My laptop is approaching a level of instability that only a truly borked Windows installation can match, so I think it’s time to make a list of my essential software so when I format and start over I don’t forget anything important and have to install it in a pinch later. So here is software I use on a daily basis and find important enough to reinstall:
- Firefox .8
- Mozilla 1.6
- Thunderbird .5
- Dreamweaver MX 2004
- Photoshop CS
- Photoshop 7 (long story)
- Topstyle 3
- Color Schemer
- CuteFTP Pro
- Putty
- TightVNC
- UHVPN
- YzDock
- StyleXP
- Bluetooth stack
- AIM
- DeadAIM
- WireKeys 1.7.2
- WindowFX
- Winamp 5
- mIRC
- TweakXP Pro
- AllNetic Working Time Tracker
- Audiocatalyst (No longer available.)
- Tortoise CVS
- NMapWin
- Rainlendar
- Norton Antivirus
- WinRAR
- MM-Exporter
- SoundForge
- Easy CD Creator
- Nero Burning ROM
- OpenOffice
Fin! Now if I can just find the restore CDs for my laptop, I’m good to go. Wish me luck.
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Matt Mullenweg is one of PC World’s Top 50 People on the Web, Inc.com’s 30 under 30, and Business Week’s 25 Most Influential People on the Web. 
David House | March 4th, 2004 @ 1:08 pm |
My big use list:
-Firefox 0.8
-MSN Messenger
-IE6 (Not quite managed to cleanse it yet)
-Windows Media Player
-Dreamweaver MX (creation of files, majority of programming)
-SCiTE (quick file edits)
You should really add <ul> to your list of allowed HTML tags. I just had to be horribly unsemantic.
Geof | March 4th, 2004 @ 1:16 pm |
Hmmmm … I’d have to take stock on my laptop.
I’m also wishing that I’d archived downloaded executables to CD. I will be doing that in the future. I had to do a reinstall back in January, and when I get another computer running happily at home, I’m going to dump all the data to it and do a complete wipe and reinstall on the laptop.
Michael Heilemann | March 4th, 2004 @ 1:42 pm |
Hmmm…
- Camino
- Firefox
- BBEdit
- Photoshop CS
- Safari 1.2
- Salling Clicker
- Proteus
- Backup
- xPad
- Transmit
That’s about it really…
Kathy | March 4th, 2004 @ 3:21 pm |
wow! that’s a lot of aps!!! i bet it takes forever to put them all back on and customize your pc the way you like it again.
Basil Crow | March 4th, 2004 @ 3:51 pm |
Adobe Acrobat 6
Adobe Photoshop CS
AIM 5.2
AIMutation
Aqua Dock
Code-Genie
Cygwin
eMule
Finale 2004
FlashFXP
Isobuster
iTunes
Kazaa Lite K++ Edition
Microsoft Office 2003
Mozilla Firefox
mIRC
Nero Burning ROM
Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition
Tag&Rename
TweakUI
Spybot Search & Destroy
WinRAR
Matt | March 4th, 2004 @ 5:38 pm |
I updated the list to be links in case you’re interested in any of the programs. I might add descriptions later, but then I’d really have to change it to a
<dl>and I don’t have time for that at the moment. Thanks everyone for posting your lists, I’m always looking for great software.Adam | March 4th, 2004 @ 7:36 pm |
My can’t live without:
- Trillian
- NewzCrawler
- PowerMarks
- myIE2
- Roboform
- Lookout
- ActiveWords
- Paintshop Pro
- POPfile and Outclass
- J River Media Center
- MileTracker
- Napster
- ActiveTracker
Adam | March 4th, 2004 @ 7:37 pm |
Dang, if there’s one thing I hope for in blog software for the future, it’s a comment-edit button
. It should be able to throw a cookie my way that says, yes, that was you who posted that, now you can edit it. Blah.
Cheah Chu Yeow | March 4th, 2004 @ 7:43 pm |
Well, you don’t really need StyleXP to apply custom themes or visual styles – do a search for “UXTHEME.DLL patch”. Applying that patch allows you to use custom themes/visual styles using Windows’ basic Display Properties applet.
Anyway, heh it’s a good idea you know, to keep a list of essential software that is – I have a list of that myself which is very useful for the (too-frequent) times when I reformat my harddisk, usually because things start to get unstable or just too plain slow.
Lucian | March 4th, 2004 @ 8:41 pm |
I just do a run-through my dragthing toolbar. Don’t forget all your license numbers!
Kevin Francis | March 4th, 2004 @ 11:04 pm |
Well, I use these pieces of software everyday (yes, they’re Linux based):
- Gedit
- Bluefish
- ncftp
- Rhythmbox
- Firefox
- Gaim
- irssi
- Abiword
- Thunderbird
- Photoshop
the rest of that list gets waaay too long to post here
Lisa | March 4th, 2004 @ 11:10 pm |
That Rainlendar is very useful, thank you for sharing the link!
