The essentials

I’m coming off the back of another Windows install, so I now have a directory containing about a CD’s worth of software – the essentials for installation on a clean system. In alphabetical order (from my folder listing):

  • 7-zip – for dealing with .zip, .rar, and all other archives.
  • nVidia drivers – I ditched ATI a while back because their Linux driver support is poor.
  • Ad-Aware SE Personal edition – but I seldom get many hits with it.
  • Adobe Acrobat Reader – I figure under Windows it’s a decent choice.
  • Free-AV Antivirus Software – one of the few AV programs I’ve used that treats me like an adult.
  • Bittorrent – yeah I’ve heard of Azureus and other clients but plain old BT does everything for me.
  • CDBurnerXP Pro 3 – good free alternative to Nero/Roxio or some sort of bundled-with-the-drive software.
  • DirectX SDK – because I’m a games programmer.
  • Firefox – I’m tempted to try Opera 9, but not sure what it adds to my average browsing experience.
  • Gaim – nice free multi-protocol IM client.
  • GIMP – my alternative to Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro.
  • Ghostscript & Ghostview – for viewing postscript files (such as papers from the web).
  • Inform 7 – I’m playing with it.
  • MSN Messenger – only because Gaim’s support for video conversations is still poor (MSN Messenger seems to have been replaced with Windows Live Messenger).
  • Java Runtime Environment – for all sorts of stuff (e.g. OpenOffice).
  • Lisp in a Box – another thing I’m playing with.
  • nForce drivers – for my motherboard.
  • Notepad2 – everything that Notepad should have been.
  • OpenOffice.org – although I can get MS Office for $20 from work, I use OOo.
  • Putty – because the Windows telnet client pushes the lameness envelope.
  • SB Live! Drivers – it’s on my MB; I didn’t buy Creative by choice.
  • Spybot Search & Destroy – a counterpart to Ad-Aware SE.
  • Vidalia bundle – which encompasses Tor and Privoxy for anonymous web browsing.
  • Creative webcam driver – just because I have that kind of webcam.

Paid-for software (but in most cases, I didn’t pay for it) that makes the list:

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