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First Ten Programs on New Install? 1659

Posted by Cliff from the what-can't-you-live-without dept.
reddigitaldragon asks: "Some people re-install once a year, but if you're anything like me your machine is formatted at least once a month. After the OS is in, then come the favorite/must have/most used programs to install. My first installations for Windows (I use it; get over it): Trillian, Winrar, Firefox, Winamp, SmartFTP, Azureus, NMap, GKrellM, PowerDVD. What are your First 10 installed programs?" What are the first 10 programs you would install on a Windows machine? How about for a Unix machine?
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First Ten Programs on New Install? More

First Ten Programs on New Install?

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  • My First 10... (Score:5, Funny)

    by inertia187 ( 156602 ) * on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:47PM (#8987030) Homepage Journal
    On Windows (XP), my first ten are as follows:
    • Windows XP Hotfix - KB810217
    • Windows XP Hotfix - KB820291
    • Windows XP Hotfix - KB821253
    • Windows XP Hotfix - KB821557
    • Windows XP Hotfix - KB822603
    • Windows XP Hotfix - KB823182
    • Windows XP Hotfix - KB823559
    • Windows XP Hotfix - KB823980
    • Windows XP Hotfix - KB824105
    • Windows XP Hotfix - KB824141

    • Re:My First 10... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Advocadus Diaboli ( 323784 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:56PM (#8987240)
      You forgot the very first program that is installed automagically: Win32Blaster. :-)

    • Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Soko ( 17987 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:07PM (#8987492) Homepage
      Myself, I prefer to roll those into my install CD via slipstreaming. (Google for "XP slipstream hotfix" for more) That way, I get as much protection as possible OOTB.

      Slip-streaming isn't possible though with those confounded restore CDs from OEMs though. Grrrr....

      Soko

      • Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Informative)

        by semifamous ( 231316 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @04:23PM (#8988824)
        I use a thing I found over at Neowin.net that some of the guys have put together.

        Autopatcher [autopatcher.com] contains all of the current hotfixes and lets you change some other settings. It's great! Check it out if you have to reinstall Windows in the near future... One of the best parts for people who set up multiple puters is the ability to set all of your options as the Default settings before you burn the CD so that you don't have to check and uncheck all of your options on each computer.

        So that's number 1 in my list of the first 10 things I install.

        Then:

        Firefox
        Winamp
        Miranda
        UltraVNC
        StrokeIt (because Mouse Gestures are too cool to be limited to Internet Browsing.)
        Filezilla
        OpenOffice.org
        Media Player Classic
        Slowview

    • Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Funny)

      by nocomment ( 239368 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:18PM (#8987697) Homepage Journal
      klez, sobig, blaster, traxg, beagle, gator, savenow, mydoom, hotbar, and that's as far as I get before I have to format and install unix!

    • Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by skilef ( 525335 ) <flix@vunzz[ ]et ['z.n' in gap]> on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:44PM (#8988154)
      well you're right, windows does require a lot of tweaking [diveintomark.org] before I even get around to installing apps...

    • Re:My First 10... (Score:4, Informative)

      by hummassa ( 157160 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:51PM (#8988261) Homepage Journal
      google for slipstream.
      Now, serious: 7-zip is better and is Free Software.
      I always install Mozilla and the PuTTY family.
      Cygwin if I think I will use the machine a lot.
      VIM !!!

    • Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Informative)

      by CatKnight ( 512731 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @04:05PM (#8988520)
      How about the first 10 things you UNinstall from a fresh WinXP install?

      1) Drive Indexing Service
      2) System Restore Service
      3) MSN Explorer
      4) MSN Messenger
      5) Games
      6) ISP Services (who uses prodigy anymore anyway?)
      7) Outlook Express
      8) Internet Explorer
      9) QoS Packet Scheduler Service (I never figured out what this even does...)
      10) Extra services (like WMP auto DRM retrieval, MP3 player auto detector, etc)

  • Wimp. (Score:5, Funny)

    by monstroyer ( 748389 ) * <devnull@slashdot.org> on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:48PM (#8987036) Homepage Journal
    Real men don't install programs, they write them.

    -1 : TACO! WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?

