Free programs - the ultimate guide

[cptwhite_uk]

TheAnimus

GetPaint link is correct for me, getpaint.net - logo still says paint.net on the site.

[SiM]

The app is called Paint.net, even though the website is getpaint.net

[magneticman]

yeah funny considering vista is better

[cptwhite_uk]

Paint.net link text corrected

[Grey M@a]

Add ImgBurn to the list for DVD/CD burning. From the guy who made DVD Decrypter and has gone all legal now

http://www.imgburn.com/

[Lanky123]

Autohotkey - another fairly self explanatory one, more info here. I just use it for setting up a Ctrl+Alt+ or Winkey+ hotkey for pretty much every website or app I use. Moving a mouse is so much effort. I believe it can do much more than that if you want it too though.

[tigerboyce]

Also for the wallpaper section:

http://mandolux.com/ - Large selection of high quality wallpapers including multiple monitor setups

[ajbrun]

Colorcop's useful at times .

http://colorcop.net/

[Hicks12]

could ad AIMP2 to media player, really good software that supports its own hot key mapping along with its dedicated audio device(headset/speaker etc), little ram usage awell.

[cptwhite_uk]

Link and brief description people! It's hard enough compiling everything!

[2Cold Scorpio]

I see you listed CPU-Z, but everyone seems to have forgotten about GPU-Z!

GPU-Z - Basically the same as CPU-Z, except for your video card: a lightweight utility designed to give you all information about your video card and GPU.

[moogle]

I see you listed CPU-Z, but everyone seems to have forgotten about GPU-Z!

GPU-Z - Basically the same as CPU-Z, except for your video card: a lightweight utility designed to give you all information about your video card and GPU.

Logs temperatures too and you can also save your GPU bios.

[cptwhite_uk]

Keep em coming, get others to make suggestions. This is going to be a bible and updated regularly!

[kalniel]

Emacs does just about everything doesn't it?

http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/

[Craig321]

Vista Codec Pack - Free codec pack for Vista (based on ffdshow) - a 64-bit pack is also included on the website

VirtualPC - free virtualisation software

wxDev-C++ - Same as DevC++ but includes drag and drop buttons, dialogs and other GUI tools without the need of .NET framework

VirtualDub - Excellent video encoding software

CoreTemp - Monitor the temperatures of your CPU(s)

Avidemux - Another excellent piece of software to encode videos

Daemon Tools - Mount ISOs and other CD/DVD images virtually

Filezilla - Excellent software to connect to FTP/SFTP servers

FurMark - Stress your graphic card, good for testing stability

GPU-Z - Monitor graphic card temperature, clock rates and other statistics

Hamachi - Create a VLAN with ease between your friends. Allows you to play games over the internet against each other by using the LAN options - no port forwarding required

GSpot - Analyze a video or audio file to check what codecs and settings it's using

Grabit - Download files from Usenet

Sabnzbd+ - Download files from Usenet through a nice web browser based client

HDTach - Benchmark your hard drives to find out access time, and read speeds

HDTune - Same as above - includes some extra error checking functions

IrfanView - Very nice, simple image viewer. Much faster than the default Windows one

MusicBrainz Picard - Tag your music properly with information from MusicBrainz massive online database

nLite - Can be used to take ISO (image) of your XP disk and edit it. Features can be removed, drivers can be pre-installed and the XP setup can be made unattended

Notepad++ - Excellent replacement for Notepad

Prime95 - Stress your CPU and/or RAM to ensure stability after an overclock, or when you've just purchased a new PC/CPU

PuTTY - Connect to SSH servers - tunnels can be created and other advanced options are included

QTracker - Find game servers on the internet, when you find a server simple double click it and the program will launch the game and connect you to the server automatically.

Skype - Make voice calls over the internet

Songbird - Excellent iTunes alternative. Basically a library for your music

Speedfan - Monitor system temperatures, perform SMART tests and other features

TrueCrypt - Encrypt your files into an extremely secure container with password protection

UltraVNC - Once set up this program will allow you to remote access into a PC running the UltraVNC server with ease

Unstopable Copier - This is an excellent program for copying large amounts of data. It seems like a GUI front end for RoboCopy.

VideoLAN - This media player will play pretty much ANYTHING you throw at it. I've needed it a few times to play videos with obscure codecs that VCP (Vista codec pack) didn't include

WinDirStat - Find out which folders and files on your computer are using the most space. Analyses the size of all the folders on your computer.

[Giraffe]

I find Universal Extractor very useful - can often try out or even 'install' freeware with nothing being outside its own folder; also much more convenient than WinZip or similar for extracting archives, especially if installed so that the context menu ist available.
It doesn't zip files, but I have PowerDesk Pro for that.

http://www.legroom.net/software/uniextract