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Windows Tools & Add-Ons

(Programs I Personally Use Daily and/or Recommend)
Updated: 04/30/2007

Commercial
Free Tools
(Most are free for Personal Use Only)

Office Tools & Add-Ons

(Both Free and Commercial)

Commercial

BootIt Next Generation (BootIt NG) (BING) is a partition and multi boot manager with a powerful and simple to use set of tools for partitioning, imaging, and multi-booting your computer.  It combines the features of several standalone products costing hundreds of dollars more. Image for Windows (IFW) is a Win32 based backup and restore utility that creates a snapshot of an entire partition or volume to a set of files or directly to most CD-R/RW or DVD writable drives. If something should ever happen to that partition or volume, you'll be able to simply restore the snapshot image. Image for DOS (IFD) is a DOS based backup and restore utility that creates a snapshot of an entire partition or volume to a set of files or directly to most ATAPI or ASPI available CD-R/RW or DVD writable drives. If something should ever happen to that partition or volume, you'll be able to simply restore the snapshot image.* They also have a Free Software and Utilities page to add to or work alongside of BootIt NG. Fred Langa had a nice review of this program in his July 3 Newsletter with both the Good and Bad points. 08/05/2003

Eset's NOD32 Anti-Virus - Founded in 1992 and headquartered in San Diego, Calif., Eset is a global security software solution company that provides next generation virus protection. Eset's award-winning anti-virus software system, NOD32, assures maximum network performance, advanced heuristic detection, and free worldwide support. NOD32 provides enterprise customers with the highest ROI in the industry as a result of increased user compliance, decreased downtime, and higher productivity. NOD32 holds more Virus Bulletin 100% Awards than any other anti-virus product available, consistently detecting all known viruses "in the wild" without false positives. Eset's work with major corporations like Canon, Dell and Microsoft has propelled the company into Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 two years running. Eset is a privately held company with offices in San Diego, US, London, UK, Prague, CZ, and Bratislava, SK.* Updated: 03/17/2005

Flash File Recovery - Flash File Recovery is a nifty application that every photographer should be aware of. Essentially, it can recover any previously deleted image file. Plus, it is capable of salvaging pictures from damaged or corrupted flash drives (including camera's built-in memory) and memory sticks. While camera or storage media failure is a rather rare event, the need to recover intentionally or accidentally deleted picture should be familiar to most camera owners.

The list of supported storage media includes but is not limited to SmartMedia , CompactFlash, Memory Stick, MicroDrive, xD Picture Card Flash Card, PC Card, Multimedia Card, Secure Digital Card, and many others. Flash File Recovery "resurrects" images from formatted, damaged, corrupted (unreadable), or defective storage media.

The program is very simple and straightforward, applying "just press one button" approach to file recovery. more about flash file recovery...* 04/29/2007

Restorer2000 - Have you ever encountered a situation in which you accidentally deleted important files from your hard drive, or due to any reason your hard drive got corrupted and you had to format your drive loosing all your important data / files? Easy to use, Restorer2000 comes to your rescue in such situations. Restorer 2000 with its intuitive interface is the most powerful data recovery tool available in the market, which can recover your accidentally deleted files. It can also even recover data from formatted or corrupted hard drives.* I have not used this program. It was recommended in the 2002-08-26 edition of the LangaList newsletter. They have a Demo version available so you can "try before you buy." The Standard version is $29.99 and the Professional version is $49.99. If it does what it says it does, then it's worth it!

Spy Sweeper - Keep Your PC Safe from Spyware - Spyware grows more sophisticated every day. There's more of it, and it's more malicious than ever before. Experts agree: Spy Sweeper delivers the most advanced spyware detection, blocking and removal available to beat dangerous spyware programs. License for 1 PC - $29.95.* I haven't used this product myself, but Duane, who is a Regular Poster at The Motley Fool, did recently and he was very happy with the results! Updated: 04/30/2007

VisiBone.com - You can learn it. You can use it. But first you really oughta see it. I take great joy in the hope you'll find these printed references and free online resources gratuitously useful in your web design adventures, with Color, HTML, and Style Sheets. Bob Stein* VisiBone.com offers both Commercial and Free products. Bob Stein is truly a professional who cares about his customers. He has responded personally to every e-mail I have sent including when I recently purchased his new Color KiloChart and his HTML Foldout Charts. His level of caring and concern for his customers is amazing! He realizes that his customers are important to him and his business and treats everyone with a respect that is rarely seen any more. The products themselves are created with care and professionalism and are a treat to own. Don't just take my word for it, see what Others Had to Say about his products! I only wish I had purchased them sooner. Way To Go Bob! Last, but not least, you really should check out his Links Page!

Free Tools

7-Zip - 7Zip is an open-source file archiver, that offers a the highest compression ratio, using the new f 7z format, which delivers compression results that are usually 30-50% better than standard ZIP. We tested it with a server log file, which compressed with ZIP had a file size of 18 mb and using 7-Zip was reduced to 8 mb (results may vary, depending on file type). In addition, 7Zip also supports 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB formats, so it can be used with all popular archive files as well. The program offers a basic file explorer interface and also integrates into the Windows right-click menu. It can be associated with any of the supported formats and also offers commandline support. Interface and additional features are fairly basic, but the compression ratio is outstanding.* 7-Zip description by SnapFiles.com 06/07/2003

a-squared HiJackFree - a-squared HiJackFree is a detailed system analysis tool which helps advanced users to detect and remove all types of HiJackers, Spyware, Adware, Trojans and Worms.

Ad-Aware SE Personal - Ad-aware is a free multi spyware removal utility that scans your memory, registry and hard drives for known spyware and scumware components and lets you remove them safely. It is updated frequently. If you are new to Ad-aware, we recommend you read the getting started tutorial.*

Adobe Reader - Download the latest version of Adobe Reader, but beware of all the "extra stuff" they want to install at the same time. Just Say No!* 09/07/2006

Adobe Reader SpeedUp - Adobe Reader SpeedUp is a simple application that was created to help make the loading time of Adobe's Acrobat/Reader software bearable for everyday use. AR SpeedUp only needs to be used once (a process taking only a few seconds) and then your 'Reader will be transformed forever. There are also some tweaking options available. "w00t!", as the young kids say.* This thing works!!! I am amazed at how much faster a PDF file loads now, and that was with just using the Default Settings of the program!!! This is a MUST HAVE tool!!! 10/16/2005

AIDA32 ­- Personal System Information 3.93 (Last Free Version) - AIDA32 is a professional system information, diagnostics and benchmarking program running on Win32 platforms. It extracts details of all components of the PC. It can display information on the screen, print it, or save it to file in various formats like HTML, CSV or XML. For corporate users, AIDA32 offers command-line switches, network audit and audit statistics, remote system information and network management.* 02/05/2007

Anim8or - Anim8or is a 3D modeling and character animation program that I have written over the past couple of years, not as a commercial endeavor, but because I love 3D graphics, animation, and programming. While it is far from a complete professional level application like 3DStudio MAX or Lightwave, I believe that it has enough capability to be of use to others.*

Atomic Clock Sync - TourDeFarce says;
Synopsis: Atomic Clock Sync (hereafter referred to only as "Atomic") is a free Windows utility used to sync your PC's clock with that of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) time servers.
System Requirements: Windows NT/95 or above.
Help/Support: Little (just a "readme" file, but not really needed)
GUI: Simple and very readily understood (to the point where explaining it is truly unnecessary).
Usability: Excellent; each function is readily understood.
Functions: Provides the user a way to sync the PC clock with the NIST time servers. The user can either do this explicitly (by clicking on an option) or set an option to have the PC clock adjusted automatically on a daily basis.* 09/12/2006

Auslogics Disk Defrag - Hard disks are by far the slowest component in your computer. CPU and memory work much faster than hard disks because they do not have moving parts. Therefore fragmented disks often become a bottleneck of the system performance.

