Software Guide

[Andrew]

I added it under System Information section. If anyone knows other free system information software, do suggest!

I was thinking the freeware version of process explorer (found at softpedia I think).

Also memtest.

[erjin999]

Akri, I think its cool, was just mentioning that I used those kind of tools before, but in XP I dont think resetting passwords behind asteriks is the way I would do it (try passware instead, if it covers your program, it does loads, but isnt free...).

Process Explorer is freeware now, isnt it ?! I have downloaded it from Winternals, or systernals, whichever one deals with freeware, and used it and Regmon and filemon...or am I getting Filemon and process explorer mixed up :P

[Andrew]

Seems it is freeware. :P Must've gotten it confused with another program I tried getting.

They came out with a new version recently that seems to have some good changes.

Added process explorer and memtest.

It's posible to have two programs that do the same thing listed, as a person may want a certain one for a certain reason when looking over them both.

I was thinking of adding Thunderbird for an email client(software). Any others that are free?

[erjin999]

Andrew, dont scare me like that, I thought I was going crazy !

Pegasus is free and I used to use it at Uni, but that was ages ago, now its outlook all the way :P

[Andrew]

I used pegasus mail starting in grade 7 and 8 :)

Havn't used it since high school though.

Interesting that it is free. Didn't think it was (at least previously). I havn't heard much of it latetly. Will add though :)

You use the outlook (express) that came with windows version?

[gryphon]

Pegasus is free and I used to use it at Uni, but that was ages ago, now its outlook all the way :P

And it is free for uni's to use.. .so Novell adapted it's policy and all Uni's are now using GroupWise or NetMail.. ;)

[Andrew]

The wesbite for pegasus mail says it is free to use anywhere as far as I could tell (personal use, doesn't say anything about restricting corporate use).

My uni also uses Novell email so that students can access it from anywhere. But I get viruses sent to me everyday through it. So I don't use my UPEI email account much. I'm pretty sure viruses has one time or another affected computers that profs use in class.

Good thing I use firefox, when I open an email with a virus it tries to run an application. :P

[gryphon]

the fact that you can access it from anywhere is just the webmail feature from GroupWise. It's not that they use Novell so students can access it from anywhere. All mayor email servers have it. And the viri thing depends on the settings of your email server combined with the AV software they use. Even Exchange can be kept virus clean with a good configuration..

Opera also has an email client build in btw.

[Andrew]

Was thinking of something like

[Latest Stable Version]  [Development or Beta]

Internet

Firefox [1.5.0.1] - Web browser

Opera [8.51] - Web browser

Thunderbird [1.5] - Email software

Pegasus Mail [4.31] - Email software

Or the red colour could signify a new version (say within last 2-3 weeks) and green would mean no recent releases.

Maybe add release date (if known)

Firefox [1.5.0.1 Jan 15 2006] - Web browser

Opera [8.51 Feb 15 2006] - Web browser

Then if a new version is released it could be updated. Or maybe keeping up with releases takes too much time.

Just tried GIMP, seems good. A lot better than paint shop pro 9 which I havn't liked (at all!) compared to version 7. Used GIMP to get html color for the post. Couldn't find that in PSP 9 (but it was in previous versions).

Will add email into opera description.

[Acriku]

Andrew, I would think the highlighting would require quite a bit of maintenance from you or a moderator. Perhaps we should post updated versions like we do software?

Not exactly a piece of software, but it leads to many freeware utilities that are extremely useful.

One that I'm using a lot currently is : Process Explorer v10.05

It's a task manager with better functionality, I would say. Process highlighting, DLL and handle displays, etc.

*edit: Seems I should look at what is listed before adding something. Ah well, it's worth mentioning twice!

[Andrew]

Ya, if something new and exciting is released from one of the products, someone could easily post in this thread to let us all know.

[gryphon]

Although it's still in beta 2 officially, Microsoft Defender might be worth mentioning. ;)

[erjin999]

What is Microsoft Defender ? Sounds like a new version of a Lawyer program they have developed, or something :P

I can imaging it, Upgrade your lawyers now, but an Open Liciense for Microsfot Defender now !

