Not like in Windows Explorer, where you have to wait for one operation to finish before starting the next because otherwise it goes excruciatingly slow.
IMO, it looks ugly, and it could launch faster, but it's the best free orthodox file manager I've found so far.It does, among other things:
Doublekiller: Checks which files you have twice and lets you choose which doubles to delete. You can let it search by CRC32 checksum and size, so it will find any file you have twice, even if it's named different. But it takes a while if it has to calculate the checksum of a lot of files.
ICE Mirror: Creates and maintains mirrors of directories. Great tool for keeping backups. Has a couple features Unreal Commander lacks (incremental backups), or I havn't found'em yet in UC.
File recovery / undelete apps:
Often, you'll need to use multiple apps to recover all your files if you've accidentally deleted a lot of files.
Restoration: It displays all recoverable files in one big long list, no directory tree, but it works. One note though: when you recover a folder, every item in that folder and every subfolder is recovered, so don't go selecting anymore subfolders, or you're copying everything two times. Seems obvious, but I made that mistake once.
Recuva: More advanced GUI than Restoration, shows recoverable files in a directory tree rather than a list, and it also works.
Diskdigger: This one is shareware. It works without buying a license, but you get a popup asking for a license key every time you actually recover a file, so only use this for that few files the rest won't find (or if you don't mind paying).
Bootdiscs
Sadly, Microsoft does not give out more advanced live environments than the command line and rescue tools included on a standard Windows install disc. Linux to the rescue!
SystemrescueCD: Great tool, love this thing, for Windows and Linux, too much features to sum up. More advanced file recovery tools than the ones above, but they are command-line only. Oh, you need to be familiar with a Linux command line to use this thing. It has a GUI, but a lot of the more advanced tools are command line only.
UBCD4Win: The Ultimate Boot CD for Windows. I've never used this one personally, never encountered a problem that couldn't be fixed by using the SystemrescueCD up to now, but it gets good reviews, so I have the iso saved just in case.
This is NOT meant to be a best media player / best CD burning software / best Windows version / best browser / best anti-malware app thread, so please don't make it into one.
I might put all the links in the first post to make them easy to find and avoid reposts, I might not. Depends on how lazy I am going to be the next couple days.
Ok, let's get started.
Registry cleanup / Windows tweaking apps:
Iobit Advanced Systemcare - free edition: This usually makes Windows run a whole lot better. It optimizes system settings, can identify system chokepoints and turn them off and it cleans your registry - and best of all, there's a free edition without spyware which works very well.
Iobit Smart Defrag - free edition: This nifty little defragmenter not only defragments, but it can also put your most frequently accessed files in the fastest setors of your harddisk. Usually, a deep optimize of the system partition and a regular defrag of data storage partitions makes your computer purr like a kitten.
CCLeaner: Registry and useless files cleaner, always finds a couple things ASC does not find (and the reverse is true too).
Revo Uninstaller - free edition: Uninstalls applications and removes registry keys and left over files which arn't removed by the default uninstaller. In my experience, it works smoother than the ASC uninstaller, I don't know which one deletes most, if you want to, test 'em both in a sandbox on a couple things and post your findings here. Speaking of sandboxes:
Sandboxie: Sandbox for windows: install any apps in the sandbox, they can't touch the rest of your system and once you delete the sandbox they're gone forever. Shareware, will nag you to buy a paid license after 30 days. Very useful for testing applications from unknown / untrusted origins or for example testing the latest firefox beta without messing up your current firefox installation.
File management apps:
Unreal Commander: Unreal Commander is an orthodox file manager for Windows. First: why's an orthodox file manager so great? Well, simply put, it makes file management much easier.:cool: Too much to explain, but trust me, if you often move a lot of files or synchronize directories for backups / over LAN ... you'll love using this. You spend 5 minutes drag-and-dropping everything where it should go, among multiple folders / disks / computers, and the next half hour your computer does those operations one by one. Not like in Windows Explorer, where you have to wait for one operation to finish before starting the next because otherwise it goes excruciatingly slow.
IMO, it looks ugly, and it could launch faster, but it's the best free orthodox file manager I've found so far.It does, among other things:
- Extended search of files
- Dirs synchronization
- Support of archives ZIP, RAR, ACE, CAB, JAR, TAR, LHA
- Support of LS-plug-ins and WCX-plug-ins
- Build-in viewer and quick view function
- Support Drag and Drop at work with other applications
- History and Hotlist buttons
- Deleting files with WIPE
Doublekiller: Checks which files you have twice and lets you choose which doubles to delete. You can let it search by CRC32 checksum and size, so it will find any file you have twice, even if it's named different. But it takes a while if it has to calculate the checksum of a lot of files.
ICE Mirror: Creates and maintains mirrors of directories. Great tool for keeping backups. Has a couple features Unreal Commander lacks (incremental backups), or I havn't found'em yet in UC.
File recovery / undelete apps:
Often, you'll need to use multiple apps to recover all your files if you've accidentally deleted a lot of files.
Restoration: It displays all recoverable files in one big long list, no directory tree, but it works. One note though: when you recover a folder, every item in that folder and every subfolder is recovered, so don't go selecting anymore subfolders, or you're copying everything two times. Seems obvious, but I made that mistake once.
Recuva: More advanced GUI than Restoration, shows recoverable files in a directory tree rather than a list, and it also works.
Diskdigger: This one is shareware. It works without buying a license, but you get a popup asking for a license key every time you actually recover a file, so only use this for that few files the rest won't find (or if you don't mind paying).
Bootdiscs
Sadly, Microsoft does not give out more advanced live environments than the command line and rescue tools included on a standard Windows install disc. Linux to the rescue!
SystemrescueCD: Great tool, love this thing, for Windows and Linux, too much features to sum up. More advanced file recovery tools than the ones above, but they are command-line only. Oh, you need to be familiar with a Linux command line to use this thing. It has a GUI, but a lot of the more advanced tools are command line only.
UBCD4Win: The Ultimate Boot CD for Windows. I've never used this one personally, never encountered a problem that couldn't be fixed by using the SystemrescueCD up to now, but it gets good reviews, so I have the iso saved just in case.
Comments
Process Monitor: Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity.
All the tools on that site are very good.