Must Have (lesser known) software

[digibucc]

looking for any recommendations, of windows software that is lesser known but in your opinion must have.

i'm not talking about windows or adobe suite here. I'm talking about things like:

yes i am adding contributions to the list, give me time.

Productivity

name	price	description
		Productivity
TeraCopy	Free /$22USD	TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed, providing the user with a lot of features:
Notepad++	Free	God's gift to Windows. Notepad++ is a free as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer" source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.
astrogrep	Free	great windows grep (relative expression searching) port, searches file contents, FAST! supports multiple text editors, including notepad++ , it even opens notepad++ to the specific line and column with the following cmd expression: '-c%3 -n%2 %1' (minus ' single quotes)
ClipMagic	Trial /$15USD	ClipMagic monitors the Windows Clipboard saving everything you copy, keeping it safe for when you need it, and makes it easy to access your clips quickly whatever application you are working in.
Microsoft Visual Studio Express Editions	Free	Everything you need to make non-commercial applications.
EditPlus	Trial/$35USD	Powerful text/script editor. It can even find in files and has its own integrated browser.
Hex Workshop	Trial/$90USD	Powerful binary file editor .

Customization

name	price	description
		Customization
DisplayFusion	Free /$25USD	With powerful features like Multi-Monitor Taskbars, TitleBar Buttons and fully customizable HotKeys, DisplayFusion will make managing your multiple monitors easy
Fences	Free	organizes icons into zones and allows more control and hide with a double click
Windowblinds	Trial /$20USD	Choose from thousands of themes, change their colors, add textures, wallpapers, even start from the default Windows Aero theme if you wish.

Graphics

name	price	description
		Graphics
GreenFish Icon Editor Pro	Free	Powerful image/icon editor.
Paint.NET	Free	Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows.
Gimp for Windows	Free	The Famous Linux graphic software, for windows

Media

name	price	description
		Media
MediaMonkey	Free /$25USD	A skinnable, customizeable, music organization library. It does ids, renaming/moving. folder organization /band/album/song.mp3 or /band/album-song.mp3 etc, totally custom It does file conversion and apple hardware, as well as android, blaclkberry, etc. simply the best library software in existence :
Media jukebox	Free /$40USD	does more then mediamonkey and everything is free. inc. multicore processing, encodes, full DSP, etc). has an even better version called media center (apprx 40USD) that adds video and zones (sending different songs to different rooms [sets of speakers], and tons more!)
MP3Gain	Free	MP3Gain analyzes and adjusts mp3 files so that they have the same volume.
handbrake	Free	Awesome video converter
virtualdub	Free	powerful video editor that's free
Free MP3 WMA Converter	Free	Free MP3 WMA Converter enables you to convert your MP3, WMA, OGG, AAC, Mpc, Ape, FLAC, WAVE files:

Internet

name	price	description
		Internet
Netlimiter	Free /$30USD	internet traffic control and monitoring tool. it lets you limit individual programs or your entire computer to a specific amount of bandwidth, and also has a basic but effective firewall that can block specific applications/services from internet access. The free version is just a monitor with no shaping/firewall capabilities
IDA	Free /$30USD	Internet Download Accelerator effectively solves three of the biggest problems when downloading files: speed, resuming broken downloads, and management of downloaded files. I know everyone has their manager, but i like this one :
w/Flashgot Firefox Plugin	Free	FlashGot is the free add-on for Firefox and Thunderbird, meant to handle single and massive "all" and "selection" downloads with several external Download Managers.
HTTrack	(Free)	HTTrack is a free (GPL, libre/free software) and easy-to-use offline browser utility.
FileZilla	(Free)	Fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS, and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface. FTP server is available, too.
Simple Port Forwarding	(Free)	This one was always a massive help when setting up a customer's PC "to their requirements". Update it, tell it the make + model of your router and your i.p. etc. and it forwards the requested ports on your router for you. I've always d/l'ed from majorgeeks as I didn't trust the look of any other sites that hosted it. Haven't used it for about a year though.

Archiving / Burning / Mounting

name	price	description
		Archiving / Burning / Mounting
7zip	Free	open source archiving software. handles everything, no need for others. free.
Virtual Clone Drive	Free	Mount ISOs , etc as a virtual drive. free.
imgBurn	Free	ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit!
CDBurnerXP	Free	CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface.