Besides causing slowdowns, fragmentation makes the disk drive heads move too much when reading files which leads to freeze-ups and system crashes. It is important to keep your disks defragmented and optimized as much as possible.

Auslogics Disk Defrag was designed to remedy system sluggishness and crashes caused by disk fragmentation. It is optimized to work with today's modern hard disks. Auslogics Disk Defrag is extremely simple to use, does not require any analysis phase and is faster than most of the other disk defragmentation software. It will help you get the maximum performance out of your expensive hardware investments. And, what’s most important, it's absolutely free.* 09/02/2009

AutoSizer - Keep Internet Explorer Maximized - AutoSizer automatically resizes programs for you, keeping them at a specific size or keeping them maximized. One popular use is to keep Internet Explorer Maximized when you go on the web. It works with most programs, including Notepad, web browsers, and many others.* 12/03/2006

AVG Anti-Virus - AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is one of the most popular solutions to provide basic security protection on home and non-commercial PCs. We invite you to join the millions of users around the world who rely on AVG's unique award-winning detection methods by downloading AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition.* - I'm currently using the freebie version of AVG on all four of my personal PCs and it works great! Updated: 04/29/2007

AVS Disc Creator - Write your data to CD, DVD and Blu-ray Discs quickly and easily using FREE AVS Disc Creator. The first and the only one free Blu-ray Disc burning software in the international market of multimedia solutions today!

Simple and intuitive interface, fast performance, a variety of features and supported media types make AVS Disc Creator a most convenient software to create data CD and DVD.* 04/14/2006

Bart's Boot Disks - Bart's way of creating bootable CDs is not just another way, it is "THE SOLUTION" for your company.*

Bazooka™ Adware and Spyware Scanner - Bazooka™ Adware and Spyware Scanner! detects a multitude of spyware, adware, trojan, keylogger, foistware and trackware components; sources of irritation that antivirus software does not deal with. The scanning process will only take about two seconds and tell you how to uninstall the potentially unwanted applications using simple step-by-step instructions or put you in contact with the vendor for the most up-to-date and safe uninstall instructions.

Spyware and adware is often bundled with software such as Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster, Imesh, Xolox, Gnutella and a myriad of other programs, and in many cases installed without your knowledge. Some send information about your surfing habits to ad companies, which target you with popup ads that fit your preferences.

Bazooka™ Adware and Spyware Scanner search for CoolWebSearch, Gator, GAIN, Bargain Buddy, CommonName, FlashTrack, IPInsight, n-CASE, SaveNow, Wurldmedia, etc. The complete list is available in the online encyclopedia. To stay up-to-date with the new spyware and adware the latest detection definition is always available from the Bazooka web site.

Bazooka™ is freeware and Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP compatible.*

Belarc Advisor - Free Personal PC Audit - Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, including Microsoft Hotfixes, and displays the results in your Web browser. All of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent to any web server. Operating Systems: Runs on Windows 95/98/Me, NT 4, Windows 2000, XP and Windows Server 2003. Browsers: Requires IE 3 or Netscape 3, and higher versions. Also runs on Opera.* 06/23/2003

BootPart: Boot Partitions for WinNT - BootPart is an easy tool for adding additional partitions to the Windows NT multi boot menu (for example, add the OS/2 boot manager or a Linux partition). Bootpart is compatible with Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. BOOTPART lets you add partitions to the Windows NT/2K/XP Multiboot menu. Usually, you will only have a MSDOS or Windows 95 entry and one (or several) Windows NT entries on this boot menu. With BOOTPART, you may add any partition to the menu. You may add an OS/2 Multiboot partition, or a Linux Partition (with Lilo) to this menu. The only thing I highly suggest is : your active partition on your first hard disk must be a FAT16 primary partition. This may be a small partition.* 06/07/2003

BootVis.exe Tool for System Manufacturers - Bootvis.exe is a performance tracing and visualization tool that Microsoft designed to help PC system designers and software developers identify performance issues for boot/resume timing while developing new PC products or supporting software.

Please note that Bootvis.exe is not a tool that will improve boot/resume performance for end users. Contrary to some published reports, Bootvis.exe cannot reduce or alter a system's boot or resume performance. The boot optimization routines invoked by Bootvis.exe are built into Windows XP. These routines run automatically at pre-determined times as part of the normal operation of the operating system.*

I've tinkered a bit with BootVis in the past, but have not really "tested" the program to see how well it would or would not work for speeding up the Boot-Up of the computer, however, a visitor to my web site, Eric, Owner of the web site TruthSaves.org, wrote to me to say, "Bootvis DOES work for the end user. I have a fairly new dell . . . high performing machine. However, the bootup times slowed considerably and for the life of me, I could not figure out what was slowing things down. I tried EVERYTHING - believe me. I couldn't stand the 1 to 2 minute bootup time. Finally, I tried bootvis - I deleted all the contents of the prefetch folder first, then ran it to optimize my system and voila! my system was back to about a 37 second startup time - just like when I bought it. Since then, the mysterious slowdown has occurred one other time, and again, Bootvis fixed theproblem, whatever it was. Believe me - bootvis was my saving grace!"* Updated: 06/05/2006

BugMeNot.com - BugMeNot was created as a mechanism to quickly bypass the login of web sites that require compulsory registration and/or the collection of personal/demographic information (such as the New York Times). Disposable Email Addresses - Tired of disclosing your real email address to anyone who asks? Introducing free, disposable email addresses from bugmenot: http://email.bugmenot.com* Updated: 04/29/2007

Cathy - An extremly small, very fast and easy to use media cataloging tool. You can use it to index files stored on removable media (CD-ROMs, LS120, Iomega Zip and Jaz disks, or even diskettes), hard disks or net drives, and create searchable catalogs that can be used without having access to original media. Searching capabilities are based on file name, date and size. Additional features include filtering options, search duplicates or singles, customizable date format, etc. Found files can be opened (executed) or deleted directly, if they are present. Drag&drop support. Directory trees, MP3 album/song lists can be printed, disk space usage can be investigated. Single file executable, no install needed.* 02/26/2007

CCleaner - CCleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less that a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware!* 03/22/2006

CDBurnerXP Pro - CDBurnerXP Pro is a free CD/DVD burning solution. - With this software you can burn CD-R, CD-RW DVD+R/RW DVD-R/RW discs. All features in detail you can read on the features page.* 11/12/2006

CleanUp! - CleanUp! is a powerful and easy-to-use application that removes temporary files created while surfing the web, empties the Recycle Bin, deletes files from your temporary folders and more. CleanUp! frees disk space and reduces the "clutter" on your computer helping it to run more efficiently. It also can be used as a way to protect your privacy on the Internet. You can even instruct CleanUp! to securely delete files making it impossible to retrieve their contents using lower-level disk tools - just another way of protecting your privacy. www.StevenGould.org - Protecting Your Privacy and Security Online!* Updated: 04/29/2007

Crimson Editor - Crimson Editor is a professional source code editor for Windows. - This program is not only fast in loading time, but also small in size (so small that it can be copied in one floppy disk).

While it can serve as a good replacement for Notepad, it also offers many powerful features for programming languages such as HTML, C/C++, Perl and Java.* 02/28/2006

CutePDF - Portable Document Format (PDF) is the de facto standard for the secure and reliable distribution and exchange of electronic documents and forms around the world. CutePDF Writer (formerly CutePDF Printer) is the free version of commercial PDF creation software. CutePDF Writer installs itself as a "printer subsystem". This enables virtually any Windows applications (must be able to print) to create professional quality PDF documents - with just a push of a button! FREE for personal and commercial use! No watermarks! No Popup Web Ads!* 07/05/2006

DeepBurner - Powerful CD and DVD Burning Package - DeepBurner is an advanced and extremely powerful CD and DVD burning package. It even removes the hassle of making autoruns, creating and printing your own labels and booklets. Burn any data, copy any disc, make backups, create astonishing photo albums, make ISO images and Video DVDs with this very easy to handle professional software!