  • Gator! (Score:5, Funny)

    by strictnein ( 318940 ) * <strictfoo-slashd ... m ['oo.' in gap]> on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:48PM (#8987038) Homepage Journal
    Easy.... all of those wonderful Claria (Gator) products!

    eWallet - Give you personal info to a spyware maker!
    Dashbar - I don't know what it does, but it must dash!
    WeatherScope - I've got to know my weather!
    PrecisionTime - I've got to know exactly what time it is.
    DateManager - How else do I know date it is?
    WebSecureAlert - Who else to trust your security to than a spyware maker?

    and then...

    AOL 9.0!
    Internet Explorer 6.01
    Windows Media Player 9.0 - DRM Special Edition
    Pr0n

  • forget winrar (Score:5, Informative)

    by WhiteDragon ( 4556 ) * on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:48PM (#8987040) Homepage Journal
    I use 7-zip, it is free (speech and beer) and reads and writes most archive formats, including zip, rar, tar, tgz, etc.

  • Six...Seven...Eight... (Score:5, Funny)

    by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) * on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:48PM (#8987043) Homepage
    My first ten for Windows (I use it; get over it):
    1. Trillian,
    2. Winrar,
    3. Firefox,
    4. Winamp,
    5. SmartFTP,
    6. Azureus,
    7. NMap,
    8. GKrellM,
    9. PowerDVD.

    Might I suggest adding a calculator [allersoft.com] to round out that list?

  • linux/openbsd/freebsd (Score:5, Informative)

    by quelrods ( 521005 ) * <(quel) (at) (quelrod.net)> on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:48PM (#8987044) Homepage
    bash less enlightenment wget vim screen nmap phoenix/firebird/firefox Eterm xmms

  • Bonzi Buddy (Score:5, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:48PM (#8987047)
    Bonzi Buddy's pretty high on my list; not only that, I don't even have to ask to install it! Friendly lil thing ends up there on its own.

  • A list (Score:5, Informative)

    by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) * on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:48PM (#8987049)
    Heres my list:
    • Putty - A free (GPL) SSH terminal emulator
    • Winzip - Yeah, you know what this is
    • VLC - Free media player
    • OpenOffice.org - I should stop doing these descriptions, its not as if youve heard of these things before!
    • GIMP for windows - Yup, the infernal/eternal image editor
    • Editplus - Possibly the best editor ive found, not free im afraid, costs around $25
    • Sharpdevelop - Free (GPL) .net IDE, requires the .net framework and SDK
    • Bloodshed Dev-C++ - Excellent free (GPL) C and C++ IDE, using the Windows GCC port
    • Thunderbird - Mail client
    • Firefox - Web browser
    • Adobe Acrobat Reader - PDF Reader
    • PDFcreator - GPL PDF print driver for windows
    • MessengerPro (Clickatell) - Non free SMS sender for windows, company does good bulk buy sms rates, i buy 500 at a time for less than $5
    • Lavasoft Adaware and Spybot - For the essentials in life
    • Topstyle - Free version of the excellent CSS editor for webdevelopment, if anyone knows a good free alternative, im open to suggestions :)
    • SmartFTP - Great free for personal use FTP client, not found a better one yet!
    • MySQL-Front - Old version of the MySQL windows front end, much much better than the new one you pay for. Source isnt open and the old developer discontinued development, possibly one of the best advertisements for why OSS is good :(

    Thats about it, everything I install after a reimage of my machines!! Other things get tagged on, but those are the core!

    If anyone has suggestions for alternatives, im open. But they have to be good! Im currently looking for a new .net IDE as sharpdevelop has a few bugs, and since its written in c#, i cant help fix em :(

    As for UNIX, I use OpenBSD so its got a pretty sane base install. I usually drag in a few custom admin scripts ive developed over the years, and my .profile for ksh, but thats about it. The box then gets configured for its custom job.

    • Re:A list (Score:5, Informative)

      by ichthus ( 72442 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:01PM (#8987361) Homepage
      SmartFTP - Great free for personal use FTP client, not found a better one yet!

      I haven't tried SmartFTP, so maybe it's better, but I really like FileZilla [sourceforge.net]. It does sftp too - great for crypto xfers.

    • Textpad (Score:5, Informative)

      by turnstyle ( 588788 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:02PM (#8987378) Homepage
      I've long wished for WinBBEdit, but I've been quite happy Textpad [textpad.com] user for years.

      A fine text editor!

    • Re:A list (Score:3, Interesting)

      by cybermace5 ( 446439 )
      How is it possible to not have IrfanView [irfanview.com] in this list? It's always in my top three installs when I start using a computer or reinstall.

