My essential XP software installation list

Posted by Al Twohill on 18 January 2008 | 0 Comments

Tags: desktop, windows

This list is kind of the younger, skinnier, not-any-good-at-sports-or-maths brother of my essential Kubuntu software list. XP doesn't come with bugger all software, so the first thing to do is get some.

This list details a whole lot of great free software which makes windows a bit more bearable.

The list

Firefox

First and formost: Firefox. You can get it from here. This, and Windows update are the only sites I'll go to using IE - it's just too risky. Alternatives to Firefox on Windows are Opera and Safari.

Avg Free 

Now we have a safer browser, lets get some anti-virus. Browse to http://free.grisoft.com. I actually think that the free version is better than the full one, as there is less stuff to slow down our computer.

Daemon Tools

We all get the need to run an ISO straight off the hard disk (or network) sometimes, and as Windows can't do this on it's own (Linux users can insert mock here), we need Daemon Tools. You can grab it from www.daemon-tools.cc 

Tweak UI

From the bowels of Microsoft comes a PowerToy that is actually quite good. It lets you change settings that previously required mucking around in the registry. I also find the auto-login quite good as it means I'm protected from the network with passwords, but I don't have to type it in to boot. You can get the PowerToys from here.

7z

7z is Winzip on steroids, and its open source too. Grab it from www.7-zip.org. 

Spybot - Search & Destroy

Yeah, its got a cool name. And it keeps your computer squeaky clean. Get it from www.safer-networking.org.

And we're good

Now you get to buy most of the rest of the software you want to use. As always, if anyone has any other useful programs they always use, let me know!