Favorite (Windows) software?

fifted · 10 Jun 2014, 21:54

What Windows software do you use and love? (I'm scoping this to Windows because it's what I use and to focus the conversation; Mac and Linux fans are free to start your own, of course.) I'll start:

Launchy: despite this app's not having been updated in a few years (!), I still use this every day and regularly get comments about it at my tech job.

Spoiler:

Rainmeter: I don't swing very fancy with this, but I use it to put a clock and a "now playing" widget on my third monitor so I can keep tabs on those.

Spoiler:

AutoHotKey: I use this all day, every day. If you're interested, here's the help text I made for myself that shows what I use it for:

Spoiler:

MusicBee: simpler and lighter weight than other music players I've tried, and seems to be getting better all the time! Also includes AutoHotKey support through MusicBeeIPC. (No picture included, since it just looks like every other player but works really well anyway!)

Delluminate for Chrome: I like my monitor dark, and this plugin allows reversing colors of the internet, which is convenient in the extreme.

Grendel · 10 Jun 2014, 22:25

ZTree. Fastest way to manipulate files, been using it for the last 15 or so years (was ZTreeBold back then

Used XTree before that.)

Julle · 10 Jun 2014, 22:44

Process Hacker: great alternative for the default task manager and more versatile than the Sysinternals equivalent.

Spoiler:

Nirsoft RegScanner: Great utility for searching Windows registry for anything. Nir Sofer offers dozens of useful, free little utilities for Windows users.

Foobar2000: In my experience, Foobar2000 is the best audio player for Windows. There's no comparison in terms of versatility, file type support, customization, and system resource usage. This is such a magnificent piece of software it could easily be a dealbreaker for me if I had to switch operating systems (although it's known to run on Wine on Linux).

XonarSwitch. This is a real niche piece of software since it supports Asus Xonar (and some other) soundcards. But this thing is a savior. Asus is awful when it comes to software development, and their drivers and additional control software simply blow diarrhea. XonarSwitch is a utility written by an enthusiast who got frustrated with Asus' incompetence. Therefore he released his own drivers and this control software to complement it. If you have a Xonar soundcard, you should definitely give this utility and the drivers a go.

quantalume · 10 Jun 2014, 22:57

PuTTY. It allows me to SSH into my linux machines.
Cygwin. Gives me a unix-like command-line interface.
Kate. KDE advanced text editor, part of the KDE on Windows system.

Hypersphere · 10 Jun 2014, 23:04

I try to use Windows as little as possible, but there are some programs that are Windows only that I find sometimes useful:

1. Notepad++
2. OriginPro

JBert · 10 Jun 2014, 23:06

Here's my work software:

Total commander.
Browse and edit your files (using tabs) without leaving the keyboard, and at least make it look like a GUI. Enters archive files without trouble, has fuzzy matching and customizable key binds.

Firefox + Vimperator.
Vim keys for browsing? Check.

While we're at it: customized Vim with as few plugins as possible.
Arcane editor. 'nuff said.

TortoiseSVN / TortoiseGit:
Nice-looking version control GUI. Can be automated to be started from Total commander or a command line.

Git Cola:
Multi-platform Git GUI. Because the above combination doesn't work that well on Linux (wine support is a mixed bag) I've grown fond of this one.

ConsoleZ:
Because Command prompt is such a bother. Has tabs, allows to be resized, ...

Process explorer:
Task manager of legend.

PuTTY:
What choice does one have to remotely administer Linux boxen from a Windows machine?

Ack:
grep on steroids. Or at least easier to use, compared to overly-long options.

Notepad++:
For use as a file viewer or for its XML tools (I haven't had the courage to write its commenting functionality in Vim script).

Daniel Beardsmore · 10 Jun 2014, 23:14

True Launch Bar — provides taskbands with module-driven icons, such as the moon phase (using my horribly inaccurate Photographic skin), multi-clipboard, window list, RSS status etc. Coupled with UltraMon, my XP work PC has two dedicated taskbars (one per display), a different Quick Launch taskband on each one, a nice clock on the secondary taskbar (turned off on the primary as I wanted it at the far right) and lots of goodies such as the multi-clipboard and a screenshot-to-disc button. (UltraMon does not appear to be suitable for Windows 7/8 though.)

WizMouse — one of many programs that makes the mouse wheel scroll the window under the cursor. I used to use Tordex Wheel (free with True Launch Bar) but the developer refused to remove the retarded icon that was stuck in the tray and did naff all.