    • Comments + Links! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Famatra ( 669740 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:56PM (#8988350) Journal
      Some links to your great suggestions, and some comments at the end :)

      • Putty [greenend.org.uk] - A free (GPL) SSH terminal emulator
      • Winzip [winzip.com] - Yeah, you know what this is
      • VLC [videolan.org] - Free media player
      • OpenOffice.org [openoffice.org] - I should stop doing these descriptions, its not as if youve heard of these things before!
      • GIMP for windows [gimp.org] - Yup, the infernal/eternal image editor
      • Sharpdevelop [icsharpcode.net] - Free (GPL) .net IDE, requires the .net framework and SDK
      • Bloodshed Dev-C++ [bloodshed.net] - Excellent free (GPL) C and C++ IDE, using the Windows GCC port
      • Thunderbird [mozilla.org] - Mail client
      • Firefox [mozilla.org] - Web browser
      • Adobe Acrobat Reader [adobe.com] - PDF Reader
      • PDFcreator [sourceforge.net] - GPL PDF print driver for windows
      • MessengerPro [clickatell.com] (Clickatell) - Non free SMS sender for windows, company does good bulk buy sms rates, i buy 500 at a time for less than $5
      • Lavasoft Adaware [lavasoftusa.com] and Spybot SS [safer-networking.org] - For the essentials in life
      • Topstyle [bradsoft.com] - Free version of the excellent CSS editor for webdevelopment, if anyone knows a good free alternative, im open to suggestions :)
      • SmartFTP [smartftp.com] - Great free for personal use FTP client, not found a better one yet! (I have, Filezilla [sourceforge.net] it is excellent AND fully GPL, none of this non free shit, bub. :-) )
      • MySQL-Front [mysqlfront.de] - Old version of the MySQL windows front end, much much better than the new one you pay for. Source isnt open and the old developer discontinued development, possibly one of the best advertisements for why OSS is good :(
      • Editplus [editplus.com] - Possibly the best editor ive found, not free im afraid, costs around $25

      VLC [videolan.org] -, like you mentioned, Free media player is a great media player, it blew me away. Better then Window's media player, and I know that my porno viewing habits are not going straight to Bill Gates.

      One you didn't mention is Filezilla [sourceforge.net] which is a good GPL ftp program instead of SmartFTP if you want to try another one out. (I must confess I use LeechFTP since I haven't gotten use to Filezilla just yet, although if you are into hosting files Filezilla is even better).

  • Just one (Score:5, Funny)

    by PrvtBurrito ( 557287 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:48PM (#8987052)
    Emacs. Hell, that is ten programs. And it is as big as one hundred.

  • First thing to install on a Windows machine... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Torqued ( 91619 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:49PM (#8987061) Journal
    Linux!

  • TweakUI (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Paladine97 ( 467512 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:49PM (#8987064) Homepage
    TweakUI is the first thing I install. I can't stand the default Windows Explorer setup.

  • My choices (Score:5, Informative)

    by avij ( 105924 ) * on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:49PM (#8987066) Homepage
    I think you missed Windows security fixes [microsoft.com], Adobe Acrobat [adobe.com] and WinSCP [sourceforge.net].

  • Most important of all on Windoze Boxen... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SnowDeath ( 157414 ) <peteguhl@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:49PM (#8987067) Homepage
    Maybe if AVG/Mcafee/FProt/Norton Antivirus was among those 10, you wouldn't need to reinstall every month?

    Updated drivers followed by Antivirus and Mozilla is what goes on my Windoze boxen first.

    • Re:Most important of all on Windoze Boxen... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:00PM (#8987324)
      Maybe if you stop laucnhing all those "hotgirlz.jpg.exe" attachments and downloading warez you wouldn't need to install an antivirus program right away? Beleve it or not, but a virus will not just sneak into your system. It has to be put there.

