Post what utilities are you using

[UtwigMU]

I’m switching to Win2k and I’m updating my Patches/Drivers/Utilities CD. Here’s the list of utilities I find useful and I’ll install them or keep them on CD. Please post what you’re using and your comment about it.

I know that most of you know these utilities and use them, but not everyone posting here is poweruser, so I’m explaining each and every utility.

Compiling CD with latest drivers, utilites and patches (IE, Corel, DirectX, window media, Windows service packs) gratly speeds up installing of Windows.

CD Burning
CloneCD
Exact copies of CDs
Nero
CD copying software – professional, widespread (you can add sessions at your clients since they use it)

Viewers:
ACDSee4
Picture browser
Adobe Acrobat Reader 5
A must
Quickview Plus 6.0
Quickview – better than one in Windows

Internet Related:
CuteFTP
FTP Client
DL Express (Download Express)
Fastest download, allows multiple downloads, resume, adjustable speed
Google toolbar for Internet Explorer 5.0+
Google integrated in IE also allows basic popup blocking with advanced options
Icq2002a
Communications client
Lavasoft Adaware
Spyware removal
Lynx
Dos browser
mIRC
IRC chat client
Mozilla
Opensource web browser for Windows, ‘nix and other platforms. Browser, mail, page editor, chat client, address book. Allows tabbed browsing, popup blocking, add blocking, download manager, based on Gecko rendering engine, which is the most W3C compatible engine ATM
Trillian
Communications client that allows connecting to multiple communications accounts

Media:
BS Player
DivX player that has subtitle support
DivX bundle
Codec and player. BSPLayer is IMO/IME better
Quicktime
Required
RealPlayer, Real Player 8, Real One Player
Required, but be careful and use custom install to disable annoying features and phoning home. Regedit is necessary after install to remove startup.
WinAmp280
A must. They say 3.0 is not as good as 2.8. Since 2.8 works for me I haven’t taken time to install and test 3.0.

Archivers:
WinZIP80
A must. For corporate users with limited budgets: Before last version of Powerarchiver is free and offers same functionality.
Stuffit
I’m working with mac based service bureaus and mac people love it, so it’s a must.
ACE, ARJ, IMP, RAR
Of all archivers I love command prompt ARJ best.


Utilities:
Coolmon
CoolMon is a program for monitoring vital system stats and almost anything else you wish to display on the desktop.
Diskeeper
Diskeeper is way better than built in Windows defragmenting utility (NT has no defrag utility). Allows defragmenting of system files and directory optimisation before bootup.
Memtest86
A must for system diagnostics and overclocking (testing of memory)
Motherboard Monitor
Allows monitoring of voltages, speeds and fan RPM. Coolmon can display MBM data on desktop
Sysinternals utilities
Great source of free NT/2k/XP utilities
autologon – automated log on
autorunservice – displays what starts automatically
bginfo – info on your computer on desktop in real time
bluescreen screensaver – realistic BSOD screensawer with reboot and corrupt chkdsk/autochk errors
contig – bootup system files defragmenter
pagedfrg – bootup pagefile defragmenter
procexpnt – process explorer – which process is using what files
volid – allows to change volume IDs of floppies and HDDs

Nokia Monitor Test
Monitor test with patterns for troubleshooting
PQ Driveimage 2002
Allows you to create backup of disk image. Create image after windows install and if something goes wrong just reimage. Also useful when buying new hard drive.
PQ Partition Magic 7.0
Partition resizing without reformatting.
wcpuID
Identifies CPU frequency and CPU. Also good for online bragging.

Benchmarks:
3dMark
For fps kiddies, LOL. It’s useful when comparing system upgrades and for graphic card stress testing. For benchamaking use games and other utilities as well. I downloaded it to help a fellow MURCer with his GF2MX problems (benched my cards for comparison).

Please post what utilities are you using.

/EDIT Fixed grammar and links.

[Fat Tone]

That's a pretty good collection you have there, utwigMU.
I like SmartFTP rather than CuteFTP, but other that that we use a lot of the same stuff.

Fancy hosting an ISO somewhere? Perhaps including some alternatives and OS Service Packs when people have done adding their favourites?

Cheers

T.

[VJ]

Pretty good list...
I also use Winhtttrack (website copier, can be convenient)

http://www.httrack.com/

After I upgrade, I really think I'll give Samurize a go (those desktops look cool , and can also display computer information (MBM, load, ...))

http://www.samurize.com/

I use AceHtml as a html editor (it used to be freeware, now one has to pay for it; as I don't need higher features, I'm still using the old free version)
I'm not really in to mp3 files, but if I play some, I tend to use the B&O Beoplayer (I like the interface)

http://www.beoplayer.com

Jörg

[UtwigMU]

I'll be also making bootCD with all utils, fdisk and the like.