Currently, there are two versions of the program: DeepBurner Pro and DeepBurner Free.

Powerful AudioCD Ripping Utility - DeepRipper is freeware that can convert music files from AudioCDs into practically any format you'd like, including: MP3, WAV, OGG, and others. DeepRipper offers sophisticated encoding settings, but comes with ready made embedded sound quality presets. DeepRipper is a stand-alone application and doesn't need DeepBurner to run.* 11/27/2006 F & $

Delpart - Going nuts because you can't fdisk a Windows 2000, NT, or XP drive? Don't feel stupid....it just won't work until you kill the NTFS partition with another utility.

Here's a partitioning tool useful when you need to clear NTFS partitions from NT or W2K drives and reinstall Windows 95/98/Millennium. Place it on your boot floppy and run it to delete the NT partitions which defy Fdisk.exe. Then reboot and use fdisk to create your Windows partitions. Delpart comes from the old NT 3.1 CD or Resource Kit and is a very useful file when you need it.* 07/10/2003

DeskTask - DeskTask connects to Microsoft Outlook and displays your calendar and task items on the desktop. - Microsoft Outlook 2000 / XP / 2003 / 2007 Beta 2

Doc Scrubber - Analyze and scrub hidden and potentially embarassing data in Word documents.

Word Documents can contain all sorts of extra data, commonly referred to as "metadata". This data can include:

EasyCleaner - EasyCleaner is a small program which searches Windows' registry for entries that are pointing nowhere. EasyCleaner also lets you delete all kinds of unnecessary files like temps, backups etc. You can search for duplicate files and you can view some intresting info about your disk space usage! You are also able to manage startup programs, invalid shortcuts and add/remove software list. ToniArts may not be held accountable in any way if EasyCleaner affects your computer in a negative way.* I'd, personally, suggest NOT using the "Duplicates" feature as there are duplicate files in MS OSes for a reason! 04/24/2004

Easy Thumbnails - Easy Thumbnails is a popular free utility for creating accurate thumbnail images and scaled-down/up copies from a wide range of popular picture formats. An elegant interface makes it a snap to find your images and select them for processing individually, in groups, or in whole folders, using a simple file selector and built-in image viewer. You can use slider controls to rotate images and adjust their contrast, brightness, sharpness and quality, and check out the results with the built-in viewer.* And, here's an Easy Thumbnails Tutorial. 02/26/2006

Error Messages for Windows - Error Messages for Windows is a small utility that will allow you to look up MS Windows error code numbers and display a descriptive message explaining what the numeric code actually means. If you have software programs that produce numeric error codes now you can find out what they really mean.

Error Messages for Windows also provides a facility to display and print all of the error codes and messages defined for your version of MS Windows.

Error Messages for Windows will run on MS Windows XP, Millennium Edition and 98 as well as MS Windows 2000 and 95/NT systems.* 10/14/2005

EULAlyzer - EULAlyzer can analyze license agreements in seconds, and provide a detailed listing of potentially interesting words and phrases. Discover if the software you're about to install displays pop-up ads, transmits personally identifiable information, uses unique identifiers to track you, or much much more.* 09/24/2006

FileZilla - FileZilla is a fast and reliable FTP client and server with lots of useful features and an intuitive interface.* Popular, easy to use, and works great. 04/23/2004

Firefox - Firefox - The award-winning Web browser is now faster, more secure, and fully customizable to your online life. With Firefox 2, we’ve added powerful new features that make your online experience even better.* Updated: 04/29/2007

Foxit Reader - If you have ever had to read a PDF file on a PC that doesn't have a PDF reader installed, then Foxit Software's Foxit Reader is for you. At less than 3MB installed (a single executable file), Foxit Reader is a lean, mean, PDF-reading machine. Compare this with 10-20MB just to download Adobe reader. Don't get me wrong, I use Adobe's products on all of my systems; but I also work on systems in secure networks where I don't have authorization to install software without approval. And since I carry lots of documentation and troubleshooting checklists in PDF format on my USB thumb drive, I'm stymied when I come upon one of these systems.* Read More... 01/29/2006

Gadwin PrintScreen - Want to create a screenshot suitable for saving or printing? Then just hit a key on your keyboard. Oh yeah, you'll have to download this program first.

There are several hotkey combos to choose from (PrintScreen is the default). Once you've chosen your favorite combo, head to the Destination tab and have the screen print out instantly, copy the capture to the clipboard, save it to a specific folder, or even send it through e-mail. You can perform full screen captures, or only capture a specific window.

There are also six different image formats to choose from, and each one can be resized. With all the customization capabilities, what more could you ask for?* 01/08/2007

GIMP - GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. This is the main site for online viewing/reading of the Gimp User's Manual. You will also find downloadable versions in both HTML and PDF format. The Gimp User's manual is also available as a paperback in English and as a hardcover in German.* There is also an awesome book for the GIMP, Grokking the GIMP by Carey Bunks, that is a MUST READ for using the GIMP! 07/12/2003

GraphCalc - In January of 1999 GraphCalc started as a project to keep us occupied when we were not busy with other commitments. We have been working hard on it, some say too hard, to make a simple and easy to use graphing calculator for windows that is rich in features. If the Windows calculator just isn't getting the job done, or you don't want to pay $100 for a little monochrome display handheld calculator, download GraphCalc for free and see for yourself how easy it is to graph an equation or find out what 345.4327 is in binary!* I downloaded this several years ago for my Sons to use in High School and it's still an awesome, free Graphing Calculator, even though it hasn't been upgraded since 2003!

Grammarcheck.net - A grammar check can come in handy for anyone. Like many, you probably learned many of the grammar rules all throughout your school years. Also, like many, you’ve likely forgotten much of what you learned. Where does the comma go, for instance? Is ending your sentences with a proposition really that bad a practice? Are there hard and fast rules for when to use who, that or which? All of these questions, as well as many more, can plague both amateur and professional writers. Doing a grammar and spell check, all online, helps to settle these questions and give you more confidence in your writing.* An Online grammar checker that's free. Another MUST SEE TOOL! Check out their Blog too. 08/24/2012 F

HDD Health - HDD Health is a full-featured failure-prediction agent for machines using Windows 95, 98, NT, Me, 2000 and XP. Sitting in the system tray, it monitors hard disks and alerts you to impending failure. The program uses Self Monitoring and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) built into all new hard disks, and can predict failures on your hard drives. A host of alerting features include email, local pop-up messages, net messages, and event logging, while using no system resources.* 07/12/2003

HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - CPU Mags says: "As amazing as it sounds, Windows doesn’t include a way to make a bootable flash drive or USB thumb drive, but it’s clearly possible. You could follow several complicated tutorials on the subject, but the easiest method comes from HP in the form of its USB Disk Storage Format Tool (aka SP27608.exe). Just install it, point it to the system files from a bootable floppy disk (hint: bootdisk.com has dozens of different ones), and then unleash it on a flash drive. (It also works with conventional memory cards.) With just five clicks and 10 seconds, you wind up with a bootable flash drive, suitable for updating BIOSes, running Norton Ghost, etc."* 09/02/2009

HTML Photo Gallery Cataloger - The HTML Photo Gallery Cataloger software can create a photo gallery of all of the .Jpg and .Gif files in a folder and its subfolders. Thumbnails of the pictures are created, and web page navigation files are created. Navigation includes arrow key recognition. Custom picture descriptions can be included by placing a DirInfo.txt file in each folder. See the distribution page for the installation file.* This program and a few more are available at Dr. Matthew E. Monroe's Web Site. Updated: 04/29/2007

ieSpell - ieSpell is a free Internet Explorer browser extension that spell checks text input boxes on a webpage. It should come in particularly handy for users who do a lot of web-based text entry (e.g. web mails, forums, blogs, diaries). Even if your web application already includes spell checking functionality, you might still want to install this utility because it is definitely much faster than a server-side solution. Plus you get to store and use your personal word list across all your applications, instead of maintaining separate ones on each application.