System Tools

name	price	description
		System Tools
Yet Another Duplicate File Remover	Free	Another duplicate file finder/remover. But this one is ULTRA FAST, safe, easy to use and of course free and open source.
process explorer	Free	look more into what's ticking on your system. excellent program
BlueScreenView	(Free)	Scans all your minidump files created during "blue screen of death" crashes and marks the drivers found in the crash stack so you can easily locate the suspected drivers that might have caused the crash.
CrystalDiskInfo	(Free)	HDD/SDD health monitoring utility; displays basic drive information, S.M.A.R.T. values, and disk temperature.
CutePDF Printer / GPL Postscript Converter	(Free)	Adds a printer that saves directly to a pdf file when used. free, no watermark, print to pdf.
doPDF	(Free)	Easily create PDF files by selecting the "Print" command from virtually any application.
VMWare	Free /Paid	(anything from them)--->The best virtualization products!
CreateFlashCD	(Free)	Lets you flash the BIOS on a motherboard where flashing by floppy is the only other means. I've needed this program for about the last 10 years! Only really useful if you're working on a lot of customer's old/oem rigs but useful nonetheless.

mostly i'm looking for the type of software you don't know you're missing until you find it,
then you think "wow how did i not know this existed!"

Thank you to everyone who has and will reply, special thanks to: Static~Charge | remixedcat | El Mayo | mlee49 | newtekie | twilyth | FordGT90 | Scaminatrix | Derek12

[newtekie1]

Well you said WinRAR, so I have to say 7zip because it is better.

Richcopy is another one.

Ultramon is essential if you have multiple monitors.

[digibucc]

at first i was going to ask for paid software, to reflect the free list that's stickied, but i don't want to limit it and i'm asking for lesser know software either way.
agreed though, i bought a winrar license before i found 7zip. now as much as it pains me winrar isn't even installed

I use displayfusion instead of ultramon. it gives me multi-monitor taskbars and rotating per monitor backgrounds ... what else does ultra-mon do?

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by digibucc

I use displayfusion instead of ultramon. it gives me multi-monitor taskbars and rotating per monitor backgrounds ... what else does ultra-mon do?

It puts an extra button at the top of every window that when clicked moves the window to the next screen. It also adds a button at the top of every window that lets you maximize the window fill all the screens.

But really I only use it for the same functions you use Displayfusion for.

[Fourstaff]

Denemo http://www.denemo.org/
Lilypond http://lilypond.org/

Useful for editing music, I have not used either but lilypond seems to be the Libre Office of music editing.

[scaminatrix]

CreateFlashCD

Lets you flash the BIOS on a motherboard where flashing by floppy is the only other means. I've needed this program for about the last 10 years! Only really useful if you're working on a lot of customer's old/oem rigs but useful nonetheless.

Simple Port Forwarding

This one was always a massive help when setting up a customer's PC "to their requirements". Update it, tell it the make + model of your router and your i.p. etc. and it forwards the requested ports on your router for you. I've always d/l'ed from majorgeeks as I didn't trust the look of any other sites that hosted it. Haven't used it for about a year though.


Both tools are free.

[Suhidu]

Dexpot, ZBar, PangoBright, Taskbar Shuffle, AeroSnap, Sizer, Speedfan, 1-Click Answers, Link Shell Extension, DVD Shrink, Irfanview, Notepad++, Pixel Ruler, Flux, Air Mouse, Unlocker, Say the Time, VirtualDub, ffdshow, MagicDisc, KchmViewer, Pixeur.

Also, there are some good PowerToys if on XP.

[IlluminAce]

Originally Posted by Suhidu

Notepad++

Suhidu's picked up on a lot of really good apps there, but I thought I'd just emphasize, this is a truly brilliant little application with a justifiably extensive following. If anybody here doesn't use this as their general text editor, do grab it and give it a whirl!

[digibucc]

Originally Posted by IlluminAce

Suhidu's picked up on a lot of really good apps there, but I thought I'd just emphasize, this is a truly brilliant little application with a justifiably extensive following. If anybody here doesn't use this as their general text editor, do grab it and give it a whirl!

for sure. my general text and exclusive php editor. brilliant app.

IZArc - nice shell integrated menus like winrar's and seems to handle the different compression schemes I've thrown at it so far - free.

getFolderSize - free

bulk rename utility - free

fast duplicate file finder - free

m8 - tiny clipboard extender that is mostly bare bones but has some nice features and beats flipping windows - free.

Autoruns for Windows v10.07 - small, free program that I think used to be part of the sysinternals bundle. It finds more startup spam than any other utility I've ever seen.