  • Mine? (Score:5, Informative)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:49PM (#8987068) Homepage Journal

    Well, I use my PC as a game box with some browsing only (with SSH if I need to access one of the unixish machines) so here's my stuff:

    10 : Spybot Search & Destroy [safer-networking.org] (Excellent spyware killer)
    9 : Spyware Blaster [javacoolsoftware.com] (Recommended by Spybot author to run concurrently)
    8 : Some form of browser. [mozilla.org]
    7 : PuTTY [greenend.org.uk] (SSH client w/ tunnelling)
    6 : Thief [eidosinteractive.com] (awesome game)
    5 : Thief 2 [eidosinteractive.com] (more Thief!)
    4 : Darkloader [thief-thecircle.com] (allows one to run custom fan missions in the Thief games)
    3 : System Shock 2 [sshock2.com] (creepy sci-fi rp/fps)
    2 : For those days I feel like a slug-fest? Doomsday [doomsdayhq.com] and the ol' Doom games. (adds real 3D and all the video card eye candy to Doom/Heretic/etc. A MUST HAVE!)
    1 : Half Life [sierra.com] You know it! (still has one of the best stories of any game around)

  • Quick Everyone! He uses Windows! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:50PM (#8987080)
    In the long honored tradition of slashbots, we must all mark him as foe and shame him for using an OS different from our own. For shame! For shame! How darest thou useth Windows, and how darest the Editors post a story that proclaims that windows is a good OS!!! Mark him as foe, mark him as foe I say!

    For those who are wondering, I use Linux, but have many friends who use windows because, quite frankly, they have no business using Linux. All they do is play games. Windows is great for certain uses, just not any of my uses... uh, I mean, FOR SHAME!

    • Re:Quick Everyone! He uses Windows! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Thomas A. Anderson ( 114614 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:06PM (#8987470) Homepage

      In the long honored tradition of slashbots, we must all mark him as foe and shame him for using an OS different from our own. For shame! For shame! How darest thou useth Windows, and how darest the Editors post a story that proclaims that windows is a good OS!!! Mark him as foe, mark him as foe I say!


      This is too good to be true. Not only are we asked to not make fun of a windows user, but one who re-installs his OS every month!

      What I want to know is *why* he reinstalls his OS every month. As much as I like to make fun of windows, there's no way it should degrade this fast (or at all with proper care and feeding).

      So, fess up, what *are* you doing wrong?

  • What? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dr_LHA ( 30754 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:50PM (#8987083) Homepage
    Why the hell would anyone need to reinstall an entire OS every month? I mean - I know Windows is bad, but come on - its ridiculous.

    I have 4 computers that I work on and all of them have not been formatted since I first purchased them. Am I strange or something. I'm using Linux, Win2K and Mac OSX on the various machines. Am I odd?
    • Even experienced users can have to reinstall, its just a matter of the cost of reinstalling vs the mess you're in. Case in point - last month I changed motherboard on my windows PC (to move to a shuttle). I moved everything over to the new case, then win2k wouldnt boot - the IDE chipset was different. I couldnt get the 2k machine to boot by using the cd or any form of rescue disk, I had no other windows machines to put the disk in, I just wanted to use my PC so... reinstall :)

  • For me.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hookedup ( 630460 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:50PM (#8987089)
    I _race_ furiously to download and get a firewall installed, then do the windows updates. I've had machines be comprimised while downloading the firewall for the first time, damn those subnet scanning kids move fast :)

  • first few programs (Score:3, Informative)

    by toast0 ( 63707 ) <slashdotinducedspam@enslaves.us> on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:50PM (#8987092)
    On windows,

    putty, gaim, mozilla

    On linux,

    aptitude, ssh, joe, gnome, gaim, epihpany-browser

  • WTF are you doing to it? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AKnightCowboy ( 608632 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:51PM (#8987100)
    Why are you reinstalling your machine every month? I've reinstalled once in about 3 years and that was because I put in a new motherboard and upgraded from Windows 2000 to Windows XP Pro and didn't want crufty driver issues popping up down the road. What the heck are you doing to your system that you need to reinstall it so often? Regular spyware scans and a good antivirus program has kept my machine running like a top. Sometimes I really wonder why people bitch about Windows since it's been running great for me on my hardware.
    • WinXP pro put an end to the reformat cycle of windows, IMO. On Win98 you *had* to reformat regularly to keep performance up. With WinXP Pro I reformat when I do major hardware changes, and thats it. With spyware removal and virus protection it can stay running indefinitely without issues. On Win98 my games would become unplayable simply due to the system bloating and decaying.