The program installs as a new button in the IE toolbar (as well as a new menu item under "Tools") - after filling in a form, just hit the ieSpell button and it pops up a dialog, similar to the MS Word spell check. ieSpell also works (right-click menu only) on other IE based browsers such as SlimBrowser, CrazyBrowser, MSN, etc.* 03/15/2004

ImageMagik - ImageMagick® is a software suite to create, edit, and compose bitmap images. It can read, convert and write images in a variety of formats (about 100) including DPX, GIF, JPEG, JPEG-2000, PDF, PhotoCD, PNG, Postscript, SVG, and TIFF. Use ImageMagick to translate, flip, mirror, rotate, scale, shear and transform images, adjust image colors, apply various special effects, or draw text, lines, polygons, ellipses and Bézier curves.

The functionality of ImageMagick is typically utilized from the command line or you can use the features from programs written in your favorite programming language. Choose from these interfaces: G2F (Ada), MagickCore (C), MagickWand (C), ChMagick (Ch), ImageMagickObject (COM+), Magick++ (C++), JMagick (Java), L-Magick (Lisp), nMagick (Neko/haXe), MagickNet (.NET), PascalMagick (Pascal), PerlMagick (Perl), MagickWand for PHP (PHP), PythonMagick (Python), RMagick (Ruby), or TclMagick (Tcl/TK). With a language interface, use ImageMagick to modify or create images automagically and dynamically.

ImageMagick is free software delivered as a ready-to-run binary distribution or as source code that you can freely use, copy, modify, and distribute. Its license is compatible with the GPL. It runs on all major operating systems.

Features and Capabilities - Here are just a few examples of what ImageMagick can do:

Imgburn - ImgBurn carries on from where DVD Decrypter left off! (Well, for the burning part anyway!)

ImgBurn can write most types of CD / DVD images and it supports all the latest writers (including booktype / bitsetting on many of the major ones - i.e. BenQ, LiteOn, NEC, Plextor, Sony). You can even use ImgBurn to erase / format your rewritable media!

ImgBurn will try its very best to burn your DVD-Video double layer images using the layer break you've specified in the IFO files, but it can also calculate the best place for you, to save you the trouble.

Advanced functionality can be found in context menus that appear when you right click on various bits of the user interface. Can you find them all??!!* 11/12/2006

IrfanView 32 - IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE (for non-commercial use) graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP. Some IrfanView features: Many supported file formats (click here the list of formats), Multi language support, Thumbnail/preview option, Slideshow (save slideshow as EXE/SCR or burn it to CD), Drag & drop support, Fast directory view (moving through directory), Batch conversion (with image processing), Email option, Multimedia player, Print option, Change color depth, Scan (batch scan) support, Cut/crop, IPTC editing, Effects (Sharpen, Blur, Photoshop filter factory), Capturing, Extract icons from EXE/DLL/ICLs, Lossless JPG rotation, Many hotkeys, Many command line options, Many plugins, Only one EXE-File, no DLLs, no Shareware messages like "I Agree" or "Evaluation expired," No registry changes without user action/permission, and many more!* This is a great freeware graphics program!

ISO Recorder - ISO Recorder is a tool (power toy) for Windows XP, 2003 and now Windows Vista, that allows (depending on the Windows version) to burn CD and DVD images (DVD support is only available on Windows Vista), copy disks, make images of the existing data CDs and DVDs and create ISO images from a content of a disk folder.

ISO Recorder has been conceived during Windows XP beta program, when Microsoft for the first time started distributing new OS builds as ISO images. Even though the new OS had CD-burning support (by Roxio), it did not have an ability to record an image. ISO Recorder has filled this need and has been one of the poular Windows downloads ever since.* 11/12/2006

KeePass Password Safe - KeePass is a free/open-source password manager or safe which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key-disk. So you only have to remember one single master password or insert the key-disk to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish).* 02/14/2007

Kerio Personal Firewall - Kerio Technologies Inc. is a major provider of Internet security software for small to medium sized networks. Our solutions protect local networks and personal computers from Internet threats and offer a secure environment for corporate messaging and communication needs.

Kerio Technologies offers a 30-day trial of its products in the hopes that all customers will evaluate the software before making a purchasing decision. For this reason, we maintain a strict no-refund policy.

Kerio Personal Firewall is FREE for home and personal use. For corporate use please see the pricing and licensing policies section.

For home users, Kerio Personal Firewall 4 is available in two flavors - the full edition and the limited free edition.

After installation, KPF works as the full edition for 30 days, after which it becomes the limited free edition.

Limited free edition does not provide the content filtering capabilities such as blocking pop-up windows, ads, VB scripts, cookies, etc. and other extra features. Please see the comparison table for more details.* Sunbelt has acquired Kerio Personal Firewall - Dec 20, 2005 - "Sunbelt Software completes acquisition of Kerio Personal Firewall from Kerio Technologies" - Today we announced the completion of our acquisition of the Kerio Personal Firewall and the Kerio Server Firewall.* I am personally still using the older 2.1.5 version of Kerio on my personal computers. Updated: 08/19/2009

KillProcess - KillProcess lets you create an list of processes that should be destroyed and then perform an "batch-type" run on the list, killing of all of the processes listed.

The KillProcess application can terminate almost any application on an PC running Microsoft Windows, including Windows Services and applications being debugged (but not while at a breakpoint) in a matter of millisecond. This is more powerful than the Windows TaskManager, which also has an delay to wait for applications to "die" gracefully. KillProcess is also free from stupid questions that asks you if you are really sure that you now what you are doing (well there actually is such questions, but you can disable them). The Windows TaskManager also cannot terminate multiple processes at the same time, which is something that KillProcess is really good at! Either have the processes in your kill list, or select them in the process list and "kill" them manually.

KillProcess includes a nifty process tracker, which can prevent any process in the system from starting to execute, and thus releasing precious CPU resources to applications that should be running instead. This is great if you for some reason would like to prevent the network administrator from running a nasty virus scan application on your computer while you are making a huge animation or code compilation that consumes a lot of computer resources.* 07/27/2006

K-Lite Codec Pack - The K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools. Codec is short for Compressor-Decompressor. Codecs are needed for encoding and decoding (playing) audio and video. The K-Lite Codec Pack is designed as a user-friendly solution for playing all your movie files. With the K-Lite Codec Pack you should be able to play all the popular movie formats and even some rare formats.

There are three versions of the K-Lite Codec Pack: Basic, Standard and Full.* Updated: 11/01/2005

Look@LAN Network Monitor - Award-winning Look@LAN Network Monitor 2.50 Build 35 is still available for download but is no more supported. For your information, Look@LAN is used today by more than 300,000 people around the globe and we understand that you rely on this product and we're doing every possible efforts to soon present new version of the product along with several complementary tools and solutions such as Medas VNS (a SNMP-based bandwidth monitor/traffic analyzer). If you'd like to become a beta tester for new upcoming products, please feel free to contact us by email.

