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Reformat and Get Legal! Free Apps for a Killer Windows Install

I’ll admit there was a time when I thought that my computer always had to have a few…er…borrowed programs. You know, things like Office, Photoshop, or Nero that the general public “must have” because there aren’t any good alternatives. Well, those days are long gone and anyone that’s done any digging around knows that there are now tens of thousands of quality free programs that do the same damn thing. Download these recommends first, reformat, and load ‘em up!

1. DriverMax
   This one gets listed first because you need it BEFORE your reformat. Install it and let it go to work, and it’ll export every driver on your system (or just the ones you select). On your clean install, load this up and import drivers, and you’re done. No annoying yellow ! in Device Manager.
2. Magical Jellybean Keyfinder
   Another one to run beforehand. Launch it, and it’ll show you your Windows product key and let you save it to a text file. This program is a must if someone’s taken liberties with your sticker and you can’t read it all (or any of it) any more.
3. DialUpPass
   If you have a VPN, DSL, or dial up connection and aren’t sure of your password, Nirsoft’s DUP will discover it for you. Disable your antivirus before running this, as it often shows up as a trojan (trust me, Nirsoft’s stuff is always clean).
4. MailPassView
   Another lifesaver for people that have trouble with passwords. Also from Nirsoft, this one will dig up your account and server settings and export them to a text file for easy set up later.
5. Mozilla Firefox
   Lay the groundwork for a solid new install with the best browser. Sure, IE is built in to your system, but it’s just too vulnerable, slow, and clunky to be the go-to browser on your nice clean Windows. Firefox is where it’s at – about 90% of this site’s traffic uses it.
6. AVG Free Edition
   Free antivirus is priority one after the reformat.A long time ago I gave up on AVG because of the goofy trolls that adorned their alert screens, and also because I thought their app was substantially larger than Avast! Well, I’m back on board. The new versions have been great, the interface looks good, and it now offers WOT-like web site ratings via a browser toolbar.
7. EvilPlayer
   I shuddered at first when my buddy showed me this minimalist audio player, but now I love it. Its interface is extremely bare (it just looks like a playlist window) and it’s best controlled using the keyboard, but it’s light on ram, playback is great, and it’s not overloaded with features I don’t want or need.
8. Pidgin
   Gone is Windows Live Messenger from my system. Pidgin is infinitely more powerful and supports almost every chat service out there. The option of using a single, tabbed chat window is most welcome on days when people won’t leave me alone.
9. 7zip
   This has been my compression manager of choice for ages now. Sure, you can download Winrar’s trial and just ignore the registration message forever, but 7zip does the same things with no nags. 7zip will open just about any compressed file, including ISO files and some .exe.
10. InfraRecorder
    Nero is probably the one app I should have replaced long ago. I don’t need a guide dog to walk me through a DVD project, and I don’t use my burning software to make covers or create DVD video. InfraRecorder is lightweight, portable, and will burn just about anything with a clean, simple interface.
11. OpenOffice / Zoho Office
    There’s a choice here, because both options are equally good in their own ways. If you use more than one computer frequently, now is the time to give Zoho a try – it’s web-based and can do everything a normal office suite can, so that means no install on your computer (and that means less registry and system32 clutter). If you’re pretty much only using one computer, OpenOffice is the way to go. It’ll perform a bit better and it still works if your Internet is down.
12. uTorrent
    Anyone that isn’t running this to manage their torrents is crazy. CRAZY. uTorrent is ridiculously small, great at managing memory usage when several torrents are active, requires no install, and can be controlled remotely via a web interface.
13. FastStone Image Viewer
    I can get by with the thumnail view in Windows, but FastStone offers so many excellent features (way too many to get into on this list). In brief, it supports everything, has a nicely thought out 3-pane main screen, a great full screen mode with folder previews, and will even convert and edit images.
14. GimpShop
    Well, now I feel dumb for thinking I had to pirate Photoshop. GimpShop does everything I really need to do, supports the same plugins, starts up faster, consumes fewer resources, and is totally free. I love it, and there’s no going back now.
15. HotKeyz
    Getting around in any OS is way quicker with the keyboard than it is with the mouse. HotKeyz adds a huge amount of functionality to your KB by letting you create custom hotkey combinations.
16. Hamachi
    There are a ton of reasons to have Hamachi on your computer – remote control and secure file and print access to name two. I love being able to launch it at work and transfer any file from my data share on my home PC. It also works well with…
17. UltraVNC
    Coupled with Hamachi, uVNC gives you a powerful remote control setup that anyone can get running without headaches. Ultra sports some features other VNC flavors don’t, like screen scaling and a “send windows key” icon.
18. Notebook Hardware Control
    If you’ve got a laptop (or a desktop that supports green technology like SpeedStep), NHC is a great way to keep it cool, quiet, and healthy. Use it to control your cpu’s speed and voltage and reduce power consumption. (.Net framework required)
19. VLC Player
    There are other options now, but I still like my orange pylon. VLC will play back just about any format without annoying codec downloads ala Windows Media Player.
20. Adobe AIR
    Ok, sure, this is more of a platform than an app, but there’s so much development going on right now for AIR and so many quality applets for it that it deserves a place on a clean install.
21. Glary Utilities Free
    This is a great all-in-one system maintenance and tweaking app. It’ll do everything from one-click registry, tempfile, and shortcut cleanup to basic spyware scanning and hijacker removal.
22. SumatraPDF
    A lightweight PDf reader application. It unseated FoxIT a while back on my computer, and I’m very happy with it.
23. Defraggler
    Made by Piriform (they created CCleaner), it’s tiny, portable, and allows you to defrag only certain files rather than an entire drive.
24. EasyCapture
    I’ve been using MWSnap, but EasyCapture adds a lot of missing features. It’s got a ruler integrated into the capture selection box, crop utility, annotation, filters, highlighting, and a bunch of others. I can’t believe I got by without this.
25. Orbit Downloader
    If you need an easy, powerful, and fast downloader for media from sites like YouTube, MySpace, Last.Fm, this is the one. Supports downloading from multiple mirrors, Rapidshare, and more.
26. HP Smart Web Printing
    HP has made a brilliant browser plugin that makes printing all or part of a page - or several pages - extremely easy. Printed output is also an exact match of what you see on the screen, something no browser can really brag about.
27. Allway Sync
    I don’t see the point of traditional backups anymore, what with external hard drives being so cheap. So I maintain a synced copy of all my files using Allway. It supports scheduling, one-way or two-way syncing, and has a clean, tabbed interface.
28. Macrium Reflect Free
    Once your install is “perfect” it’s time to make yourself a full backup image so you don’t have to go through this again later. Macrium, like DriveImage XML, works right in Windows while you’re using it.