      Basically, if you're running XP Pro or maybe 2000, reinstalling isnt such a big deal. Win9x, ME, and XP Home (why why WHY is it

  • For Windows... (Score:3, Informative)

    by taped2thedesk ( 614051 ) * on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:51PM (#8987107)
    0. OS updates
    1. Putty
    2. Firefox & extensions
    3. Thunderbird
    4. gVim (The 'edit with vim' that gets attached to context menus for all file types is one of my favorite tools)
    5. RealVNC
    6. Acroread/Flash/Java/etc.
    7. Trillian
    8. Norton Corporate Edition
    9. SpyBot
    10. Cygwin

  • The OpenCD (Score:5, Informative)

    by Siener ( 139990 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:52PM (#8987125) Homepage
    When installing a Windows PC, it's a good idea to have The OpenCD [theopencd.org] handy. It includes (among other things) CDEx, Mozilla, GIMP, PuTTY, TightVNC and WinPT.

  • Don't reformat: use Knoppix/Partimage/NFS (Score:5, Informative)

    by Saint Stephen ( 19450 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:54PM (#8987175) Homepage Journal
    Do yourself a favor: next clean install, apply XP-SP1, then Clean=(Delete LocalSettings\Temp, Windows\Temp, Defrag) & boot Knoppix and backup your partition with Partimage (to a network location mounted with NFS), if needed.

    Then apply all Windows Updates, and image again. Then install your drivers, and "core apps" (be very conservative), and tweak your profile a little, and image again.

    Then restore one of these three images as needed, and update as needed. Install your games on a separate partition.

    It gets tricky if you actually use your XP partition for real work (MSOffice, VStudio) instead of just for video editing and games and use the much superior Debian Sid for web browsing, email, and programming. Unlike games, its hard to put apps on a separate partition and simply "install" them with a .reg file or something. Imaging with 3 or 4 gigs of apps to back up takes a long time and gets to be a pain in the ass.

  • I don't reinstall, I update (Score:5, Informative)

    by Vaevictis666 ( 680137 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:54PM (#8987187)
    I have a hard drive image (Ghost, but anything would work about as well) that I revert to every few months. It has all my essentials, configuration, and such. Windows is on its own partition, My Docs is mapped to D: partition, so the only thing I need to back up is Docs and Settings (I could map that to another partition too, but it's nice to have it be cleaned out as well).

    So now I just do my mini-backup, revert to ghost image, apply pending windows/app fixes and upgrades (with a text file on my desktop to keep track as I do them the first time), install any new "needed" software, clean up stuff etc, and then make me a fresh image of that for next time.

  • Mac OS X (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jared_hanson ( 514797 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:55PM (#8987203) Homepage Journal
    Well, I decided to reformat my PowerBook's drive just for the experience. It wasn't at all necessary, as it is with Windows after a few months of use.

    Heres my list of programs installed since the reformat a month ago:
    LaunchBar

    Yep, thats the beauty of the Mac: a rock solid system that doesn't necessetate reformating, and a good suite of software preloaded.

  • Install once, then ghost (Score:3, Informative)

    by Seth Morabito ( 2273 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:55PM (#8987210)
    Oh my goodness, I'm in pain just thinking about re-installing every month. I apologize for this not being a direct reply to your question, but it is (I hope) a piece of very useful advice nonetheless.

    If you're re-installing on the same hardware every time, or even on identical but different hardware, I would very seriously recommend buying Norton Ghost. The personal edition is relatively inexpensive. Then, you can get your system installed in a fresh, clean way, patched up as you like it, with whatever programs you choose, and make an image of it. Store the image on a remote server, a DVD-R, split up across CD-Rs, whatever you like. The next time you want to reinstall, just boot up off the Ghost disk and restore the image.

    It will save you so many painful hours of waiting, downloading patches, rebooting, downloading drivers, rebooting, rebooting again, installing programs, rebooting, rinse, repeat.

  • OS X (Score:4, Informative)

    by mtm ( 10808 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:55PM (#8987211)
    First Ten:

    * LaunchBar - fast key-stroke based launcher
    * OpenOffice.org
    * IntelliJ IDEA - great refactoring IDE
    * FireFox
    * SubEthaEdit
    * xcode
    * Carbonized GNU/Emacs (insert joke here...)
    * Propellerhead's Reason
    * Omni Graffle Professional
    * NetBeans

    Most of the other stuff (unix tools) is already there.

