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Everything you need on a PC system on one page !

Contents

Full-featured programs

Internet:
Firefox, FileZilla

Documents:
Open Office, 7-zip, XYplorer, Agent Ransack

Programming:
Visual Studio Express, Programmers Notepad 2

Scientific:
Scilab, LTSpice, MPLAB Mindi, Microsoft Mathematics

Design/Media/Comms:
Pixia, Irfan view, PuTTY

Antivirus:
Malicious software removal tool, Adwcleaner

Updates and components

Updates and components:
Runtimes/Frameworks, Development kits, Updates

Full-featured programs

Open Office Complete office suite for free. The VBA emulation is not complete, and scripts run slowly. Java can be included in the download, and is needed for VBA support. To get colourful document templates, try Office Templates at Microsoft. The maths editor in OpenOffice is quite good, but it cannot give TeX output. To process TeX/LaTeX files, use MiKTeX, the Led editor and the Latex cheat sheet. If you want a standalone WYSIWYG HTML editor instead of OpenOffice Writer/Web, you can consider Seamonkey. To check links in HTML pages, use Xenu's link sleuth. Complement with HTTrack to download complete web sites.

7-zip is a good freeware file archiver with support for most formats. Supports zip, rar, cab, bz2, iso (for browsing/extraction) and 7z files (the strongest compression there is). Shows the correct access time of files in contrast to Windows properties pages. Fast file browsing and copying, can browse regular folders and MSI files, good net path support, dual pane-style interface is available. CRC of files can be shown. File moves are interrupted by open files (like the ordinary Explorer, use TeraCopy to handle this better). To get file search capability, use Agent Ransack, and to get folder size viewing capability, use XYplorer (the last free version is 17.40). A typical use of XYplorer would be as a second file browser where system files are shown.

Visual Studio Express Completely free developer studio. Mostly for .NET apps, no direct MFC or ATL support. The 2005 version is a rare download (here is Visual C++ 2005 Express, ISO, SP1). To be able to compile Win32 GUI programs, download Windows SDK, use the last download link on the 2003 R2 SDK page to get the MFC/ATL libraries. To get a visual resource editor, download ResEdit (requires XP with a service pack), or use XN Resource Editor.

Easy Code is a good Windows assembler development environment with a visual designer. Add the MASM32 assembler and linker (the link is to a package with an adapted editor, Masm 6.14 (ml614.exe) without editor is here). You could need library file to include file converters, they are here.

Kpit GNU tools is a free development environment for Renesas microcontrollers.

Source Navigator is a tool for graphically depicting and navigating in a large programs call trees, symbol references etc. Includes a code editor. Has support for several languages.

Programmers Notepad 2 is a complete text editor (and completely free), with good syntax highlighting of coding languages, saving of editing sessions, zoom of texts and code folding. The alternative editor would be PSPad (also completely free) with a lot of language support, spelling, HTML, code explorer, hex-editor, rare command line integration and many more features integrated directly, without the need for plugins.

WinMerge differencing and merging tool for Windows. There is also the possibility to edit files directly in it. For binary files, it displays if the files are alike or not, but with no details. To difference Word documents, use DiffDoc (trialware). WinMerge can be used to find out if files are exact copies of one another or not, but for bulk duplicates finding, use DoubleKiller. For binary files detail comparison (and editing), use AXE.

InnoSetup is a very effective alternative for making installations, free even for commercial use.

Pixia is a paint program in Photoshop style, with fast graphical tools and effects. Text input is quick to integrate with graphics. It has scanning ability. Another paint program in Photoshop style is Paint.NET. It includes a download for .NET 3.5 SP1. To view and convert images between many formats, there is IrfanView . Inkscape is a vector drawing program that can use the SVG file format. Good complement to the paint programs. Inkscape can import and edit single PDF paqes. Ipe is a postscript figures editor, that can be used for inclusion in Latex or PDF documents. Download both the 7.0.10 win zip file and the 7.0.0 dependency package and unzip the dependencies into the main package directory.

progeCAD Smart! is a 2D CAD program with AutoCAD commands and file format. Through it, an ALE block library can be downloaded with 10000 parts. It is free for non-commercial use. Sketchup is an architectural oriented 3D CAD program.

Scilab is a free Matlab-like matrix calculation program with quite powerful graphing and scripting. Sage is a Maple-like infinite-precision symbol manipulator for computer algebra and differential equations. Microsoft Mathematics is a calculator much more powerful than the standard Windows calculator (does formulas and graphs). PowerCalc is a lightweight calculator alternative with graphing etc.

WinPLT is a 2D plotting program, with possibilities to edit graphs and add text (etc) after data has been imported. Since it is developed for the chemical science, it has lots of provisions for chemical formulae and structures. KyPlot is a 3D plot program, with functions for data processing and statistics. The link is to the last free 2.0 version.