World's Faster Network Monitoring software, it allows you to monitor your LAN or your network in few clicks. It is an advanced network monitor, that is easy to use and automatically detects and analyzes your network nodes, including operating system. The program can monitor the nodes and alert you of any changes (new nodes, offline nodes etc.). The main window lists all available nodes and detailed statistics and scan results are available for each individual machine, including a real-time traceroute report, ping results, active services (open ports) and more.* Updated: 04/29/2007

MailWasher - Introducing MailWasher, the leader in spam blocker software, and the easiest way to check and manage your e-mails before you download them.

MailWasher is free to use and won't ever expire.

Use this powerful anti spam software, a reliable spam blocker, that will effectively stop email spam. Discover the safe way to stop unwanted e-mails before they get to your computer.

No gimmicks here, it is so easy to set up and use that you'll be managing your email like a pro in seconds. It can even be used as an effective privacy tool.

I think you will find this to be the easiest, most effective way to manage your incoming e-mails and stop spam. You will be amazed at how quickly you will like using MailWasher.*

MAX's HTML Beauty++ 2004 - MAX's HTML Beauty++ 2004 is advanced HTML editor that can edit as many files at a time as you want, plus it has advanced customizable syntax highlighting, undo / redo, drag & drop editing, right-click tag editing, extended find & replace, template support, project management, auto updating code snippets, code library, tag case changing capability, spelling & grammar check and more... There are also 28 Tag Designers for almost every HTML tag, a Power Toolbar that contains almost all HTML tags, Built-In Image Browser / Viewer with GIF Optimize function and ability to convert images to WBMP image format which is used by WAP-compatible mobile phones, Built-In JavaScript Beauty Scripts (rollovers, slideshows, etc.), Built-In Support for HTML TIDY, Internal Preview using Internet Explorer and Mozilla and much more...* 09/27/2005

Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP - PowerToys add fun and functionality to the Windows experience. What are they? PowerToys are additional programs that developers work on after a product has been released.

Note: We take great care to ensure that PowerToys work as they should, but they are not part of Windows and are not supported by Microsoft. For this reason, Microsoft Technical Support is unable to answer questions about PowerToys. PowerToys are for Windows XP only and will not work with Windows Vista.* 04/30/2007

MWSnap - MWSnap is a small yet powerful Windows program for snapping (capturing) images from selected parts of the screen.

Current version is capable of capturing the whole desktop, a highlighted window, an active menu, a control, or a fixed or free rectangular part of the screen. MWSnap handles 5 most popular graphics formats and contains several graphical tools: a zoom, a ruler, a color picker and a window spy. It can be also used as a fast picture viewer or converter.

MWSnap does not require installation and does not need any special dlls, drivers or system files which can mess up your system.* This is the screen capture program I use today. Updated: 05/15/2009

NetStat Live - Have you ever wondered just how fast your network connection is? Not just how fast the modem is connected at, but how much data you can actually get? Does your internet connection sometimes seem slower than normal? Forget hacking the registry or using counter-intuitive tools to get the information you want - enter the world of AnalogX NetStat Live (NSL)! NSL is a small, easy to use TCP/IP protocol monitor which can be used to see your exact throughput on both incoming and outgoing data - whether you're using a modem, cable modem, DSL, or even local network! NSL doesn't just stop there, it lets you see how quickly your data goes from your computer to another computer on the internet; it even will tell you how many other computers your data must go through to get there! But wait - there's more! NSL also graphs your CPU usage of your system! This can be especially useful in identifying if your computer is what's slowing things down, or if it's your internet connection.* If you want accurate speed test results, you've got to test at your PC, not across the Internet. That's where NetStat Live shines! 06/17/2003

Network Magic - We all love our home networks – when they're working. Managing and securing your home network can be messy and time-consuming, even for the more advanced of us. That's why we created Network Magic. It lets you easily manage, secure and do more with your home network.* 09/24/2006

NTFS Reader for DOS - NTFS Reader for DOS provides read access to NTFS drives from the MS DOS environment. It supports long filenames as well as compressed and fragmented files. NTFS Reader for DOS allows you to preview the files on NTFS and copy them from NTFS to FAT volumes or network drives. In order to use the software you need to copy the readntfs.exe file to a bootable floppy disk and boot from it.* 07/12/2003

Nvu - Finally! A complete Web Authoring System for Linux Desktop users as well as Microsoft Windows and Macintosh users to rival programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver. Nvu (pronounced N-view, for a "new view") makes managing a web site a snap.  Now anyone can create web pages and manage a website with no technical expertise or knowledge of HTML.* 09/27/2005

Offline NT Password Editor - Forgot your NT admin password? - Reinstall? Oh no... But not any more...

OpenOffice.org - To create, as a community, the leading international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format.

PageDefrag - One of the limitations of the Windows NT/2000 defragmentation interface is that it is not possible to defragment files that are open for exclusive access. Thus, standard defragmentation programs can neither show you how fragmented your paging files or Registry hives are, nor defragment them. Paging and Registry file fragmentation can be one of the leading causes of performance degradation related to file fragmentation in a system.

PageDefrag uses advanced techniques to provide you what commercial defragmenters cannot: the ability for you to see how fragmented your paging files and Registry hives are, and to defragment them. In addition, it defragments event log files and Windows 2000/XP hibernation files (where system memory is saved when you hibernate a laptop).

PageDefrag works on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Server 2003.* 08/13/2004

Password Agent - Password Agent is a secure password manager program that allows you to store all your passwords, secret notes and data snippets in a single, easy to navigate, and secure database. Too many passwords to remember? Pieces of paper that you once used to write down your important account information are lost? Want to find required password quickly? Password Agent keeps track all of your different passwords - no problems, no worries. And, it keeps strangers away from accessing your private information.

Password Agent Lite is completely free, and allows you to store up to 25 entries per file. It has no other limitations! If you need to store more entries, you can purchase the Unlimited version for only $24.95. The Unlimited version can store virtually an unlimited number of entries. * 09/02/2006

Password Safe - Many computer users today have to keep track of dozens of passwords: for network accounts, online services, premium web sites. Some write their passwords on a piece of paper, leaving their accounts vulnerable to thieves or in-house snoops. Others choose the same password for different applications, which makes life easy for intruders of all kinds.

With Password Safe, a free Windows utility designed by Bruce Schneier, users can keep their passwords securely encrypted on their computers. A single Safe Combination--just one thing to remember--unlocks them all.

Password Safe protects passwords with the Blowfish encryption algorithm, a fast, free alternative to DES. The program's security has been thoroughly verified by Counterpane Labs under the supervision of Bruce Schneier, author of Applied Cryptography and creator of the Blowfish algorithm.

Password Safe features a simple, intuitive interface that lets users set up their password database in minutes. You can copy a password just by double-clicking, and paste it directly into your application. Best of all, Password Safe is completely free: no license requirements, shareware fees, or other strings attached.* 04/01/2006

PC De-Crapifier - The PC De-Crapifier is designed to remove a specific list unwanted software in an unattended fashion. Before running, the user may select exactly what software should be removed. Currently, it is targeted for use on most Dell machines; however it will theoretically run on anything that has the software listed below.* 07/27/2006

PDFCreator - PDFCreator easily creates PDFs from any Windows program. Use it like a printer in Word, StarCalc or any other Windows application.* 09/08/2006

pdfforge.org - pdfforge.org is a site dedicated to our OpenSource projects that will help you in forging PDFs just as they are supposed to be. To get an overview have a look at our products.* 07/05/2006

PDF reDirect - PDF reDirect achieves best value by being the only free PDF Writer that allows you to:

Picasa - Picasa is software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC. Every time you open Picasa, it automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you will recognize. You can drag and drop to arrange your albums and make labels to create new groups. Picasa makes sure your pictures are always organized.* 02/01/2005

POPFile - POPFile is an automatic mail classification tool. Once properly set up and trained, it will work in the background of your computer, scanning mail as it arrives and filing it however you wish. You can give it a simple job, like separating out junk e-mail, or a complicated one - like filing mail into a dozen folders. Think of it as a personal assistant for your inbox. Created by John Graham-Cumming who also wrote The Spammers' Compendium - Being a public exposition of tricks, secret ploys, ruses and techniques employed by those that send many scurrilous messages through the ether using the mysteries of electronics and other modern marvels to dazzle the eye, lighten the wallet and clog the recipient.