  • Win:Cygwin. Nix:vi/vim (Score:3, Informative)

    by n1ywb ( 555767 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:56PM (#8987236) Homepage Journal
    On Windows it's definately the Cygwin suite. I guess it's really many programs, but they come with a single installer.

    On 'nix, it's definately vi or vim. Bash is a close second.

  • why? (Score:3, Funny)

    by happyfrogcow ( 708359 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:56PM (#8987244)
    Some people re-install once a year, but if you're anything like me your machine is formatted at least a month.

    No, we're not like you. Why waste time re-installing the same crap every month?

    Your fortune cookie says: You will be replaced by a shell script

    The next "Ask Slashdot", Don't you have anything better to do?

  • My first ten are: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mr_don't ( 311416 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:57PM (#8987259)
    After a base my Slackware Current Install:

    (1) FireFox
    (2) Mplayer
    (3) Xmame
    (4) XMMS
    (5) Ethereal
    (6) Blender
    (7) OpenOffice.org
    (8) XCDroast
    (9) Audacity
    (10) THe newest version of GIMP!

  • cygwin! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tjmmail ( 759174 ) <tjm AT mailinator DOT com> on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:58PM (#8987293)
    Don't forget cygwin [cygwin.com], so you can actually get some work done.

  • Install Nothing.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by tbase ( 666607 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @02:58PM (#8987298)
    Just use the oldest CD you have for the flavor of Windows you want to install, and plug in a cable or DSL modem. You'll have more than 10 apps installed in no time without lifting a finger!

  • Once a month...? (Score:5, Funny)

    by NineNine ( 235196 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:00PM (#8987333)
    Wouldn't this guy's time be better spent reading a "Computers for Dummies" book so he wouldn't have to re-install every month?

  • On windows? Here's the whole interoperability kit (Score:5, Informative)

    by rwa2 ( 4391 ) * on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:03PM (#8987407) Homepage Journal
    1. Cygwin [cygwin.com] - get the POSIX environment on!
    2. PuTTY [greenend.org.uk] - the only terminal I've found that handles colors and stuff right.
    3. TightVNC [tightvnc.com] - get to some other computer
    4. OO.o [openoffice.org]
    5. vim [vim.org] - I'm not even a VI guy, but it's fast and has nice hooks into explorer and I'm too lazy to deal with registering TextPad or whatever. JEdit's also nice, but way too slow for casual use... I usually go straight to emacs for that kind of editing.
    6. Mozilla / Firefox / etc. [mozilla.org] - and the plugins:
    7. Winamp [winamp.com] - get the groove on
    8. MPlayer [mplayerhq.hu] - it handles just about all the codecs
    9. MultiDesk [techsuperior.com] - usable multiple desktops for Windows... like getting that 10% productivity improvement for having dual monitors without having to pay 100% more in displays. If only it had a visual pager...
    10. Windows PowerToys [microsoft.com] - because every little option matters
    Usually hit windowsupdate [microsoft.com] several times first, of course.

    More on Linux and MacOS X later, I guess...

  • ok, since you asked (ooo the exCITEment!) (Score:3, Interesting)

    by real_smiff ( 611054 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:10PM (#8987546)
    this is roughly my folder of essential software & roughly the order:
    1. MS SP & critical updates & TweakUI
    2. Proxomitron (this is old now, might look for sommat else?)
    3. Firefox, Thunderbird & Java runtime
    4. 7-Zip
    5. Daemon Tools
    6. foobar2000 and plugins (mmm sweet)
    7. Media Player Classic, and QuicktimeAlt and RealAlternative, ffdshow and ReClock (the video package)
    8. BitTornado, SoulSeek & eMule (the P2P package )
    9. IrFanView (mmm sweet)
    10. OpenOffice (pain to set up) & MS Office
    I just had a primary hard drive die so I had to think about this today :/

  • Honest answer : for Windows (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Glonoinha ( 587375 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:12PM (#8987596) Journal
    0. Install service packs, patches.
    1. Adobe Acrobat
    2. Acdsee - .jpg viewer
    3. AdSubtract - popup stopper
    4. Diskeeper - advanced defragger
    5. WinZip
    6. ZTree - www.ztree.com - CUI file manager that faithfully replicates XTree Gold 2.x
    7. WS_FTP

    On beefy machines I will be using for work or intense fun :
    8. MS Office
    9. Visual Studio
    10. VMware

    If it has a burner :
    11. Nero

  • Are y'all nuts? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jlower ( 174474 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:14PM (#8987625) Homepage
    I haven't read all the comments so this might be redundant but, are all y'all nuts? Reinstalling the OS once a month or even once a year? Holy shit! My current box is 4 years old and I've never reinstalled the OS and hope I never have to.