Tony Andrews: Hosting an ISO:
- don't have space
- it would be illegal On the other hand since most of that is either freeware or trialware, it would be kosher.

With 2kSP3, IE6, Windows Media 7.1, powertoys and Coreldraw 10 sp1 and sp2 patches and adobe ps, latest and beta BIOS for my MoBo, printer, iomega ZIP, Matrox, nVidia, Umax Astra2200 and US Robotics drivers its close to 650MB or one CD

I have also previous version (which I'm now updating) for NT/98SE dualboot

VJ: coolmon is similar to samurize (haven't tried coolmon yet since I'm going 2k this week. bginfo from sysinternals runs on NT, but does not display mbm info. Only CPU frequency, mem, freespace, etc...)

For Desktop Ideas check 100+ pages long post your NT/2k/XP desktop here thread on Ars.

Post your NT/2k/XP desktops here

[Admiral]

Let's see...

CD burning:
Nero and CloneCD

Viewers:
ACDSee 4 and Acrobat Reader 5

Internet related:

IE 6 SP1, Opera 7 (first beta), Net Ants (hasn't been updated in ages, though still a good d/l manager), Zone Alarm

Media:

Media Player 9 (beta), Media Encoder Utility (codecs for MP), DivX Player + DivX 5, QuickTime 5, Winamp 2.80

Archiver:

WinZip 8.1, WinAce

Benchmarks:

3DMark 2000 & 2001SE (330), PcMark, Codecreatures

Utils:

Norton Antivirus 2002, Norton Utilities 2002, RegCleaner, SisoftSandra 2003, PC Alert (monitoring util for MSI mobos), Partition Magic 8, MS XP PowerToys (mainly for TweakUI), Refresh Lock (refresh rate util), atuner (AF & AA tool for GF3/4)

edit: using the 1024x768 version of this pic as desktop background (blends with the blue taskbar and darkens, unblurs the XP desktop a bit).
WC3 wallpapers

[WyWyWyWy]

Yea, IMO Samurize is better than CoolMon, I ran it 24/7.

Also I'd recommend UltraMon http://www.realtimesoft.com a very useful Multi-head utility. On there also is VideoSaver that now run Reef video across my 2 screens

For FTP, FileZilla on http://www.sourceforge.net is pretty cool, open source I tell you what!

For MSN Messenger, I have the Msgplus! add-on that log my message and make my messenger transparent, good stuff.

TransFX makes my WinAmp 2.81 transparent too

[GNEP]

I just slipstreamed my Win2k installation with SP3 and made a boot disk from it, with all drivers, .NET etc ready to load up. What a difference on doing a reinstall!

[dZeus]

CDBurning
Ahead Nero 5.048 I didn't find many advantages in the 5.5 series, so I stick to 5.0. I use it for Data and Audio CD mastering.
CDRWin latest version, in combination with the latest Adaptec ASPI layer, works perfect for recording/extracting ISO/BIN image files, and creating bootable CDs and the like (for example making a Win2k/XP slipstreamed install CD).
Daemon Tools, latest version. Works perfectly for mounting images (BIN, ISO, etc) to a virtual CD/DVD drive on your pc.

Internet
Opera latest version. It has a lightning fast html render engine, as well as perfect working tabbed browsing. And the latest version isn't as buggy as previous any more (though you still need IE or Mozilla alongside for the few sites that do not work properly with it).
FlashFXP the almost perfect FXP/FTP client. Main problem with it is that caching/buffering with it is poor, so you don't get high speeds with either upload or download over an internal 100Mb network. Unless they fixed it in the latest version of course (haven't tried that one yet).

other
ACDsee 2.42 I can't see what's better with newer versions, other than stuff like that it can handle movie files and stuff. Since this is a picture browser, I don't bother with anything later than 2.42, which is very small, fast and functional.
FFDShow MPEG4 directshow filter package. I use it to play back all MPEG4-encoded files, with this single filter. If you download the latest alpha version from their sourceforge project page, you might not need DivX 4 or 5 codec to be installed any more (that was the only one giving some troubles at times with this filter here).
Sasami2k latest version was linked to on these boards somewhere. Imho, it's still one of the best Directshow/VfW playback programs. Though I've also heard good stuff about 'WMP Classic'.
DivXG400, which is usefull when using players/codecs that don't fix the MPEG4 codec bug (i.e. nearly everything except sasami2k and/or ffdshow), and usefull when using DVD-MAX in combination with tv-out on your Matrox card, for those video files that have subtitles in the overscan area. You can configure it to add black borders around the video files to compensate for overscan, thus making subtitles show up in the visible area of your tv screen. On my HTPC I've set it up that it will load with WMP 6.4, and not with Sasami2k. So for proper overscan files I use sasami2k, and files with crappy subtitle placement are played with WMP 6.4.
UltraEdit everyone has their own favourite text editor, so this is mine.
WinRAR, good enough to completely replace both winzip and winace. Functionality of this program is miles ahead of those 2. Latest version handles just about every compressed format available. Again, i/o buffering/caching is one of the less good sides of this program, making compressing over network-shares run at non-optimal speeds (perhaps it's fixed in latest version?).
WinAMP 2.81 no further comments. Be sure to also download and install the MAD plugin, which improves MPEG audio decoding quality considerably. I've also heard about something called SSRC, which resamples everything to 48 Khz, and at better quality than what Creative card do internally (or in drivers?). You only need it if you have a Creative Live! or newer (including Audigy 2).