FreeFEM is an advanced program to solve partial differential equations with the finite element method. Femm is a fairly user-friendly FEM program specialized for magnetics problems. To get a 3D FEM program for magnetics, use Elmer.

LTSpice is a free Spice circuit simulation program, especially for switched mode power supplies, but many more applications are possible. Linear Technology circuit element models are here . LT spice models along with Siemens/Infineon, Philips/NXP, Motorola/ON, Harris/Intersil are listed here. Spice models for HP/Agilent/Avago can be found here. More models for Fairchild, National Semiconductor, Comlinear, TI, Burr-Brown, Analog Devices, Maxim, Microchip and Zetex/Diodes Inc can be found on the net. A high-frequency transformer simulation (and core selection) program is available from Epcos (independent of Spice). There is also a Spice library for Epcos/TDK inductors, varistors and thermistors. Ansoft designer SV is a circuit simulator and electromagnetics solver for high-frequency designs. Component S-parameter data for such simulations can be accessed here, for several manufacturers.

MPLAB Mindi is another free Spice CAD program with support for Microchip and electronic components.

FreePCB is a free PCB layout program, it can use the on-line (java) autorouter FreeRoute with the aid of FpcROUTE, included with FreePCB. It has support for 16 copper layers. If 6 layers or less is sufficient, a free alternative is PCB123 . It has autorouting, autoplacement and a large parts library.

SimpleOCR converts scanned documents into text documents. You can do standardized TWAIN scanning in IrfanView, for example.

VirtualDub is a video capture program with simple editing functionality. Audacity is an audio editing program. SeerMusic remixer/synthesizer for Windows 98 only.

CDBurnerXP can burn CDs in a more flexible set of formats than Windows built-in burner. It is also good at grabbing discs even though they have some small errors on it. CDBurnerXP requires .NET. K-Lite Mega Codec Pack is needed to play back some formats. Includes ffdshow, good also for brightening video and boosting volume above what is normally available. To convert AVI/WMV files to DVD format prior to burning, use Avi2DVD. To convert in the other direction, use Leawo Free DVD to AVI Converter . In case Avi2DVD doesn't work, use Video to Video converter. It is possible to convert to a mpeg2 file, and then burn it as an SVCD with cdrtfe. 

Cobian backup for scheduled, differential, compressed backups of many files.

Google Earth satellite picture viewer and travel planner. Stellarium planetarium for simulating and viewing the sky very realistically. Stellarium is an OpenGL application.

PuTTY is an SSH (secure shell/telnet) client for Windows.

Cygwin/X Free X-Windows server for Windows to interact with a remote Unix host (or the local Cygwin system). Something to try to configure using the cygwin environment is Xfig , a gnuplot/latex figures editor (Xfig is included in Cygwin). X-Server commercial alternatives : X-Win32, MI/X. There are indications that PuTTY could be used with X-Win32 LX (free version of X-Win32).

Slackware - Run Unix directly on the PC with this Linux /GNU/KDE distribution. The default office package is Calligra. Additional packages can be downloaded from Slackbuilds. Vim is the Vi editor, which is particularly suiting for doing configuring work in Unix terminals. Slax is a light Linux distribution that can run directly from a CD. The most important modules are ntfs-3g and FUSE ,that brings full NTFS access to Linux. There is a possibility to run Slackware on Windows by using VirtualPC 2007 , using the right tips. The virtualization to use nowadays is Hyper-V that comes with Windows 8 and higher.

Windows PE is a preinstall environment to boot a computer into, to work on an offline main system. To get PE3, first download the WAIK, burn it to DVD, and install it. Then follow these steps to make the PE disc. You could perhaps need to add drivers to the PE image, do it with the WAIK dism tool, explained here. To get a free rescue system for a PC that you prefer not to boot, use Aviras. To get a sandbox for testing noisy or viral software, download Toolwiz Timefreeze.

ProcMon is a process, file and registry activity monitor and logger. WinID is another tool that can capture resources dynamically, off the screen rather than from files (besides that it gives windows, controls and process info). OpenedFilesView can be used to know the opened files in the system.

Dependency Walker is a utility to list the dll modules a program is dependent of.

Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools About 130 tools for advanced use and system administration, including a DVD image burner tool and Robocopy (a robust and exact copier - in contrast to the crippled Xcopy in W98).

Unreal Speccy P4 0.38.2 is a ZX Spectrum emulator. Contains all roms needed. Make copy of ini for P4 version. Use Numlock to speed up loading. Browse settings with Alt-F1. Disable tape autostart if problems with tzx loading. Press F3 to select tape, press f7 to start tape. To make tzx files from tapes, use maketzx. Use wintzx to play back tzx files for loading into a real machine (or playtzx for loading from Android). Two sites for games and info are Demotopia and tzx vault.

