Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
In the Windows 11 thread, I mentioned that I create a folder on windows computers called c:\bin, which is where I stow primarily stand-alone or portable tools that don't really go anywhere else. There are a few exceptions to this; some things get can get copied elsewhere, but here's a quick guide to what I put out there and why.
3dPipes.scr - My favorite Screen Saver. It's 158kB. My copy is from an NT4 system and I've just had it THAT long. It pleases me to put it back, even if no one uses it.
AnyBurn - Mostly for dealing with ISO files, but it's a fine choice for most optical drive stuff as well.
Bulk Crap Uninstaller (BCU) - allows for mass software removal. Not really necessary on new systems, but I don't always work on new systems.
Windows Easy Transfer (no link; find a Windows 7 PC and make install media from there) - Still works just fine and I don't know why Microsoft took it away.
Belarc Advisor - Shows all the hardware in white box PCs and also product keys for installed software.
Chris Titus Tool - this is actually just a one-line script that can install Chocolatey and run a bunch of debloat tools from a simple interface.
DISM GUI - Because Windows Image management on the command line is a PITA. This is how I normally add drivers to a .wim file, most often by collecting them from a host where those drivers are already working.
Forensit.com User Profile Tools - these are super handy for dealing with user profiles in bulk, scriptable ways and I like them better than Microsoft's USMT.
EasyBCD - MOSTLY used because a Windows Update hosed someone's boot config. I need this a few times a year but it's better than re-imaging a PC just because it forgot where Windows (and/or Linux) is. I make a backup ahead of time if I'm helping someone who definitely wants to dual boot.
Games for Windows - copies of the classic games found on a Windows 7 installation. Who wants Freecell with ADS?!?
GNUwin32 Tools - I have a bunch of these in my bin folder because sometimes I forget what I'm doing and use *nix commands. I use wget most out of the bunch.
Hard Link Shell Extension - GUI for making symlinks. These can be crazy useful for dealing with nonsense like users who want to organize all their files on their desktop or actually put things in OneDrive or something.
Intelliadmin Cron - cron, but for Windows. It's just easier to deal with that the Windows task scheduler for some things. Down side is that everything runs with admin or current console user rights, up side is that tasks created this way definitely always happen.
LAN Speed Test - Honestly this is mostly to show people that it's time to buy new switches or cabling, or to see what someone has if I'm in a new building.
Macrium Reflect 5.1 - Versions after 5.1 are no longer offered gratis for non-commercial users, but 5.1 works fine on Windows 11, and it is much more flexible than just using Windows Backup and Restore (Windows 7).
OFGB - Removes a lot of the OS-level advertising nonsense from Windows 10 and 11.
Open Hardware Monitor - A general purpose temperature monitor. Seems to work on newer hardware than the site indicates.
PDFGear - Free as in beer PDF editor. Everyone gets this application. It solves problems I get asked about constantly. It doesn't cost $60/month like the one people think they have to have.
Picasa - Google discontinued it years ago, but this is a nifty photo viewer that has person recognition. It does get nutty if you have more than 2TB of photos, but that is not true for the overwhelming majority of people. MajorGeeks has been hosting a copy of the last release of it for years and years.
PSR.exe - the stand-alone Problem Steps Recorder. Get it from your working Windows 10/11 installation before they take it out in Win11 24H2. Grab wordpad.exe and wordpadfilter.dll at the same time.
Revo Uninstaller Portable - I actually paid them for this, because sometimes software just won't come off any other way, but the free one works well enough about 99% of the time.
Rufus - the thing for writing disc images to USB drives. We all use this one, right?
Screen2Gif - Captures part or all of a screen, turns it into a .mp4 or animated .gif. I use it for making tutorials and remote troubleshooting. PSR.exe's more space-hogging big brother.
Seatools - Seagate's drive test works on all brands of drives. Seatools is available through chocolatey as well, but I put a local copy on end user PCs because there are people I don't think can handle typing a command line ever.
SpaceSniffer - Disk space visualization tool. I like it better than WinDirStat.
TestDisk/PhotoRec - these two guys are open source tools for fixing drives with filesystem corruption. Some people just refuse to eject a USB drive like a sane person.
WinLibraryTool - I'm the only person who likes Libraries in File Explorer and I know that but this is far and away the most convenient way to organize them.
Sysinternals Suite - Microsoft SysInternals. Why these are not just distributed with Windows, I have no idea.
I also have a bunch of random scripts I've written for things like removing all installed printers, bulk-installing my drivers folder, syncing specific folders to external or secondary drives, fixing the times when Windows Store apps completely break, bulk installing software via Chocolatey, moving things from c:\bin to c:\windows or \system32 if that's appropriate, creating Start Menu links for some of these guys, .reg files to fix annoyances for some users (e.g. kill copilot; pre-configure File Explorer to detail view) etc.