Sushubh | March 5th, 2004 @ 2:30 am |
No Opera! Now I know why I suffer the wrath of the merciless dictator.
chuckg | March 5th, 2004 @ 8:51 pm |
Substitutions on your list:
1. AIM -> Trillian: there are no popups and you can use multiple services, not to mention all those silly AIM viruses have no effect on it.
2. Norton Anti-Virus -> AntiVir: Doesn’t come with all the b.s. norton throws on top of you, and updates more often. I’m virus free for the past year, it hasn’t missed a thing.
3. StyleXP -> format.exe: at least format.exe doesn’t use up memory like it’s a second career. Hah
“No Opera! Now I know why I suffer the wrath of the merciless dictator.” – Sushu said it best, but I won’t stop there. Every try browsing a page that had more than say, 4 or more animated gif’s running at once? Firebird will slam down your system resources, chugging everything. Better yet, even with the window minimized, it’ll continue to render the images. Opera handles gif’s much better, and the coolest part is that it doesn’t render ANYTHING while it’s not active … including tabbed windows. There’s a ton of other nifty features, but that’s just one example.
Oh yea and make the comment box bigger so I can rant longer! =D
Nice site, I’ll be back.
Andrew | March 6th, 2004 @ 1:45 am |
how do you like OpenOffice?
MaThIbUs | March 6th, 2004 @ 2:19 am |
Am I the only one who wishes Matt Good Luck then?
Matt | March 6th, 2004 @ 12:58 pm |
Andrew, it’s come a long way. It has a long way to go.
Radley | March 7th, 2004 @ 2:15 am |
Firefox 0.8
Thunderbird 0.5
BBEdit
Fireworks
Snak
NetNewsWire Lite
Transmit
Finder
markku | March 7th, 2004 @ 11:22 am |
Good luck on your reinstall adventure! I hope it won’t be one of those one-day things that end up “lacking” after a week!
Kevin Francis | March 8th, 2004 @ 4:18 am |
I agree with you about OO.org, Matt. A bit of a ways to go.
Matt | March 8th, 2004 @ 2:22 pm |
Chuckg, I found an alternate for StyleXP that looks pretty good. I can’t stand Trillian, never known why. The antivirus program you suggested, though butt-ugly, seems to work pretty well so I’m going to use that instead.
chuckg | March 10th, 2004 @ 2:36 am |
“though butt-ugly”
It has that “cute fat baby” appeal, doesn’t it? Trillian takes some getting used to, but I must admit, unless you break down and purchase the $20 pro version of Trillian, you really can’t tell what the application is capable of. What alternative are you using for StyleXP now? How’s the hit to CPU cycles/memory?
Eric Vitiello | March 14th, 2004 @ 7:51 am |
I have to say thank a million for the reference to MM-Exporter. I’ve been wanting something like that for a long time!! I have a feeling that the Time Tracker app is going to be perfect too.
Alex Ezell | March 18th, 2004 @ 10:50 am |
Have you ever tried TortoiseSVN instead of TortoiseCVS. Seem great interface and features built on top of the Subversion system. I find it is many, many times easier than CVS.
SteamedPenguin | July 23rd, 2004 @ 2:25 am |
Essential Software:
Konsole: Tabbed, versatile terminal.
Quanta Plus: General purpose Web development environment. Strengths: PHP
Kontact: PIM. Mail, address book, etc.
akregator: RSS and Atom feed parser.
KWord: Word Processor. Save as PDF is the bomb.
K3b: burn CD’s baby, burn!
KSig: Signature manager.
Konqueror: Browser. Tabbing, fast, and comes with developer tools.
Umbrello: UML modeler
KDevelop: IDE
irssi: IRC client
bitlbee: IM (AIM, yahoo, MSN) to IRC gateway.
elinks: console browser
Priya Nainar | April 29th, 2005 @ 8:00 pm |
Take a look below… this would also be useful.
Acrobat Reader 5
ACDSee 4.0
DAP
F Prot
Neuro
PDF writer
Real Player
Splitter
VCD Cutter
Winamp 5
Winrar
Wordweb
Josef Ratzsch | May 15th, 2005 @ 10:07 pm |
Josef Ratzsch Essential Software List (WinXP):
Windows XP SP2
Office 2003 + FrontPage + Visio
Nero 6.6 Ultra
WinRAR
K++ 2.4.7
eMule
Azureus
Agent Newsreader
K-Lite Codec Pack Full
NetStumbler
Ethereal
WinArp Spoofer
Trillian v3
mIRC
Real Alternative
Quicktime Alternative
CloneDVD2 + AnyDVD
PhotoShop + Illustrator
QuarkXpress
DreamWeaver + Flash
EditPlus v2
Microsoft Anti-Spyware beta1
AVG v7
WinISO
Vegas Video
Sound Forge
Fruity Loops
Adobe Reader v7
Media Player 10
ObjectDock Plus v1.15
Hoyle Casino 2004
yup, thats the killer setup!