  • Market research (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dwonis ( 52652 ) * on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:15PM (#8987631)
    Nothing like free market research, eh? :-)

  • Besides stuff from Windows Update? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by reanjr ( 588767 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:21PM (#8987748) Homepage
    Discluding Windows Update stuff, this is probably close to it:

    1. NVIDIA Apps for multiple desktop, etc.
    2. Opera
    3. Visual Studio .NET 2003
    4. Office XP
    5. MySQL
    6. PHP
    7. Kazaa
    8. DAEMON Tools (lets you mount ISO, etc. as drive)
    9. MSDE (always a pain to get isntalled for some reason)
    10. WinRAR

  • What about the bottom 10? (Score:5, Funny)

    by gregarican ( 694358 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:31PM (#8987935) Homepage
    The least likely to apps/options to reinstall:

    1) Gator.

    2) Bonzi Buddy.

    3) Microsoft Bob.

    4) Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 6 (the one that broke TCP/IP and led to the rush release of SP6a).

    5) Any recent RealPlayer release chock full of adware/spyware.

    6) Any release of Microsoft Outlook Express.

    7) Microsoft KB835742 Security Update (the recent one that causes random Win2K boxes to reboot to a BSOD or have 99% CPU utilization).

    8) The Microsoft Office "Clippy" option.

    9) Microsoft Outlook Preview Pane.

    10) Universal Plug n Play.

  • Are there even 10? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Feztaa ( 633745 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:37PM (#8988045) Homepage
    Any linux distro comes with so much stuff, I don't think there are even 10 things that I install after I'm done the OS install...

    I'll grab bittorrent (official client), firefox, thunderbird, and I think that's about it.

  • After Os X install (Score:5, Interesting)

    by seven5 ( 596044 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:39PM (#8988080)

    Heres an Os X user's list

    • Transmit
    • SubEthaEdit
    • NetNewsWire Lite
    • Desktop Manager
    • Clipboard Sharing
    • iTerm
    • iKey
    • VLC
    • blank
    • blank

    That was actually hard. So much comes with Os X, that it REALLY is a great Os right out of the box. Anything else at the end of the list is just little apps that really aren't important. Also, i just don't format as much as i used to when i was on Windows, which was a little more conservative than the poster at about every 3 months.

  • First Ten for Windows 2K (Score:4, Interesting)

    by subjectstorm ( 708637 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:41PM (#8988105) Journal
    ok, here goes. In no particular order:

    1> Winamp 5
    2> Python
    3> AVG
    4> AdAware
    5> SpyBot S&D
    6> Sygate Personal Firewall
    7> Firefox
    8> Trillian
    9> Pyboticide
    10> Irfanview

    I'm surprised more people haven't mentioned Irfanview - it's free and it kicks ass.

  • An OS X install (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kitzilla ( 266382 ) <paperfrogNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @03:48PM (#8988215) Homepage Journal
    Top 10 programs I load on OS X machines, no particular order:

    * Drag Thing: A highly addictive replacement for OS X's Dock. Really improves productivity.

    * MS Office: Open Office isn't ready for prime time on OS X. I'm not sure it will ever be ready for professionals who exchange complex documents, though it's great if you have a small shop and use OOo's default file format.

    * Toast 6: The most convenient disk duplication suite I have ever used.

    * Fink: There aren't many Linux programs I *must* have on OS X, but this will get 'em.

    * Photoshop: I have an older iBook with a small drive that gets GIMP instead.

    * Corel Graphics Suite: Gotta have it for layout. Now that Corel has abandoned Mac, however, I'll be moving to Adobe Creative Suite.

    * Thunderbird: I'd probably use Thunderbird fulltime if the Mac version were to be integrated with the OS X addressbook. But it's pleasant to play around with.

    * Mozilla Firefox: Safari is my default, but it's a very young browser. Firefox renders whatever Safari won't.

    * Starry Night: An entertaining and useful program for backyard astronomers. You needn't own a telescope to appreciate SN. Explore the universe from your armchair.

    * Updated iLife suite: I've become addicted to iTunes and use iPhoto to organize my personal snaps.