A program that can do hard tweaking is Windows 8 smoker pro. To do deep registry cleaning RegSeeker can be used. It has a quick tweaks page also. To copy/backup registry files and other opened files while Windows is running, it is possible to use Shadow copy that uses the Volume shadow copy service. To slim a system, use Windows debloater and DISM++.

TCPOptimizer is a program to increase the speed of the Internet as it appears in programs (IE in particular).

Mizo XP themer to apply visual styles to old programs.

JR Split File splits large files to fit on floppies or whatever. A batch file can be generated for joining the pieces back.

Keyblaze typing tutor is a program to practice typing, with pattern training, ordinary text training and speed tests. Results are given with problem letters and words. One can also import texts to practice on.

IconsExtract efficiently extracts the icons in programs contained in folders (or single programs for that matter). IrfanView can extract icons in programs (but not bitmaps).

Total Uninstall is a program to monitor software installations for later complete removal. The link is to the last freeware version 2.35. Free Uninstaller is a fast program that allows for multiple uninstallations at once. Microsoft Install Clean-up is a tool to remove registry information about badly uninstalled programs, so that reinstalls can be made.

Jump Keys Pro (21-day trial) allows for fast access (by hotkey or menu item) to windows for those cases when you have very many windows open. It can access MDI child windows also. Winsize is a program to maintain window positions (on Windows98). Good when using several non-integrated tools for a project. There is a new “version” of Winsize for XP (etc) called Winsize 2 . You can add windows to be managed by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Z and then edit its window parameters in the “Special Parameters” dialog. ¨

Fast Explorer can add and edit Explorer context menus. Shell extension viewer is a tool to examine the installed context menu extensions in Windows. FileTypesMan is a tool to edit the right click actions for different file types.

Proxy+ Small (but good) proxy to route internet traffic to other locally connected computers (also by direct cable connection). Remote Access windows component must be installed, even though a dialup connection is not used.

Network Scanner from SoftPerfect is an easy scanner for looking for computers in IP ranges. SoftPerfect also has a free firewall to download. 

Whois good domain name registration info lookup program that can (and will) query any Whois server in the world. (Just don't press the enter key, it will close the application). Nsasoft has several other free net and sys tools here.

Keyfinderthing Lite is available to retrieve forgotten serial numbers.

CrystalDMI Gets BIOS information and images by the DMI (desktop management interface).

NTpwedit is a tool to change NT passwords offline.

XP security console is a program that lets the user edit policies even on Home editions that lack the group policy editor.

Partition Wizard is a partition manager that can resize partitions (including the boot partition after starting in a single task environment). A free tool that works on Windows server is AOMEI partition assistant lite. Partition Wizard lets the user edit the partition type id. This can be useful after detecting hidden/lost partitions (such as recovery partitions) with Partition Find and Mount . Partition Wizard can copy partitions and Find and Mount can create and open partition images, but DriveImage XML can copy/image the partition that is currently booted from (even onto itself) using shadow services, and can copy to USB disks in its raw mode. PartitionSaving can be used to save partitions, and it can also help after moving disks/partitions to get them bootable by editing the registry key MountedDevices.

To use the NT bootmanager, the bootpart tool can be run to create XP boot.ini entries, bootsectors, DOS bootsector files and system files (use the below bootdisk to boot to DOS first then). Extensive bootsector and MBR work can be done with TestDisk (even from a DOS bootdisk). EasyBCD 2.3 is a free boot editor for Win7-10. It can be complemented with BootIce.

DOS bootdisks. To extract the bootdisk, use WinImage. To format a USB key, and place the system files from the bootdisk correctly, use the USB disk storage format tool. Long filename support for FAT disks can be added with doslfn. Use a free version of doskey to speed up the command line, and the FreeDOS mouse driver for mouse support. To use the USBexFAT driver for USB keys, the drivers might need to load late so the system files can be copied to RAMdisk first, then use loadsys to load (and unload) drivers. A free EMS manager Jemm is available. Jemm switches to protected mode, which could affect other programs.

DOSbox emulator to improve DOS compatibility on 32-bit, and to make it possible to run DOS programs on 64-bit OS'es.

Things to consider when updating a Windows 98 system to run on a newer machine is the Big HDD patch, the NUSB USB 2.0 drivers, the Paragon NTFS driver, and the ACITS LPR remote printing utility. Bearwindows is a generic video driver for Windows 98 with newer video cards. XMSDISK is a RAM disk that can use up to 2 GB RAM as a disk in DOS, so that excess RAM actually can be used. RLoews patches are needed to use the RAM without a RAM disk on newer machines. To get Windows 98 to boot on a second disk, make the first partition on the first disk bootable with DOS and redirect to the second disk by editing msdos.sys .

