List of Useful & Free Software Programs

I have something like fifty good free programs installed on my system. Many have already been listed. These are some of the best that have not yet been listed (plus a couple that have been.)

Graphics:

Ultimate Paint Paint program with customizable brushes. Remember Delux Paint?

System Utilities:

SyncBack Freeware File and directory backup and synchronization utility.

Internet Security:

Clamwin Open source virus checker. A compliment to your regular virus checker.

IPCop External Firewall. Turn an old PC into a modern hardware firewall appliance.

Desktop Wiget:

ClockX Nifty desktop analog clock, with transparency and themes.

Miscellaneous:

HashCalc Shows MD5 and other checksum values of a file.

Bulk Rename Utility File rename utility. Either stand alone, or as a context menu enhancement.

Microsoft Calculator Plus Scientific and programmer calculator with unit coversions.

Virtualization applications:

Sandboxie Virtual environment to run or test programs. This works as an overlay on Windows.

VirtualBox Moderate weight virtual machine application.

VMware Server Heavy weight virtual machine application. Run virtual machines locally, or remotely.

Microsoft Virtual PC (already mentioned) Middle weight virtual machine application.

DosBox (already mentioned) Light weight virtual machine. Run old games in a virtual dos environment.

DosBox GUI Front end for DosBox. This simplifies using DosBox.

AppleWin Apple II emulator. Run even older games in a virtual Apple II environment. This requires rom files from a working Apple II.

WinUAE Amiga emulator. This requires rom files from a working Amiga, or purchase of an Amiga Forever program.

StrandedII, a freeware comp game with really crappy graphics and not-so-good translation (originally a German game), but really fun gameplay.

well...

Has anyone mentioned Media Player Classic? http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/

Eraser Computer file shredder, securely removes sensitive files.
http://www.heidi.ie/node/6

Revo Uninstaller is good. It not only uninstalls but finds junk files left over.
http://www.revouninstaller.com/

Hello!

I need a program for splitting and merging mp3/wma files...

Suggestions?

You can use Audacity to do that

To split and re-join AVI files. It's lossless, too.
http://www.bobyte.com/AviSplit/

MediaCoder. It's to convert types of media to other types. It's kinda complicated, but worth the learning curve.
http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/

http://www.devicelock.com/freeware.html
Active Ports
easy to use tool for Windows NT/2000/XP that enables you to monitor all open TCP and UDP ports on the local computer. Active Ports maps ports to the owning application so you can watch which process has opened which port. It also displays a local and remote IP address for each connection and allows you to terminate the owning process. Active Ports can help you to detect trojans and other malicious programs.

Fun little diag tool.

QUESTION: Is there a decent Quicken-esque freeware program out there? I don't want to have to do my finances on Excel, it will take hours to properly set up... I lost Quicken with my Windows reinstall

JKDefrag: is a good defragmentation tool (recommended to me by one of my IT instructors). It's also quicker than the standard Windows Defragmenter.

DNK said:

QUESTION: Is there a decent Quicken-esque freeware program out there? I don't want to have to do my finances on Excel, it will take hours to properly set up... I lost Quicken with my Windows reinstall

Click to expand...

I don't use them, but there may be something here
http://www.freewarefiles.com/cat_8_78_Accounting.html

Hadn't noticed this before... Cool thread!

Wings3d is an excellent 3d modeling program that is free to use, easy to learn, with many features to discover.
http://www.wings3d.com/

Bryce is a program I like to use to render my creations made in wings with. There are many options for materials, animation options, and many things I don't understand yet. The newest version you must purchase but older versions they release for free download.
http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/software/bryce/

Folder2Iso

http://www.trustfm.net/divx/SoftwareFolder2Iso.php?b2=1

Folder2Iso just creates an iso from any kind of folder (with the subfolders).

A really useful program if you need to convert a file to an .iso file which can then be burned to a disk.

Are there any absolutely free software that restore deleted files? The one that I know of requires you to install it on a separate hard drive than the drive the deleted files are on, which I think is stupid.

No its not. If you install it on the same hard drive, you risk overwriting the deleted file, making it unrecoverable.

Well then, I'm screwed, 'cuz the folder I wanna recover was deleted from an external HD, wound up in the recycle bin on the C: drive, so How do I know which drive to install the program to?

install it on C:. The external HD is the one that still contains the remnant of the file.

Btw I use HandyRecovery (not sure if it's still available though).