Outclass provides POPFile's functionality natively to Outlook. What does this mean? It means that you can use the power of POPFile to classify any email you receive using Microsoft Outlook. This includes IMAP-based email and Exchange-based email as well as any other types that may be supported via Office add-ins (theoretically, anyway).

Outclass has been tested with Outlook 2000 and Outlook 2002 using Exchange, POP3, and IMAP mail, on Windows 2000 and Windows XP and with POPFile v0.18.0 through v0.19.0. Outclass can manually handle Hotmail accounts in Outlook 2002, but does not automatically classify Hotmail email at this time. If you have tested on other platforms or with other types of mail systems, please let me know and I'll update this document. Just send me an email at vargon@vargon.com or visit http://www.vargonsoft.com/.

Outclass is free software and is released under the GPL (GNU Public License). The source code for Outclass is available and you may download and modify it in accordance to the GPL license.* 06/17/2003

POP Peeper - POP Peeper is an email notifier that runs in your Windows task bar and alerts you when you have new email on your POP3, IMAP (with IDLE support), Hotmail\MSN\LiveMail, Yahoo, Mail.com, MyWay, Excite, Lycos.com, RediffMail, Juno and NetZero accounts. IMAP supports allows you to access AOL, AIM, Netscape and other services. Send mail directly from POP Peeper and use the address book to email your frequently used contacts. POP Peeper allows you to view messages using HTML or you can choose to safely view all messages in rich or plain text. Several options are available that will decrease or eliminate the risks of reading your email (viruses, javascript, webbugs, etc). POP Peeper can be run from a portable device and can be password protected. Many notification options are availble to indicate when new mail has arrived, such as sound alerts (configurable for each account), flashing scroll lock, skinnable popup notifier, customized screensaver and more.* You do have to sign-up for an account to use this service, but it is free. Updated: 04/30/2007

POW! by AnalogX - With all the cool things about the web (like my website), there's an even greater amount of really lame things, like those popup advertisements from sites like GeoCities and Tripod. After a late night of closing those damn windows, I couldn't take it any more, and AnalogX POW! was born! A simple utility, just run POW! while browsing on the net, and when one of those nasty popups appears, POW! will automatically close it for you... It's that easy! And that's not all... You can configure POW! to close any new popups that you run across, so if it doesn't close them already, you can easily add/remove them at any time. This is an absolute must for anyone who spends any reasonable (or unreasonable) amount of time surfing the web.* Updated: 04/30/2007

PrimoPDF - Convert to PDF from any application by simply 'printing' to the PrimoPDF® printer - it couldn't be easier! Within minutes, you can create high-quality PDFs by converting from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and virtually any other printable file type.* 07/05/2006

PrintKey 2000 - PrintKey is an excellent add-on. It is activated when you press the PrintScreen Key and allows you to capture the entire screen or any portion of it. You can then make changes to the screen capture and save in a variety of formats including .gif, .bmp, .jpeg, .jpg, .emf and .wmf. You can also swap colors, convert to grayscale or black and white, change picture size and send to the printer all from this little freeware program. All of the pictures on this Website (New Life Consultants) have been saved using PrintKey. Tested and works fine with Windows 9x/Me/2000/XP* 01/08/2007

Programmer's File Editor - PFE is a large-capacity, multi-file editor that runs on Windows 98, Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 on Intel-compatible processors, and on Windows 3.1x. Although it's primarily oriented towards program developers and contains features like the ability to run compilers and development applications, it also makes a very good general purpose editor for any function at all.* This program is no longer in production or being supported in any way. It doesn't need anything else, it works great! Updated: 04/30/2007

PSPad - A Freeware Code Editor - PSPad developer editor - The universal freeware editor, useful for people who:

QuickTime Standalone Player for Windows - Download just the QuickTime player with no additional software! 02/06/2006

QuickTime Alternative - QuickTime Alternative is a trimmed down version of QuickTime that contains only the essential components needed for playing QuickTime content that is embedded in webpages.* 02/11/2008

Quick Zip by Joseph Leung - Zip and unzip compressed archives with Quick Zip / Quick Zip Lite.* 06/07/2003

Rainlendar - Rainlendar is a feature rich calendar application that is easy to use and doesn't take much space on your desktop. The application is platform independent so you can run it both on Windows and on Linux. The appearance can be customized with skins and you can even mix different skins together.

It is possible to use Rainlendar with other calendar applications too. Rainlendar uses the standard iCalendar format to store its events and tasks so you can easily transfer them between applications. You can also subscribe to online calendars and see your Outlook appointments directly in Rainlendar*.* Updated: 01/17/2007

Real Alternative - Real Alternative will allow you to play RealMedia files without having to install RealPlayer. All RealMedia formats (.ra .rm .rmvb .ram .rpm .rv .rp .rt .rnx .smi .smil etc.) are supported, including streaming content and RealMedia content that is embedded in webpages.* Updated: 02/11/2008

Real Temp - Real Temp is a temperature monitoring program designed for all Intel single Core, Dual Core, Quad Core and Core i7 processors. Each core on these processors has a digital thermal sensor (DTS) that reports temperature data relative to TJMax which is the safe maximum operating core temperature for the CPU. As your CPU heats up, your Distance to TJMax will decrease. If it reaches zero, your processor will start to thermal throttle or slow down so maximizing your distance away from TJMax will help your computer run at full speed and more reliably too.

Main Features:

Revo Uninstaller - Revo Uninstaller helps you to uninstall software and remove unwanted programs installed on your computer even if you have problems uninstalling and cannot uninstall them from "Windows Add or Remove Programs" control panel applet.

Revo Uninstaller is a much faster and more powerful alternative to "Windows Add or Remove Programs" applet!

With its advanced and fast algorithm, Revo Uninstaller analyzes an application's data before uninstall and scans after you uninstall an application. After the program's regular uninstaller runs, you can remove additional unnecessary files, folders and registry keys that are usually left over on your computer. Even if you have a broken installation, Revo Uninstaller scans for an application's data on your hard disk drives and in the Windows registry and shows all found files, folders and registry keys so you can delete them.

With its unique "Hunter mode", Revo Uninstaller offers you some simple, easy to use, but effective and powerful methods for uninstalling software. You can use it to manage your installed and/or running software programs.* 08/01/2009

SequoiaView - Ever wondered why your hard disk is full? Or what directory is taking up most of the space? When using conventional disk browsing tools, such as Windows Explorer, these questions may be hard to answer. With SequoiaView however, they can be answered almost immediately. SequoiaView uses a visualization technique called cushion treemaps to provide you with a single picture of the entire contents of your hard drive. You can use it to locate those large files that you haven't accessed in one year, or to quickly locate the largest picture files on your drive.* 04/26/2006

SniffPass - SniffPass is small freeware utility that listens to your network, capture the passwords that pass through your network adapter, and display them on the screen instantly. SniffPass can capture the passwords of the following Protocols: POP3, IMAP4, SMTP, FTP, and HTTP (basic authentication passwords). You can use this utility to recover lost Web/FTP/Email passwords.* There are numerous programs available here. This is another MUST SEE site! Updated: 04/30/2007