[Greebe]

I wouldn't even know where to begin ...
Best I can do is say I've got like 100gigs worth of just about everything neccessary (and then some

and no it's not ALL pr0n!

[PAugustin]

OK Let's begin :

CD burning:
Nero for burning data
CloneCD to copy data CD
EAC+Feurio to copy/create Audio CD

HDD utilities:
IBM feature tool (with news disks from IBM)
Diskeeper

System utilities:
Motherboard Monitor for system temp/fan speeds
jv16 power tools to clean the registry (really the best one !)

Internet:
IE or Opera
Bulletproof FTP (as server)
FlashFXP (as client)
AdAware (a must have)


And some more but I'm too lazy to list them all...

[DentyCracker]

ACDSee4, CloneCD 4, EzCD Creator 5.3, (Used to have Diskeeper7 on but everytime my machine starts behaving weirdly and I uninstall it, the machine seems to stop behaving weirdly) Dont use PM7 anymore as I no longer have anything but single partitions on my drives. AdAware is a must. MBM5, no ftp clients anymore, but liked the early CuteFTP. AVP/KAV for virus protection. WMP9 beta, DivX codec only, hate the payer. Sonique 2 alpha and GratisAudio (which is the best sounding mp3 decoder I have heard, and not just because Tony Million is a friend) Lame for mp3 encoding.

[KeiFront]

Originally posted by VJ
http://www.samurize.com/
Jörg

A damn good utility I also use it

[drslump]

I cannot belive nobody recommends Total Comander (former Windows Commander) www.ghisler.com

Winroute Pro (www.kerio.com) a must if you have to share your internet connection

DirectX 8.2, you'll have to get it anyway

WinDVD 4 (www.intervideo.com), great for watching videos with DVDMAX, minimize the window and your wife can see the film on the TV while you have plenty of desktop space to waste your time.

Folding@Home / Seti@Home ... convert your idle cycles in something positive.

TeamSpeak 2beta (www.teamspeak.org), no more silly deads because writing a message to your team. Speak with them!


btw make the bootable cd with MS-Dos/DrDos by default, no memory managers. Just a simple boot menu with different options to restore the system (flash mobo Bios, gfx bios ...) automatically, don't be sure that your display will be working when you need it!

edit : All (I press submit by mistake)

ciao

[Chrono_Wanderer]

hmm... let see...

E-book reader: Acrobat 5
Compression: Win Xp's Built-in WinZip, WinRAR
Benchies: 3D Mark 2k, 2k1
Gfx tweaks, caps etc: powerstrip, dachshund hare, 3D analyzer, MTSTU
Hardware info: SiSoft Sandra 2k3, msconfig
Monitor tuning: Built-in PDesk Utility
Hardware monitor: Asus PCProbe (always latest version found on ftp)
HDD Noice control: Intel APP accelerator 2.3
D/L Utilities: DAP, Flashget, Reget
Burn: Ahead Nero
Simple circuit layout (for hw): CircuitMaker
Hex: UltraEdit
Fix/Tune-up: Notorn Utilities 2
Internet Browser: IE6 SP1
Registry: regedit

edit: DX version: DX9 beta

[[GDI]Raptor]

CD burning:
Nero BurningROM & CloneCD

Viewers:
Adobe Acrobat 5

Internet related:
Internett Explorer 6 SP1, MSN Messanger 5.0, Trillian Pro

Media:
Media Player 9 (Beta), Media Encoder Utility (codecs for MP), DivX Player+ DivX 5, QuickTime 5 Pro, Winamp 3.0, PowerDVD XP (4.0)

Archiver:
WinZip 8.1 SP1

Benchmarks:
3DMark 2001 SE

Utils:
Norton Internet Security 2003, Norton Utilities 2002, Norton CleanSweep 2002, SisoftSandra 2003, MS XP PowerToys, Asus PcProbe

OS:
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 (Norwegian)

Office apps:
Microsoft Office XP Professional w/Front Page (Norwegian)