Tokiwa DataRecovery is a tool to undelete files. It isn't folders-based and also has a file wipe option. The safest way to recover files is to boot to DOS (with the bootdisk above for example) and run TestDisk. Another good undeleter is DMDE. To recover information from damaged CD:s, use IsoBuster. It is free for iso format CD:s, but not for recovery of UDF/PacketCD format CD:s. IsoBuster is good at recovering files from harddisks as well.

Defraggler does efficient defragmentation, it can defrag free space and move large files to end of filesystem as well. PageDefrag defragments the swap and registry files at boot time.

HDDScan is a program to read out harddrive identity info and S.M.A.R.T. parameters and to execute drive tests. It is for XP SP2 and Vista/7. Victoria is a HDD info and test tool for DOS/Win98. It has a defectoscope, one can move the disk position while checking, and it has functions for bad block repair. Version 3.3.3 is in english. For more details on core hardware, use CPU-Z and GPU-Z.

UPX packer for executables. Will halve the size of the EXE.

PCLReader is for viewing PCL/PRN/HPGL printer files.

Malicious Software Removal Tool offline virus scanner/remover. Use Windows Repair (All in One) in case the system needs some repair. Adwcleaner is a very fast adware scanner. Good complement to the regular antivirus software.

Updates and components

The IE root certificates can be reinstalled with this tool.

Tvicport is a driver for the parallell port, so that it can be directly accessed from an application program.

UDF Reader is a driver for reading UDF (PacketCD) format CD:s.

Vector Graphics ActiveX component for programming rich vector graphics functionality.

WMA/WMV Microsoft codecs, even for Windows media player 6.4. LAME is an exe/dll codec for high bitrate mp3 decoding.

WinHlp32 is required to view old-style help files.

Windows script to run script program files.

Spool 1.2 to spool files directly to printers.

VC++ 6 processor pack exists to get added instructions for the latest processors. Masm is distributed with it.

DirectX 9 graphics and sound runtime/redistribution pack. DirectX 10.1 is supplied with Vista SP1. There are also software development kits: DirectX 9 SDK , DirectX 10/11 SDK . The SDK:s include the runtimes. There is also Direct2D introduced with DirectX 10. The SDK is in the Win7 SDK.

OpenGL extension viewer to check the OpenGL graphics support on your (or other) system(s). The dll files opengl32.dll and glu.dll are supplied with Windows. opengl32.lib and glu.lib are supplied with Visual Studio or Masm. gl.h and wingdi.h (for WGL functions) are supplied with Visual Studio.

GDI+ redistributables for that class-oriented graphics interface.

.NET Framework 4.8, .NET Framework 4, .NET Framework 3.5 SP 1, .NET Framework 1.1 (1.1 SP1 is here ). A complete removal of the .NET frameworks is easily done with the dotnet cleanup tool. Development kits for .NET are bundled with OS SDK:s : Win8.1/.NET 4.5.1 SDK, 7/.NET 4 SDK, 7/.NET 3.5 SDK, W2K3 R2 SDK The .NET SDK:s don't contain the framework runtimes. Installer and DirectShow SDK:s are included in W2K3 R2 SDK.

WTL is the Windows Template Library that extends ATL. It is not really an application framework, but rather a UI library.

Qt cross-platform application framework, available as open source with a GUI designer, but no Visual Studio integration as in the commercial version. GTK+ is an open source GUI toolkit/library, which was originally for UNIX/X, but is now cross-platform.

Windows Installer version 3.1 (for 2K/XP) is here . Version 4/4.5 here. This could be complemented with Windows Installer SDK or MakeMSI to create and update MSI files.

Intel INF Update utility contains chipset driver information files for Series 900, 3 - 5 chipsets, with IDE/SATA, PCIe and USB. The actual PCI/IDE/USB drivers are Microsoft's. The actual Intel AHCI SATA drivers can be downloaded here. fix_hdc / fix_7hdc is a command line utility to run from a PE environment to fix the hard drive controller driver of a non-bootable system. It can also be used to switch from IDE to AHCI drivers, see this.

WDK Windows driver kit. Debugging tools for Windows contains Kd (kernel debugger) and Windbg (the MS symbol server is here, not browseable - or download here if you want to have it offline). LiveKD enables more functionality from Kd and Windbg.

Microsoft update catalog is where updates to the Windows system can be officially downloaded if you need to do it manually. A help in this process is WHDownloader. Windows ISO Downloader is a tool to download official ISO images from Microsoft. To download Windows 8 (6.2), which is a necessary intermediate step in upgrading a Windows 7 installation to Windows 8.1 and 10, check for it on archive.org , or use these official links. To simplify getting the Visual Studio redistributables/runtimes, use WSUS offline update.