SpamBayes for MS Outlook 2000/XP/2003 - The SpamBayes project is working on developing a Bayesian anti-spam filter, initially based on the work of Paul Graham. The major difference between this and other, similar projects is the emphasis on testing newer approaches to scoring messages. While most anti-spam projects are still working with the original graham algorithm, we found that a number of alternate methods yielded a more useful response. This is documented on the background page.* They also have a Unix/Linux solution. The SpamBayes FAQ. 04/15/2004

Spamihilator - Spamihilator is a program, that examines your Emails while downloading from the server and deletes unwanted advertising messages. Spamihilator works between your Email-Client-Software and the Internet. Every time you receive messages, they will be checked by Spamihilator. Useless spam mails will be filtered out. This process works completely in the background. The program runs with almost every Email-Software, such as Outlook 2000/XP/Express, Eudora, Pegasus Mail, Phoenix Mail, Opera, Mozilla, Netscape, etc...* 05/14/2003

Spybot Search & Destroy - Spybot - Search & Destroy can detect and remove spyware of different kinds from your computer. Spyware is a relatively new kind of threat that common anti-virus applications do not yet cover. If you see new toolbars in your Internet Explorer that you didn't intentionally install, if your browser crashes, or if you browser start page has changed without your knowing, you most probably have spyware. But even if you don't see anything, you may be infected, because more and more spyware is emerging that is silently tracking your surfing behaviour to create a marketing profile of you that will be sold to advertisement companies. Spybot-S&D is free, so there's no harm in trying to see if something snooped into your computer, too :)* I made a donation for this program since I've been using it for a while and it works great! Well worth donating for as far as I'm concerned. Spyware—It's lurking on your machine, by Cade Metz, April 22, 2003* And an article that also notes a PC Magazine Editor's Choice with a 4 out of 5 Stars Rating for Spybot Search & Destroy. 06/26/2003

SpywareBlaster - Prevent the installation of spyware and other potentially unwanted software! - Spyware, adware, browser hijackers, and dialers are some of the fastest-growing threats on the Internet today. By simply browsing to a web page, you could find your computer to be the brand-new host of one of these unwanted fiends!

The most important step you can take is to secure your system. And SpywareBlaster is the most powerful protection program available.

SpywareGuard - A real-time protection solution against spyware! - SpywareGuard provides a real-time protection solution against spyware that is a great addition to SpywareBlaster's protection method.

An anti-virus program scans files before you open them and prevents execution if a virus is detected - SpywareGuard does the same thing, but for spyware! And you can easily have an anti-virus program running alongside SpywareGuard.

SpywareGuard now also features Download Protection and Browser Hijacking Protection!

Features Listing:

Startup Control Panel - Startup Control Panel is a nifty control panel applet that allows you to easily configure which programs run when your computer starts. It's simple to use and, like all my programs, is very small and won't burden your system. A valuable tool for system administrators! Startup Control Panel is compatible with all modern versions of Windows, including Windows 95, 98, 98SE, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, and XP.* A replacement for MS's MSConfig utility and especially for Win 2k since MSConfig's not included. Another MUST HAVE TOOL!! 08/10/2003

StartupList - A simple tool that lists all and every auto starting program on your system. You might be surprised what it finds, this is way better than Msconfig. Commonly used to troubleshoot malfunctioning systems, trojan/viral infections, new spyware/malware breed and the likes.

Compatible with: All Windows versions* 09/24/2006

StartupMonitor - StartupMonitor is a small utility that runs transparently (it doesn't even use a tray icon) and notifies you when any program registers itself to run at system startup. It prevents annoying programs from registering themselves behind your back.

StartupMonitor does not require Startup Control Panel, but it complements it nicely. When you choose not to allow a program to register itself, the program's entry becomes disabled in Startup Control Panel, so you can go back and enable it later if necessary. StartupMonitor watches the Start Menu's Startup folders and the Run entries in the registry.

StartupMonitor works on all modern versions of Windows through XP. I haven't tried it on Windows Vista yet.* Updated: 04/30/2007

System Information for Windows (SIW) - This program perform computer configuration analysis and diagnostics. It gives detailed information about your computer properties and settings, detailed specs for CPU, motherboard, chipset, BIOS, CPU, PCI/AGP, USB and ISA/PnP devices, memory, monitor, video card, disk drives, CD/DVD devices, SCSI devices, S.M.A.R.T., ports, network cards, printers, operating system, installed programs and hotfixes, processes, services, serial numbers (CD keys), users, open files, system uptime, network, network shares, as well as real-time monitors for CPU, memory, page file usage and network traffic. It displays currently active network connections, passwords hidden behind asterisks, installed codecs, and more.

This program also creates a report file, and is able to run in batch mode.

A standalone tool that does not require installation - one less installed program on your PC as well the fact that you can run the program directly from a USB flash drive.

Platform: Microsoft Windows 98/Me/NT4/2000/XP/Server 2003/MCE/Windows Server 2003 x64/Windows XP x64/Vista* This is the system audit tool that I use today. Updated: 05/15/2009

The Dude - The Dude network monitor is a new application by MikroTik which can dramatically improve the way you manage your network environment. It will automatically scan all devices within specified subnets, draw and layout a map of your networks, monitor services of your devices and alert you in case some service has problems.* Updated: 04/30/2007

TrueCrypt - Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Main Features:

Tweak UI - This PowerToy gives you access to system settings that are not exposed in the Windows XP default user interface, including mouse settings, Explorer settings, taskbar settings, and more.* Updated: 04/30/2007

Ultimate Boot CD - You need the Ultimate Boot CD if you want to:

Unstoppable Copier - Recovers files from disks with physical damage. Allows you to copy files from disks with problems such as bad sectors, scratches or that just give errors when reading data. The program will attempt to recover every readable piece of a file and put the pieces together. Using this method most types of files can be made useable even if some parts of the file were not recoverable in the end.

The program can be used as a daily backup system using its batch mode functions. A list of transfers can be saved to a file and then run from the command line to perform the same batch of transfers on a regular basis without having to use the GUI interface. The program supports command line parameters which allow the application to be run from schedulers or scripts so it can be fully integrated into daily server tasks.* 09/02/2009

USBDeview - USBDeview is a small utility that lists all USB devices that currently connected to your computer, as well as all USB devices that you previously used.

For each USB device, exteneded information is displayed: Device name/description, device type, serial number (for mass storage devices), the date/time that device was added, VendorID, ProductID, and more...

USBDeview also allows you to uninstall USB devices that you previously used, and disconnect USB devices that are currently connected to your computer.

You can also use USBDeview on a remote computer, as long as you login to that computer with admin user.* 09/02/2009

VLC Media Player - VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.* 02/14/2007

VMware Player - VMware Player lets you evaluate new or pre-release software contained in virtual machines, without any installation or configuration hassles. You can also share existing virtual machines with colleagues or friends—just use VMware Player to run any virtual machine.

What is a virtual machine? - A virtual machine is a computer defined in software. It's like running a PC on your PC. VMware Player runs any virtual machine created by VMware Workstation, GSX Server or ESX Server. VMware Player also supports Microsoft virtual machines and Symantec LiveState Recovery disk formats.

Key Features of VMware Player:

wdrvbck1.exe - dtc100 says, "Backup Your Drivers - Maybe it just stopped working.
Maybe you 'fixed it till it broke'.
Maybe you reinstalled the OS or got a new system and have lost the hard to find driver for that printer or scanner.
Maybe.....

No problem if you have a CD copy of all the drivers on your system.

Download and install wdrvbck1.exe from http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/2008/PL2008Category09.php#08
Run it and click About|'Check for updates'" to make sure you have version 1.0.9...
"You then have the last free version before Driver Guides got hold of it from Jermar."* 03/08/2009

WebAllow - WebAllow is a parental control utility that restricts access to all but selected websites. If you are concerned that your teenager instead of doing the homework is browsing the Internet this tool is for you. If your 5-7 year old is playing flash games on a certain site and you a worried that he might click on an inappropriate add and start browsing questionable material, then this software is right for you. You may predefine list of "approved" domains, load them into this software, activate blocking and you may be sure that Internet Explorer will be able to show data from domain on approved list. Even if a link is leading to another page on another domain is clicked, this software will block it if is not on the "approved" list.* 12/03/2006

WinAudit - WinAudit performs a rapid and exhaustive audit of installed software, license information, security configuration, hardware inventory, network settings and much more.