I normally set up chocolatey to install 7zip, paint.net, firefox, chrome, sagethumbs, ffmpeg, handbrake, imagemagick, vlc, and notepad++ at a minimum and install PDFgear and/or Picasa by hand if I think the user will use them.
3dPipes.scr - My favorite Screen Saver. It's 158kB. My copy is from an NT4 system and I've just had it THAT long. It pleases me to put it back, even if no one uses it.
AnyBurn - Mostly for dealing with ISO files, but it's a fine choice for most optical drive stuff as well.
Bulk Crap Uninstaller (BCU) - allows for mass software removal. Not really necessary on new systems, but I don't always work on new systems.
Windows Easy Transfer (no link; find a Windows 7 PC and make install media from there) - Still works just fine and I don't know why Microsoft took it away.
Belarc Advisor - Shows all the hardware in white box PCs and also product keys for installed software.
Chris Titus Tool - this is actually just a one-line script that can install Chocolatey and run a bunch of debloat tools from a simple interface.
DISM GUI - Because Windows Image management on the command line is a PITA. This is how I normally add drivers to a .wim file, most often by collecting them from a host where those drivers are already working.
Forensit.com User Profile Tools - these are super handy for dealing with user profiles in bulk, scriptable ways and I like them better than Microsoft's USMT.
EasyBCD - MOSTLY used because a Windows Update hosed someone's boot config. I need this a few times a year but it's better than re-imaging a PC just because it forgot where Windows (and/or Linux) is. I make a backup ahead of time if I'm helping someone who definitely wants to dual boot.
Games for Windows - copies of the classic games found on a Windows 7 installation. Who wants Freecell with ADS?!?
GNUwin32 Tools - I have a bunch of these in my bin folder because sometimes I forget what I'm doing and use *nix commands. I use wget most out of the bunch.
Hard Link Shell Extension - GUI for making symlinks. These can be crazy useful for dealing with nonsense like users who want to organize all their files on their desktop or actually put things in OneDrive or something.
Intelliadmin Cron - cron, but for Windows. It's just easier to deal with that the Windows task scheduler for some things. Down side is that everything runs with admin or current console user rights, up side is that tasks created this way definitely always happen.
LAN Speed Test - Honestly this is mostly to show people that it's time to buy new switches or cabling, or to see what someone has if I'm in a new building.
Macrium Reflect 5.1 - Versions after 5.1 are no longer offered gratis for non-commercial users, but 5.1 works fine on Windows 11, and it is much more flexible than just using Windows Backup and Restore (Windows 7).
OFGB - Removes a lot of the OS-level advertising nonsense from Windows 10 and 11.
Open Hardware Monitor - A general purpose temperature monitor. Seems to work on newer hardware than the site indicates.
PDFGear - Free as in beer PDF editor. Everyone gets this application. It solves problems I get asked about constantly. It doesn't cost $60/month like the one people think they have to have.
Picasa - Google discontinued it years ago, but this is a nifty photo viewer that has person recognition. It does get nutty if you have more than 2TB of photos, but that is not true for the overwhelming majority of people. MajorGeeks has been hosting a copy of the last release of it for years and years.
PSR.exe - the stand-alone Problem Steps Recorder. Get it from your working Windows 10/11 installation before they take it out in Win11 24H2. Grab wordpad.exe and wordpadfilter.dll at the same time.
Revo Uninstaller Portable - I actually paid them for this, because sometimes software just won't come off any other way, but the free one works well enough about 99% of the time.
Rufus - the thing for writing disc images to USB drives. We all use this one, right?
Screen2Gif - Captures part or all of a screen, turns it into a .mp4 or animated .gif. I use it for making tutorials and remote troubleshooting. PSR.exe's more space-hogging big brother.
Seatools - Seagate's drive test works on all brands of drives. Seatools is available through chocolatey as well, but I put a local copy on end user PCs because there are people I don't think can handle typing a command line ever.
SpaceSniffer - Disk space visualization tool. I like it better than WinDirStat.
TestDisk/PhotoRec - these two guys are open source tools for fixing drives with filesystem corruption. Some people just refuse to eject a USB drive like a sane person.
WinLibraryTool - I'm the only person who likes Libraries in File Explorer and I know that but this is far and away the most convenient way to organize them.
Sysinternals Suite - Microsoft SysInternals. Why these are not just distributed with Windows, I have no idea.
I also have a bunch of random scripts I've written for things like removing all installed printers, bulk-installing my drivers folder, syncing specific folders to external or secondary drives, fixing the times when Windows Store apps completely break, bulk installing software via Chocolatey, moving things from c:\bin to c:\windows or \system32 if that's appropriate, creating Start Menu links for some of these guys, .reg files to fix annoyances for some users (e.g. kill copilot; pre-configure File Explorer to detail view) etc.
I normally set up chocolatey to install 7zip, paint.net, firefox, chrome, sagethumbs, ffmpeg, handbrake, imagemagick, vlc, and notepad++ at a minimum and install PDFgear and/or Picasa by hand if I think the user will use them.