JujuEdit — the most adorably twisted text editor. Aside from the bug where it mistakes some files as Chinese, it will open any file on your PC <= 2 GB instantaneously, as text (if recognised) or as editable hex, and syntax highlighting carries over into hex view. Editing is non-destructive. Syntax highlighting is customisable using a regular expression state machine. Sadly it's long abandoned, as the developer switched to Mac, though it still works mostly OK in Windows 8. Unicode support is limited: no font substitution and all APIs are ASCII, so you can't find or replace Unicode or use it in filenames. It's full of bugs and problems, but nothing else on the planet is just so simple, fast, clean, and ready for you come text or binary. No-one else could ever rewrite this without creating something slow, bloated and overblown. (I have my own copy I copy to new machines with a bad workaround for the broken system menu icon, hence the chunky icon.) I can't have a PC without JujuEdit installed.

Launchy was fun, but for some reason I never really got into it. AutoHotkey and Inkscape of course. foobar2000 is a bit pants but I really appreciate the near-native UI and I've settled with it. 7+ Taskbar Tweaker helps a bit. StrokeIt (seriously) for mouse gestures — having a 4+ button mouse helps there as some programs already use right-drag and systemwide gestures really need a mouse button that is never used for dragging.

Muirium · 10 Jun 2014, 23:42

No love for WinAMP? Admittedly, my Windows days were long ago. How about Kazaa?

fifted · 10 Jun 2014, 23:55

Wow, lots of great material coming out here already!

Grendel wrote:ZTree. Fastest way to manipulate files, been using it for the last 15 or so years (was ZTreeBold back then Used XTree before that.)

Ha, I love that one of its listed features is "No 640K memory barrier".

I also use WinDirStat to look at what's taking up space on my drive.

Muirium wrote:No love for WinAMP? Admittedly, my Windows days were long ago. How about Kazaa?

Yeah, Muirium, right up there with SkiFree.

(ETA: For Muirium: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1990s_software)

Daniel Beardsmore · 11 Jun 2014, 00:04

Muirium wrote:No love for WinAMP?

I still use that sometimes on another computer. I guess I'm a bit ambivalent but foobar2000 is tastefully minimalist. foobar2000 lacks a raise/hide key binding unlike Winamp, so I've used AutoHotkey for that, but instead of hiding it, the window is left on the taskbar.

Compgeke · 11 Jun 2014, 00:28

Hmm...thinking of the stuff I always install:

7-Zip
Hexchat
Filezilla
Chrome
WinDirStat.

002 · 11 Jun 2014, 01:24

Couple of other tools I use sometimes:
Mp3tag
Bulk Rename Utility
Beyond Compare (Not free)
WinGrep (Not sure if this works on Windows 8)
Paint.NET (used to create the Ducky Nordic masterpiece)
Also not sure if this is common knowledge but Adobe Photoshop CS2 is free

http://everytimezone.com/
http://10minutemail.com/10MinuteMail/index.html

SL89 · 11 Jun 2014, 01:28

Writemonkey is the best writing tool i've ever used and probably my fav windows software.

Chromium with Vimium for browsing is pretty much my main tool on my work machine.

EDIT: also uTorrent, BitTorrentSync, Zim, KDE on Windows (mostley for Konversation) Lynx, Scribus. More to come!

Muirium · 11 Jun 2014, 01:35

002 wrote: Also not sure if this is common knowledge but Adobe Photoshop CS2 is free

Legit? If it was CS3 I could even run it on my current Mac (Photoshop was PowerPC only before then). Still using CS1 on my old G4 for occasional photo processing.

Halvar · 11 Jun 2014, 01:42

Total Commander - I've grown addicted to it to the point of lock-in, using it since 1997. One of the main reasons I can't really use anything smaller than a 75% keyboard.

Thunderbird & Firefox: Firefox is not bad enough yet to change to something made by Google, and still there are very good plugins for it.

Visual Studio: has become one of the best software products Microsoft makes IMO. While Office and Windows have taken dubious directions (to put it nicely), Visual Studio has in fact become better and better. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), Microsoft has found enough other means to alienate developers.

Notepad++

JDownloader (actually for perfectly legal stuff)

Keepass for managing passwords (exists for many other platforms, too, including mobile ones)

Teamviewer

XBMC, VLC media player

Drive Bender (drive pooling software)

Halvar · 11 Jun 2014, 01:47

002 wrote: http://everytimezone.com/

http://xkcd.com/1335/

wheybags · 11 Jun 2014, 02:06

Halvar wrote: Visual Studio: has become one of the best software products Microsoft makes IMO. While Office and Windows have taken dubious directions (to put it nicely), Visual Studio has in fact become better and better. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), Microsoft has found enough other means to alienate developers.