WinDirStat - WinDirStat is a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for Microsoft Windows (all current variants).

WinDirStat reads the whole directory tree once and then presents it in three useful views:

Windows XP PowerToys - PowerToys add fun and functionality to the Windows experience. What are they? PowerToys are additional programs that developers work on after a product has been released. Note: We take great care to ensure that PowerToys work as they should, but they are not part of Windows and are not supported by Microsoft. For this reason, Microsoft Technical Support is unable to answer questions about PowerToys. PowerToys are for Windows XP only.* 06/17/2006

WinSCP - WinSCP is an open source free SFTP client and FTP client for Windows. Legacy SCP protocol is also supported. Its main function is safe copying of files between a local and a remote computer.

Features:

WinToolsXP - WinToolsXP is a freeware application that provides quick and easy access to Windows XP's built-in system utilities such as Command Prompt, Device Manager, Disk Cleanup, Registry Editor, User Accounts, and more - from one convenient spot.* 02/14/2007

xplorer² - All the shell goodies from windows explorer — none of the hassle! Plus all the features you would expect from a powerful tabbed dual-pane file manager, including Omni-Finder, a find files module that simply outclasses all known search tools. Don't take our word for it, seeing is believing!

xplorer² is a file and information manager that adheres to the philosophy "efficiency through simplicity". Without reinventing the wheel, it integrates the best features of Windows' shell architecture in a small, resource efficient package that's instantly familiar to work with. But look a little closer and you'll discover a whole new world under the surface that offers power, precision and flexibility, and will boost your everyday productivity no end!*

A Fool Friend of mine, TourDeFarce, reviews this program for me and says, "Synopsis: xplorer² (hereafter referred to only as "x²") is a Windows file management utility which expands upon the general features of Windows explorer to provide a more versatile and friendly user interface.

Both pay and freeware ("lite") versions are available; the lite version doesn't dun you for money. Note that the lite version does not contain the help files (allegedly to keep the download file size down), so you'll have to get that elsewhere. Google for the filename x2docs.zip and follow the installation instructions there to integrate the help file into the tool. Note: The 2Xplorer - the predecessor of xplorer² - is still available on the internet so be careful not to confuse the two.

System Requirements:
Windows 95 or above, but some features may not be available if you are using older versions of Internet Explorer (see the help file for specifics).

Help/Support:
The x2docs.zip file contains an extremely long (300+ pgs!) PDF manual which contains information for both the "pay" and "lite" versions of the program. The document is well organized in terms of layout and has a six-page index to assist the reader. The program's lite version provides no meaningful help (no "mouseover"/"hoverhelp").

The product website (www.zabkat.com) offers additional information about the product, plug-ins, and the discussion forum.

GUI:
The x² window consists of three panes. The first and second panes look much like you'd expect to see in Explorer - a navigator to point to the drive/folder of interest and a display pane showing the content of the drive/folder you've selected. Click on the second pane, then go to the first pane and pick the drive/folder of interest. Repeat this for the third pane. After that, you can operate x² as easily as if you had two Explorer windows joined to one another (if that's all you're really seeking to do). Command lines and icon tasks are used to go even further.

Usability:
For the typical user doing typical tasks, the learning curve should be almost nil. For the features which x² adds, the learning curve is very short. The problem, if any, is that there are so many that if you don't RTFM (Read That Fine Manual), you may miss out one some features which are really helpful. The manual also describes a way of setting x² as the default folder application so you don't have to invoke it separately.

Functions:
There are so many functions that it's hard to do justice, but here are a few ways in which x² can make your life easier:

xpy - Small tool which disables the default threats of a Windows XP installation. Besides disabling Windows and some of its components to communicate with Microsoft servers, xpy improves privacy settings and your system’s security.

Features:

XXCOPY - a Versatile File Management Utility---Boldly Extended Xcopy.* This is one of the best Copy & Cloning Tools I have ever used! Extremely easy and small program. Too many features available to list here. While you're there, click on Number 13 in the Table of Contents list for some great sites that recommend XXCopy. I liked it so much, I paid for the Pro version. This is another MUST SEE, MUST USE TOOL!!

YPOPs! - YPOPs! is an application that provides POP3 access to Yahoo! Mail. It is available o­n the Windows, Linux, Solaris and Mac platforms.

Yahoo! Mail disabled free access to its POP3 service o­n 24th April, 2002. This application emulates a POP3 server and enables popular email clients like Outlook, Netscape, Eudora, Mozilla, etc., to download email from Yahoo! accounts. We do not go against the license agreements of Yahoo! Mail. This application is completely legitimate and well within the realms of legal software.* Updated: 10/16/2005

ZipCentral - ZipCentral is a free, easy to use zip file manager that let's you create new, open existing, add to and extract from zip files. It can also create Self-Extracting archives and archives spanned across multiple floppy disks. ZipCentral supports Drag & Drop to and from Windows Explorer or File Manager and includes a Shell Extension.* 06/07/2003

ZipGenius - ZipGenius is the absolutely free software for Windows® that lets you compress files to almost any kind of archive. ZipGenius supports more than 20 compressed archive formats, including CD/DVD-ROM image files in ISO9660 standard. This is the file compression suite you were searching for: it is free and easy to use, plus it supports more than 20 formats of compressed archives, including RAR, ARJ, ACE, CAB, SQX, OpenOffice.org documents and the excellent 7-zip. ZipGenius now can precompress executable files going to be added to a ZIP archive through the UPX compressor.* Updated: 04/30/2007

ZSoft Uninstaller - ZSoft Uninstaller is the better and easier way to uninstall programs on your computer.

Location and uninstalling a program with ZSoft Uninstaller is as easy as clicking a button:

Scroll the list or use the search function.

Select the program you want to uninstall and choose uninstall from the menu in the top of the program, or right-click on it and choose uninstall.

ZSoft Uninstaller is capable of finding programs that most likely already is uninstalled, but still remains in you registry and allows you to remove the reference. This results in a cleaner registry.

ZSoft Uninstaller is superior than the build-in function in Microsoft Windows, among other things it enables you to:

Office Tools & Add-Ons

Attachments Options - Attachment Options by Jim Slovak - Attachment Options is a COM add-in for Outlook 2000 SP3 or higher, Outlook 2002, Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 that provides a user interface for changing which file types are restricted as Level 1 attachments. Level 1 attachments are hidden by Outlook, and cannot be seen, saved or opened from Outlook items. Moving an attachment extension to Level 2 enables the user to see the attachment and to save it to the file system. The attachment saved to the file system can later be opened by the user.* I have been using Attachment Options for several years now. It's an awesome solution that I even paid for; Well worth it! This is another MUST SEE, MUST HAVE, MUST USE TOOL!! Updated: 04/30/2007

Google, IMHO, is by far the Best Search Engine that I have ever used regardless of what I'm looking for! I have added the Google Toolbar to Internet Explorer's toolbar and don't know what'd I do without it. Read All About Google.

SnipURL - Of all the "URL Snipping Tools," this is, IMHO, by far the BEST! The numerous features available for personalizing this tool are awesome! Too many to mention here, but please check out the FAQ and the Features pages for details available for personalizing SnipURL. This is another MUST SEE, MUST USE TOOL!!

*These sites have been quoted directly as I believe what they say about their sites or they already know what to say, better than I do.

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