[DRDNA]

Malwarebytes, Ms Security Essentails, AVAST free, WIndows XP OR Vista or 7 Fire wall(not the built in one)VLC,Steam, Google Earth.SmartDefrag(by Iobits), Yahoo Messenger. CCleaner,Google drive.Fraps, Handbrake,

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by twilyth

Autoruns for Windows v10.07 - small, free program that I think used to be part of the sysinternals bundle. It finds more startup spam than any other utility I've ever seen.

Heck yeah, Autoruns is a definite must! Process Explorer v15 too! I use both of those almost daily when confronted with a "slow" machine.

[Easy Rhino]

Emacs. just sayin...

[newtekie1]

oh, what about VMWare Player? I don't see that mentioned a lot in these types of threads, but I used it all the time when I'm testing things that I'm not quite sure how they wil work, or I just want to play around with an OS that I don't feel like loading onto a real machine. Plus it is free, and probably one of the easiest to use virtualization programs I've seen.

[mlee49]

My favorite lesser known software has to be Real Temp. I use it the most and have it installed on every build I can.

Great support and a great programmer.

[Goodman]

Free...

CDBurnerXP ; to burn CD/DVD
Link: http://cdburnerxp.se/

FLV to AVI ; convert FLV video (Youtube) into AVI , Mpeg , MP3 , DivX , etc..
Link: http://flvtoavi.com/

Winx free DVD Ripper ; rip DVD's in to AVI , DivX , Mpeg4 ,etc...
Link: http://www.winxdvd.com/dvd-ripper/

Realplayer ; let you play music & video's also let you download video's on most site
Link: http://www.real.com/

Core Temp ; let you monitor CPU temp AMD\Intel & also can be add in to gadget bar (Vista/Win7)
Link: http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

[Drone]

nvm

[digibucc]

keep it coming! I am going to format this all into a link list soon.

a great program i forgot is FlashFXP. my personal ftp client of choice, before the free (and good) filezilla.

[Steevo]

People still use winzip and windowsblinds?

[Goodman]

Originally Posted by Steevo

People still use winzip and windowsblinds?

Winzip... what's that?

Last time i used Winzip was back in days of Win98se...

[streetfighter 2]

I thought about it long and hard (for the last 3.5 minutes ) and the only thing I can recommend that I haven't seen mentioned much on this forum is: cygwin.

I know there are a lot of ways to integrate more linux features into Windows but I've found that cygwin has almost everything I need, plus a friendly package manager, and it makes porting apps a nearly trivial matter. It also has a very decent X server, extensive documentation, and a large community.

It's not for everyone obviously, and I still have an Ubuntu VM running perpetually, but it does add a huge amount of tools and capability to Windows.

The only other things I can think of are pretty well known:
Deskpins - For making windows "Always On Top"
VMware workstation - So much win
WinSCP - SSH/SFTP file manager client
I also wrote a blurb about accessing EXT3/EXT4 from Windows, which is something that I need to do from time to time.

Originally Posted by IlluminAce

Suhidu's picked up on a lot of really good apps there, but I thought I'd just emphasize, this is a truly brilliant little application with a justifiably extensive following. If anybody here doesn't use [notepad++] as their general text editor, do grab it and give it a whirl!

The file description for notepad++ should read: God's gift to Windows.

A lot of people don't know but gedit (the classic customizable gnome text editor) is availabe on windows. Just FYI.

[Batou1986]

7zip
imgburn
Virtual Clone Drive
CCleaner
CCCP Codecs
Open Office
Combofix + Malwarebytes will nuke just about any infection.

The most powerful editor I've ever seen is the ISPF editor. It was originally written for the IBM mainframe environment but there is a PC version called SPFSE. There's no point in even looking at it unless you're familiar with ISPF.

It's structured so that you issue commands to manipulate the text from a command line above the text and the text is addressed via row and column position. By using pointers to the row an column in your commands, you can treat any block of text of any size like a matrix where each individual element can be accessed independently.

This sort of off topic in the sense that no one who hasn't worked with ISPF would ever use this, but it's certainly "lesser" known and is the most powerful editing software I've ever used.

[digibucc]

Originally Posted by Steevo

People still use windowsblinds?

what's a good alternative? i have not had luck with uxtheme patcher. i use rainmeter but that can't skin native windows, can it?

[newbsandwich]

Just wanted to say Great thread idea, and Thanks for putting it all together! Nicely done everybody.

Plus wanted to give a bump in case anybody missed this and knew of any other cool programs!