Software is an important part of computers. We can’t imagine of using computers without them. Well, sitting down and starting writing about anything is quite a simple job. But writing useful and quality content isn’t an easy task. We can find various websites providing a list of essential software for windows but it is better to know anyone’s personal opinion or experience using software.
So friend, I decided to produce a list of top windows software/utilities you may find quite useful and interesting.
25 Essential software/utilities to install into your pc:
I have listed them into 25 categorizes. I did my best to include only useful software you must install into your computer.
So, here we go:
1. Media Player
Listen to songs and watching videos/movies on computer an essential part of our life. In such situation, many of us use different utilities to play mp3 and videos files.
VLC Media Player is really an awesome software. It is a freeware software and supports nearly all type of media files which other players fail to play. You can download latest available version of the software from their official site.
Download Link: VLC Media Player
If you already have VLC Player then you can do some custom settings to make it incredible.
- Default skin/theme for VLC Player is ugly. You can choose custom theme from opening preferences by right clicking and selecting Interface.
- One thing you may not like about VLC Player that it resizes itself each time whenever a new video is played. However, this bug aroused after the release of v2.0. This may make you irritated. Each time you have to compress it to smaller window.
- You may also use Metro UI Skins for VLC Media Player. You can download them from Here. These are good looking and fixes the bug of resizes itself each time you play a video.
- “Always on Top” is a good feature and you may be missing it. You may enable it from video section under preferences.
- You may want to set up associations to play all media files using VLC Media files. After this, your all files will play using VLC Media player.
2. Internet Browser
Browsers like Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera Mini, Apple Safari for Windows, Torch etc. are all in the list. However, Torch browser is also chromium based browser and probably similar to Google Chrome but supports torrents downloads. Before Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox was the king of internet browsers. But after launch of Google Chrome, its effect is decreasing and waiting to die.
There are several reasons why Google Chrome reached milestone in very short time. It is very light weight and fast. Loads webpages too quickly. Supports tab browsing. Supports millions of extensions. You can sign in into it and all your data, history, extensions, bookmarks etc. will stay online forever. You will never lose your hard word. Sign in anywhere and get your all data on demand. And finally, it is from Google.
Download Link: Google Chrome
3. Download Utilities
Internet Download Manager is the best download agent. It supports lot of features. Few of them are:
- It is lightning fast.
- Supports resuming downloads.
- Supports download session update. If you forget to download file after half download and later you realized to download it. It can update the session. Downloading from sites likes YouTube is helpful.
- Organizes files in their respective category while downloading and even after downloading.
- Can shut down computer or hang out modem automatically after finishing downloading.
- Can manage which file to download first and can organize them in queue.
Download Link: Internet Download Manager
4. Anti-Virus Utilities
Anti-Virus is top among all. It is more important then any other software. Nothing is safe in today’s world. There are hackers who may want to infect your system. If you are not using internet even then your PC may be infected from viruses. USB drives are now-days is traditional method to spread viruses. You should always keep your anti-virus updated. New virus can come into market and your anti-virus may not be aware of it. So, have your anti-virus updated.
Anti-Viruses utilities like Avast! Anti-Virus, Kaspersky Internet Security, AVG Anti-Virus, Avira, BitDefender are all good. But let them to stay updated. All work in the same way. At least, freeware version would be able to remove viruses.
Download Link: BitDefender Anti-Virus
5. Revo Uninstaller Pro
When you uninstall programs from your system, they only uninstall but they left user settings and waste data behind in computers. Suppose recently you installed a paid software’s trial version and now trial version is over and it is asking for product key. You may try to uninstall and re-install it again to use again. But what you see, after re-install it again asking for product key. What the hell? L
In such situation, Revo Uninstaller helps in fixing this problem. You need to uninstall software using this utility. At last, you need to manually delete user data that software left behind after uninstall.
Download Link: Revo Uninstaller
6. Picasa Photo Viewer
This is another awesome software from Google available for free. If it would not free, you should not hesitate to buy the same. Except this, all other photo viewing utilities are quite ugly. Everything changed but these software updated themselves. Ugly interface. Picasa provides great user-experience and one would definitely enjoy when using it. Moreover, it supports photo editing too. Great interface.
Download Link: Picasa
7. Video Converters
Basically, there are many converters you may have used. EffectMatrix Total Video Converter, Bigasoft Total Video Converter and Format Factory are considered as best among all. All of them have their special features. Using EffectMatrix Total Video Converter, you can specify the size of the file. But it fails if you need to convert large size movies.
8. Nitro Pro for .pdf Files
When you come to the talk of opening a .pdf file, the first thing which comes into mind is Adobe Reader. But Adobe Reader fails when it comes to the point of features. Using Nitro Pro, you can do everything you want to do with a pdf file. Doing same with Adobe Reader requires real-time registration. The interface of Nitro Pro is also much well than Adobe Reader.
9. Dictionary
Dictionary is required by everyone who use computer. At some point, we stuck with something and want to find the meaning of a particular word. Indian users suffers from this problem. They can find such dictionary software easily which can convert English words into Hindi. But no such software is popular which can convert Hindi words into English. In such situation, you need Sheel’s Dictionary. It is a perfect utility as it supports both i.e. converting from Hindi to English and English to Hindi. Moreover, it has in-built visual Hindi keyboard. Other you may want to use are Oxford Dictionary, Shipra’s Dictionary.
