Looking for your opinions on Most useful Apps, software, freeware for....

After reformating last night due to some problems that I now have fixed. I was wondering what everyone thinks is the most essential software, that everyone instals right after a reformat etc... I mean anything, any kind of software, be it freeware, shareware, or software that is in stores etc...or basic tweaks, or even drivers. These will be put onto a DVD-R backup, so i wont have to worry about these things for later time. So far I have some apps, drivers, and norton system works. Come on guys, what do you usually instal, I mean any kind of software at all that you use on a regular or sometimes basis. Thanks!

 

gnuls and irssi... *cough* Try putting Ad-aware on it...

 

- chipset drivers
- videocard drivers
- soundcard drivers
- Ad-Aware
- AV updates
- Firewall
- MS patch for Blaster

and that's about it.

 

software forum.

 

My must have proggiez:

Fruityloops version x.x
NI Absynth
Winamp
Power DVD
Tweak XP
Style XP
ICQ
Netcaptor
Direct Connect (or DC++)

 

Actually I recommend 7zip over WinZip, it's _fully_ free, and is alot faster then WinZip and supports .7z format too (It's better then .bz2 )

 

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=14481
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sevenzip/

 

ad-aware 6
power dvd 5
trillian pro
popup ad filter
quicktime
DAP 5
acrobat reader 5
Norton 2003
nero 6
divx 5.5 codec
boot vis
Tweaker xp pro
winrar
xp service pack 1, plus some SP2 patches.
XP power toys
3dmark 2001se
pcmark2002
3dmark2003
cpuZ 1.19a

 

Again I butt in For Winrar 7zip (try it, it's good ) and for Trillian gaim... More protocols and there's no for pay version, it's all OSS...

 

LeechGet, Mozilla, Net Traffic, FreeMeter
CpuIdle, MBM5, SiSoft Sandra, NAV, RegScrub, jv16PowerTools, Adobe Reader

 

NTFileMon

Let's ya see where the errors are, but it's output can be overwhelming!

 

tweak UI
startup cop
cacheman
powerdesk
fix-it utilities
acrobat reader
irfan view
diskeeper
winrar
ad-aware, spybot s&d, script sentry, . . .

 

ad-aware 6
Norton 2003
boot vis
XP power toys
MBM5
startup cpl
IrfanView
MailWasher
System Mechanic
RegCleaner
StatBar
CoolMon
VisualRoute
ieSpell
IE Zoomer

 

avg antivirus (free)
zone alarm firewall (free)
ad aware
diskeeper
open office (free suite of office utilities)
kill popup(free)
pest patrol
bittorrent (fileshareing program, free)
trillian (free)

I now have backup cd's after going through this a number of times

 

I used 7zip for awhile, but I stopped when I found out the programmer was an idiot. He refuses to let other programmers help him, and he refuses to add in basic drag-and-drop support. The only reason he's given for the latter is "it makes the file too big". Erm, ok... WinRAR fits on a floppy. Is the 7z dll more than 400 K? It's like "I can't be bothered to make my software usable". 7zip format is nice, but it tends to be on-par with rar. I finally got sick of WinZIP and just bought WinRAR.

For me, the best Windows apps are:
WinAMP (mp3 player)
CDEx (cd ripper/mp3 encoder)
TextPad* (Notepad replacement... waiting for jEdit to mature some more)
AIDA32 (diagnostic)
Nero* (cd burning)
UltraVNC/TightVNC (remote desktop)
Ad-aware (anti spyware)
Mozilla Firebird/IE 6/MyIE2 (browsers -- I have uses for all of 'em)
GAIM (IM client)
Open Office 1.1 (Office suite)
SlimFTPd (FTP daemon)
Media Player Classic (DVD/movie player)
Jasc Paint Shop Pro* (image editing -- sorry, but GIMP is unusable)
IframView (image viewing)
WinRAR* (archiver)
PuTTY (SSH telnet)
FileZilla (ftp client, the daemon is immature, IMO)

Edit:
Download Express (integrates fairly well, fast, and free)

Note: Apps marked with * are trialware/shareware. Others are freeware.