Looking for good/helpful software for windows to get. Stuff that offers QoL improvements etc
And no I don’t care about Linux so don’t bother suggesting I switch to it.
doom
If it came from an OEM then their tool that grabs driver/software updates. Lenovo Vantage for instance.
If it didn’t, then native apps that perform a similar task. Intel has one for their software/drivers, and another that’s only for their gpu. GeForce experience is another for their gpu cards. Likely others.
Powertoys. So many little apps that make things easier.
Monitor .inf files. I usually don’t notice an improvement but I like seeing my monitor in device manager instead of “Generic”
I used to say “Greenshot” but win11’s built in screenshot capture is good enough.
I go to the office website and make a PWA out of it. Makes it easy to open documents in their free web interface versions of office.
I make a PWA out of my gmail account web page.
Bitwarden or whatever password manager you use if not Edge.
Veracrypt so that I can keep personal files safe from being read from the hard-drive (eg if it’s stolen and removed).
Winmerge for comparing files.
Obsidian for organizing notes (and emacs, but you probably don’t want that unless you already use it!)
Resilio sync so that I can mirror files to other PCs to be backed up.
Irfanview for image viewing.
Plus stuff that others have mentioned.
Do you have Obsidian syncing with a mobile device? I’ve been trying to find a good way to do that. Currently using Nextcloud but it’s janky. I know you can pay them for their sync feature but it’s not worth $8 a month to me and I want to host it myself.
I use syncthing without any problems.
My current plan is to use SyncThing on the phones and on a linux PC. I’ve set up Obsidian to use a directory locally on the phone (Open Folder As Vault) and use SyncThing to sync that with the PC. As this is only a recent test, I’m still using resilio to sync that dir to other PCs such as my laptop. I just added to a note on my phone and it appeared in Obsidian on my laptop a few seconds later, despite two different syncs being involved.
I’d commented about bugs such as the sync percentage being stuck at 91%, but on reading up on it more, that’s due to a mis-match of ignored files (the ignore patters were the same, but it was still indicating that the files did not match between the two devices).
So my thoughts still stand that SyncThing has a lot of things to set up manually (e.g. it doesn’t automaticall sync between all peers) and the mobile app is strange for having two different UIs, but it looks like as I understand it better I’m happier to keep using it.
If I find that the Resilio phone app is better on battery life, I might switch back to that because I use resilio everywhere else and it’s simpler to set up (and I like that it archives old versions of files for a while).
If you can create notes on the phone you’re doing better than I am with Nextcloud. I’ve never been able to get anything I made on the phone to sync, i can edit and it will sync TO the phone but for whatever reason it doesn’t work the other way with new files. I have a workaround of having a standing “scratch” note that I copy stuff out of when i’m back at home but it’s an extra annoyance i’d rather not deal with.
Syncthing seems to be a good way to get real-time two-way sync so far, but I’ve had a few accidents while setting it up, overwriting latest changes. Probably my fault, but I’m glad that I have backups to other machines.
I tried owncloud years ago and I didn’t want something that heavyweight for file syncing. And I think it stores a copy of all it’s days in a database too. I just want to sync files in-place only. I haven’t tried that or nextcloud in a long time.
Syncthing Syncthing Syncthing works flawlessly /plugover :)
Irfanview for image viewing.
Finally somebody mentions this. It’s lightweight & loads quickly; is highly customizable and can do a number of image edits like cropping, filters, resize with various resampling methods; it can save to a bunch of different formats; etc. It’s always been one of the first things I install.
I’ve always preferred it to similar programs, it’s a really good balance of easy to use viewer and those basic editing features that you mention. Really good for printing, too, you can specify size and/or position on a page.
Is reselio sync better than say syncthing and folder sync?
Seeing lots of excellent suggestions for general (7-zip, Notepad++, etc).