[gryphon]

Microsoft AntiSpyware in it's current form ;)

[erjin999]

Ah, they renamed the bugger have they ?

Glad its not an electronic expert system simulating a lawyer to defend microsoft. That antispyware is pretty good atually !

[veK]

antispyware tool from ms?

what does it do? uninstall windows?  ;D

was nLite mentioned yet? probably the best tool to make your own windows version with implemented drivers, service packs, hotfixes and without all the silly crap nobody needs. nice tweaking options too.

ah and samurize: best sytem monitoring tool. you just needsome time for it to get a long how it works. basically you have a lot of meters and stuff and you create your own gui to display whatever you like. there are also a lot of bundles on the homepage, so you just have to connect the settings right after downloading them.

[gryphon]

MS Defender did uninstall Norton recently .. so it's not perfect yet and who knows it might even uninstall Windows for you ;)

A note on nLite. It's a nice program, although remember that removing certain things from Windows changes the OS so it might not be compatible anymore with Windows itself, updates or other programs.

[erjin999]

Damn dont I know that, I used both nLite and XPLite to make a nice small C: drive, and now, hehe, I have "issues" ;).

Trying to get a WAMP thing going, and apache server is not happy.

[veK]

nLite is for "pro"-users in my opinion. people who have dealt with pcs quite some time, especially knowing a lot about windows and knowing what they are doing. still you might face some problems at first - happened to me too the first time. but after that I never had any problems. just don't remove everything, just the crappy stuff and things you will definitely not need. if you have some experience with windows and know what you are doing you will have a lot of fun with this. like I do  :)

[Andrew]

Added Free Download Manager. Any other good download managers that are free (no ads etc)?

Added Samurize. Looks cool! Does it use many system resources? Not that I'd use such an application, as it would only bog down my computer more ;). But definitely good to see what is being used up on a normal session.

nLite also looks good. From a quick glance, is it kinda like tweakui for win 95/98 (except different, but same concept of customizing MS windows? )?

Will add. They are free :)

[veK]

@ samurize: depends on what you are building into your config. I only have a small bar on top of the screen which displays cpu load, ram load, free space on c and d and the battery lifetime. this doesn't use resources. but if you start using every kind of meter and plugin and also a lot of stuff which needs to be updated every second, it might cause some additional unwanted load. but I don't know for sure, I never used such an overloaded cfg.

@ nLite: I don't remember tweakui that good but for winxp I haven't seen a better tool (can customize other versions of windows too but I only used it on xp so far). like I said: it's very complex and has many details, you should really have some experience with windows and know what you are doing. if not, maybe you should try the new customized version on a secondary pc first (if you got one), so you don't get mad if you customized too much and maybe removed some components you should not. but definitely try it, if you already have some experience with tweaking and customizing.

[erjin999]

My problem with nlite and xplite is about the extreames I go to to get the smallest %Windir% I can. I remove almost anything. Did you know MSI installer can require VBScript under Internet Utilities in XPLite ? Yeah, took me a good few mins to work that out ;)

Stuff like that gets on my nerves, but if it means I can image my C: drive in under 4 mins, no probs. I can add and remove crap all day to my hearts content !

[Andrew]

Was discussing this with a friend, and using foxit pdf freeware and pdfcreator, we were able to input text into a pdf (say forms and shit), then able to "print" using pdfcreator which saved the pdf with all the inputted text to a new pdf. It worked like a charm!

You need the pro version of foxit to normally do this, and I don't think adobe even has the capabilities to input text onto a pdf form unless the pdf lets you (say government tax forms).

With foxit you can input text anywheres in the pdf.

Hmm, although now it seems that it can save the text natively without pdfcreator, but it is supposed to watermark it as it is evaluation, but I don't see any watermarks.

Awesome software combination.

[erjin999]

I have used adobe photoshop to do that.

[Andrew]

That is free?  ???

I guess when I said adobe, I meant the free reader version.