10. Prevent
Though, it is very small utility but very helpful. Sometimes, There problem arouses when less experienced person use your computer and he may harm your computer deleting stuffs by mistake. Or, you don’t want him to copy anything to his pen-drive from your computer. In such situation, you need to install Prevent.
Key features:
- Disable cut
- Disable copy
- Disable Send To
11. Computer Information
Speecy is a useful tool to grab each & every small detail about your computer including its Manufacturer, RAM, CPU Temperature etc.
12. Connectify HotSpot Pro
Just like a Wi-Fi router, it converts your computer into a Wi-Fi router. Install it and share your internet connection among all your friends. What an awesome utility. You can specify Wi-Fi name and password and type of connection. You can also find who are using your connection right now.
13. Stardock IconPackager and CursorFX
Stardock has a huge list of great software and utilities which can give experience like never before. IconPackager changes your computer’s icons from desktop icons to folder icons. It supports themes. CursorFX changes the default look of your cursor. This also supports themes. Download them from their official website and enjoy the new transformed PC.
14. Novicorp WinToFlash Utility
May be you don’t have DVD drive in your laptop or your drive may not be working and you need to install windows. What would you do? Pick and removable media (SD Card, Memory Card, USB Drive) and insert it into port. Open the software and specify the windows path and destination path and make removable media bootable. Install windows without DVD drive. Install windows from USB Drive (takes only 10-15 minutes) rather than installing from DVD Drive which takes 30-45 minutes. Think yourself.
15. Recuva
Suppose you deleted a large sized file which even Recycle Bin failed to hold. Then it delete from your computer permanently. Later, suddenly you needed it. What can you do? Or formatted your removable disk by accident. Finding ways to suicide? Don’t worry, Recuva will help. It can recover permanently deleted files whether they are audios, videos, documents or program files. Give it a chance.
Now, you may be thinking how is it possible anyway? When you delete files they move to Recycle Bin, you later can recover them because they are still at your hard disk. They only become inaccessible by user and hence hidden. Restoring them alter the operation. In the same way, when you delete them permanently, they still remain on hard disk and only occupies space which is free. Whenever you put data on the empty space on your hard disk, they deletes forever. Recuva help you upto this situation only. If their space is covered by new data, they deletes forever. Now, it is impossible to recover it.
16. Mp3 tag
This small utility is used to edit all details of a mp3 file. Change the art of mp3 file and put on your photo or change artist name. It also supports mp4 file and you can set thumbnail on a mp4 file of your choice.
17. Unlocker
Trying to delete a file but showing error that the file can’t be delete because it is opened in another program. Just use unlocker and problem will be solved.
18. Sublime Text
Are you a coder? Writes codes but they looks ugly. Install Sublime Text Utility. Tell it what type of file it is and see the magic. Notepad++ is a useful tool but looks ugly. Sublime Text interface is quite similar to MAC TextEdit. They look quite similar to each other. After working on it, you will get addicted to it.
19. Team Viewer
Team Viewer is freely available for non-commercial use. It helps to control any computer remotely. You can send files directly from your computer to another or can copy from other computer to yours. Change settings on remote computer. You just need your partner’s ID and all done.
20. TechSmith Camtasia Studio
Sometimes, you need to record something step-by-step on solve a problem or you only want to make a video of screen. CamTasia helps in the same manner. It allows you to record video and convert it onto mp4 format.
21. Kill Disk Suite
As the name suggests, this helps you to completely erase everything on your hard disk. Don’t use until you become compel to erase everything. This is a great utility as it completely removes everything and make you feel like you brought a brand new HDD. It merges all available partition on your HDD into one.
22. Who Is On My Wi-Fi
As the name suggests, this helps you to check who else using your Wi-Fi. This provides you complete list and let you disconnect or disallow all those from using your Wi-Fi.
23. Icaros
This utility sets thumbnail on all type of video files. Formats like .mkv, .flv, .webm, .3gp etc doesn’t have its thumbnails and hence they look ugly as doesn’t any preview of them. Using this, you can set thumbnails on all vidoes.
24. Winzip
This utility helps you to have a compressed form of your data. One important thing about it is that you can put your pirated software in this format and your anti-virus would never identify them. If some of the files are secret, you can encrypt them password. Moreover after compression, they occupy less space than original file size.
25. USB Flash Copy
Last but least, this utility is incredible because of its feature. It helps you to backup all data in a specific folder from a removable disk. Problem arises when peoples insert their data into your computer. You really want to have that data into your computer but they don’t let you to do that. This utility secretly copies that data to a specific folder. Only thing is required, you need to insert that removable disk into your computer to let USB Flash Copy copy that data behind the wall. This helps me a lot.
Final Words:
I want to discuss more but unfortunately the word limit exceeded. All the above discussed suggestions is my personal experience with them. I wish this list may help you. That’s all.
Let me clear your doubts and know your thoughts.