Foobar2000 is a good music player
I don’t know if it’s good, but I guess there is now a Lemmy Desktop app https://webcatalog.io/en/apps/lemmy/
I saw you said you use Plex. I assume you use Steam for gaming?
Is there any specific feature/use you want QoL improvements for?
Hmm, i guess kinda stupid shit like taskbarX. QOL stuff the average person wouldn’t even think about improving
Gotcha.
I know Mental Outlaw had a video about powershell scripts to help reboot Windows 10
That might help speed it up and stop Windows from doing unnecessary background stuff and using resources
Foobar is the best ever forever. I still love you Winamp but FOOOOB
deleted by creator
Hwinfo
Windirstat
Ninite
Caffeine
VLC
Xnview
7-zip
Those go on every machine that I use, then you have your more specialized programs depending on industry.
7-zip
If you’re on Win 11, use NanaZip. It’s a fork with better integration with Windows 11’s crappy conext menu.
Caffeine
If you have PowerToys this is built in now.
+1 to NanaZip
Don’t use WIndirstat, It is needlessly slow. Use something like WizTree instead
It’s been many years since I had a windows desktop, but that list is right on. Great base software for your install.
is great for making bootable USB drives.
to install linux with
chocolatey
it’s a far cry from a package manager on an actually good operating system like openbsd ( it’s not linux ;) ), but it’s leagues better than cavemanning software off webpages with cancer like auto-updates to get around the lack of package management (or no updates, at all).
F.lux removes blue from the screen. Makes it easier on your eyes.
Even though I rarely setup Windows machines nowadays, here’s my usual Ninite package: https://ninite.com/7zip-everything-firefox-gimp-greenshot-inkscape-libreoffice-notepadplusplus-putty-qbittorrent-revo-steam-sumatrapdf-teracopy-thunderbird-vlc-winscp-wiztree
- 7zip is just the best archive tool on Windows
- Everything is insanely useful, specially if you get into the habit of triggering through a hotkey everything you need something.
- Revo Uninstaller used to be a must for properly uninstalling programs, not sure how useful it still is with Windows 10 and 11.
- Sumatra is an excellent and very fast PDF reader.
- TeraCopy has a bunch of nice utilities, though it’s copying/move graph is no longer relevant afaik.
- WizTree is a faster and nicer version of the old venerable WinDirStat, also very very useful to manage disk space.
Ninite is amazing.
+1 for Sumatra, it’s my favorite pdf reader by far
Good list, I also use most of these. Cannot overstate how great Everything is for searching files. I have about 1tb of books and 3tb of comics and I don’t know how I’d find anything without it. Everything + Freecommander was a game changer. When I’m at work and have to use use the default windows explorer it’s painful.
I highly recommend trying out a tiling window manager. Yes, they exist for Windows. No, they’re not as good as on Linux or BSD, but it’s a completely different workflow and you won’t know if it’s for you until you try it. Komorebi seems to be a popular choice. I tried workspacer but it was a PITA to configure (I say that as someone experienced in configuring and using a tiler). The Komorebi discord seems to have a channel for sharing configs so you can check it out as a source of inspiration or as a base to build your own config onto.
Also, a package manager like scoop or chocolatey. If I had to return to Windows, this would be a nonnegotiable.
Also, Chris Titus’ winutil for debloating, removing spyware, installing good common software and running a range of tweaks (including disabling or delaying feature updates for better stability).
Vivaldi. Yes, it’s technically proprietary (if you care about that stuff) but it’s really good, if you’re a power user in the browser, or if you’re a tab hoarder. I can’t see myself living without workspaces in the browser now. And the panel is nice if you’re into it.
That’s about it.
Sharex. The ultimate scree shotting utility. There are dozens of post capture tasks like upload to website, copy to clipboard, save to file, etc. You can do all of them at once, and it even caputes gifs!
Such useful features. They should be built-in. But I’m glad they’re serviced separately so we get updates outside windows update cadence.
And open source
perhaps WSL?
Process Explorer is still great.
