Useful free software thread. List em.... and they must be FREE: MS/XP/Vista only

[M3ta7h3ad]

Surprised these havent made it in this list.

VMWare Server

Microsoft Visual Studio Express (C++, C#, VB.net, SQL Server, MSDN Express/MSDN Library, Visual Web Developer)

http://www.microsoft.com/express/

Oracle 10G Database (Express Edition)
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/xe/index.html


For those of you who use vmware and dont mind trial versions that last 180 days.

Windows 2003 Enterprise R2 with SP2, Windows 2003 Standard R2 with SP2

Windows Server 2008

[Pete]

www.recuva.com - file recovery free.

[Russell]

http://www.desksoft.com/BWMeter.htm - Monitor your WAN/LAN traffic speed & totals independatly, great if you want to keep an eye on how much youve downloaded when you have 1 network card and a router.

[M3ta7h3ad]

Visual ToolTip 2.2 - Brings thumbnail previews of taskbar programs (standard in aero on vista) to XP.



WinBiTs - Allows you to use the same background intelligent transfer service that windows update uses to download files. I use it for large driver downloads that I dont necessarily need whoring my computer when im using it for other stuff at the same time. As its intelligent itll scale network usage as appropriate



Macrium Reflect Free - Creates full partition/drive image backups and provides a linux rescue cd to restore the images. The free version doesnt support incremental backups, so I use 2 old DVD-RWs to store my C: image.



RemoveEmptyDirectories (aka RED) - Does what it says on the tin, scans your partitions for empty directories, and deletes them It tries to do this intelligently and attempts to not delete system stuff, but there is a disclaimer saying that some programs expect there to be an empty directory (for writing logs etc...).

[Bacon]

http://www.filehippo.com/

Cant remember how i found this bookmark, but its useful

[zpyder]

So, when is someone gonna go through the thread and post a list of all these programs sorted by category?

[M3ta7h3ad]

WGet for Windows - Yet another download manager, if any of you are familiar with linux youll likely have used this. Ive mainly used it to process text files of links (as shown below) for iso files to install various versions of linux. Its an absolutely storming program for this, and I basically just copy it into %Windir%\System32\ so I can call it from anywhere as its in the path.

Example input file

Code Select Expand


http://mirror.macs.psu.ac.th/RHEL/RHEL3/rhel-3-U4-i386-as-disc1.iso
http://mirror.macs.psu.ac.th/RHEL/RHEL3/rhel-3-U4-i386-as-disc2.iso
http://mirror.macs.psu.ac.th/RHEL/RHEL3/rhel-3-U4-i386-as-disc3.iso
http://mirror.macs.psu.ac.th/RHEL/RHEL3/rhel-3-U4-i386-as-disc4.iso


[M3ta7h3ad]

So, when is someone gonna go through the thread and post a list of all these programs sorted by category?

May be worth knocking up a quick database of these links. Ill do it tonight if someone can spare me access to phpMyAdmin, and some filespace that supports php.

Edit: f**k it... think ill do one for myself anyway, will host it on my home computer for the time being

[Bacon]

or click this link http://www.filehippo.com/ has most of the general stuff on it already.

[Serious]

http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/

Useful program for those with messy desktops, which used to include me. Put some order into those icons.

basically a nifty use of folders that looks similar to something else I could mention.

[Beaker]

http://store.microsoft.com/Help/ISO-Tool

Microsoft official tool for putting a Windows 7 ISO (any of them) on to a USB stick.  Just used it for 64Bit and 32Bit Win7Pro.  Works fine.  

[Leon]

CBA to go through them all again so will do an updated list of what I just put on my new netbook:

MPC-HC One of the few video players that takes advantage of the ION gpu to play 1080 content without pissing about with codecs.

Battery Bar - Very small and very awesome battery bar.

Virtual Clonedrive My replacement for Deamon Tools, smaller and less ad-ware.

[Beaker]

Virtual Clonedrive My replacement for Deamon Tools, smaller and less ad-ware.

cheers for this, was looking for something to mount the game disks with!  Deamon Tools is a little annoying at times!

[bigsteve]

Vista 64 bit & Win 7 64 bit.
Description & rating for each app.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-windows7-vista-64-bit-software.htm

[Tek_Ed]

http://www.theoldcomputer.com/index.php

Seriously good site for retro gaming with the best collection of roms and emulators Ive ever seen...