I'm not generally a big user of ides, but the vs debugger is excellent.
QTCreator has a frontend for gdb which presents a very similar gui which is also excellent (the only way to use gdb imo)

Muirium · 11 Jun 2014, 02:08

Halvar wrote:
002 wrote: http://everytimezone.com/
http://xkcd.com/1335/

Specifically:

http://xkcd.com/now

Reminds me of the fancy little globe I'd like to see on every chronograph (last century, when they were still nifty). A nice visual, but not nearly as informative as everytimezone's ingenious graphic when it comes to figuring out other times of day than NOW!

Also, as time zones are purely political creations, a map is in fact misleading. Many nations aren't in the right time zone at all, like China (which is crammed into a single timezone when it should really be 4+ zones wide) and Iceland (which is in GMT, so the poor bastards can at least see the winter daylight for one commute), plus all the nonsense about Daylight Savings, which ensures no one map can ever be always accurate. Gah!

SL89 · 11 Jun 2014, 02:11

Muirium wrote:
Halvar wrote:
002 wrote: http://everytimezone.com/
http://xkcd.com/1335/
Specifically:

http://xkcd.com/now

Reminds me of the fancy little globe I'd like to see on every chronograph (last century, when they were still nifty). A nice visual, but not nearly as informative as everytimezone's ingenious graphic when it comes to figuring out other times of day than NOW!

Also, as time zones are purely political creations, a map is in fact misleading. Many nations aren't in the right time zone at all, like China (which is crammed into a single timezone when it should really be 4+ zones wide) and Iceland (which is in GMT, so the poor bastards can at least see the winter daylight for one commute), plus all the nonsense about Daylight Savings, which ensures no one map can ever be always accurate. Gah!

I have a perpetual calendar made from wood and brass, made in 2000 it is re configurable by moving the dial for each month and accurate until 2100 i think.

Muirium · 11 Jun 2014, 02:18

Remember to update it when Scotland and England go their separate ways on timezones! Every year, they threaten to stay on summer time and migrate to CST. So be it! They can have the timezone, and we can take the Euro, suits me!

fifted · 11 Jun 2014, 04:53

KeePass too! I sync it to Dropbox to have it in sync at work and home. (Wow, their official site is a .info domain...)

I use FreeFileSync Portable to sync my external backup hard drive between two computers. Does pretty well, actually.

Also in use for backups is TrueCrypt, and... wait, it seems that TrueCrypt development has been discontinued... in the past month... Hmm. I'm off to the interwebs to do some digging about that.

Re: 10minutemail, I use spamgourmet.com for similar purposes, and it's served me well.

+1 for Vimium and Putty

JBert · 11 Jun 2014, 10:33

Hmmm, I stick to Password Safe for my key encryption needs...
At least it works decent enough in Wine.

7bit · 11 Jun 2014, 12:00

wheybags · 11 Jun 2014, 12:26

7bit wrote:

+10000000

Icarium · 11 Jun 2014, 12:34

wheybags wrote: I'm not generally a big user of ides, but the vs debugger is excellent.

So are you using vim or emacs?

Madhias · 11 Jun 2014, 12:41

MainType (font manager), KeePass (also on Mac and Android), Notepad++, 7Zip, ac'tivAid (all this mouseover stuff), Chrome, some Chrome addons. And of course the reason i never switched to Linux: all these Adobe apps, especially my favourite: Lightroom.

Someone knows the ridiculous Windows God Mode?

Now i fell in love with IRSSI. I love and hate this IRC client at the same time. Maybe this will be again my 97x beginning of trying and using Linux. I completely failed with installing Gentoo at the very beginning: the bootloader.

Icarium · 11 Jun 2014, 12:44

I'm a pretty huge fan of ManicTime, AHK (for neo) and the snipping tool.

Madhias · 11 Jun 2014, 12:45

Snipping Tool i forgot! It's great.

7bit · 11 Jun 2014, 12:46

Emacs, XTerm, Netscape, GIMP, 7bot, LaTeX, ImageMagick, GCC, Penguin Command, Window Maker, ...

Muirium · 11 Jun 2014, 12:47

Don't forget Cygwin, 7bit!