  • Auto-Install DVD of Windows XP Pro (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kevin98003 ( 618976 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @04:02PM (#8988459)
    I just finished creating an automatic install DVD of Windows XP Pro. On this DVD it installs Windows XP Pro, installs my programs silently, and automatically installs all patches and hotfixes. This saves me a bunch of times from doing this the manual way. Right before I wipe Windows and reinstall, I move all my important data to my second hard drive.

    For more information please visit the MSFN Unattended XP CD at http://unattended.msfn.org/index.htm.

    In keeping with the direction of the first post, here is my list of my first 10 installed programs...

    1. Hotfixes and security updates galore!
    2. .NET Framework
    3. Windows Media Player 9
    4. DirectX 9.0b
    5. Office XP with Service Pack 3
    6. TweakUI
    7. Winamp 5.0.3a (no video codecs)
    8. K-Lite Mega Codec Pack
    9. WinRAR 3.30
    10. ETrust Antivirus 6.0

    I have a bunch of other installed programs on the DVD, but I thought I would share only a couple. ;)

    Cheers!

  • HOSTS file (Score:4, Informative)

    by Naito ( 667851 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @04:31PM (#8988963)
    HOSTS file from
    http://someonewhocares.org/hosts [someonewhocares.org]

  • top programs. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Foresto ( 127767 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @04:50PM (#8989262) Homepage

    NETWORKING

    * Mozilla Firefox
    * Firefox extensions: RadialContext, User Agent Switcher, bookmarklets, Magpie
    * Filezilla (an ftp client that looks a lot like CuteFTP)
    * Klipfolio (a news ticker / rss viewer)
    * Trillian (an instant messenger, with the microscopic skin)
    * PuTTY (a set of SSH clients)
    * Cygwin/X (a port of X11, including an X server)

    MEDIA

    * BSplayer (a media player that handles DivX files well, even on SMP machines)
    * foobar2000 (an audio player, uglier but leaner than Winamp)
    * AC3Filter (a DirectShow filter for decoding AC3 audio)
    * Subtitle Workshop (for converting between subtitle files of different formats)
    * HACP (a lightweight cd player that understands CD text and online CD databases)
    * IrfanView (an image viewer similar to ACD See)
    * XnView (another image viewer)
    * Exact Audio Copy (an excellent CD audio extractor)
    * Real Alternative (a replacement for Real Player, without the bloat)

    UTILITY

    * Ad-Aware (for finding and removing spyware from your computer)
    * Spybot - Search & Destroy (another spyware removal program)
    * AVG Anti-Virus (not crashy like Norton AV, but updated less frequently)
    * IZArc (an archive & file compression utility similar to WinZip)
    * pdf995 (for easily converting your documents to Adobe PDF files)
    * ListXP (a lightweight raw file viewer modeled after Vernon D. Buerg's list for DOS)

  • I use MacOS X (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mewyn ( 663989 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @04:56PM (#8989343) Homepage
    And the first 10 apps I install are:

    Butler
    Vim (Cocoa)
    Firefox
    Fugu
    GPG
    GPG-Mail
    Fink
    Konfa bulator
    X-Chat
    Thunderbird (for newsgroups)

  • Contents of my install "thumb" drive. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by OgGreeb ( 35588 ) <og@digimark.net> on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @05:09PM (#8989478) Homepage

    I keep a 250MB USB flash drive loaded with these installers for when I go to my friends and families' houses and have to fix their computers. This, plus a Bart's PE WinXP boot disk and a SP1-slipstreamed XP install disk pretty much can get me to the point of pulling down anything else I need from the Internet. Which ten are most important depends on the computer and the person I'm helping.

    • Adobe Acrobat Reader 6
    • AIM 5.5
    • DirectX 9
    • DiVX codec
    • D-Link DWL-122 WLAN drivers for the "thumb" wireless LAN adapter I also carry.
    • ITunes 4.21 (includes QuickTime install). QCD and/or Winamp 5.
    • Java RE
    • LimeWire
    • McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 7.01. I update the SuperDAT file once a month at least.
    • Lavasoft Ad-Aware 6
    • Mozilla Firefox
    • Nero 5
    • PuTTY and WinSCP
    • Macromedia Shockwave
    • Timbuktu Pro
    • TimeRC 3.0
    • Tweak UI powertoy
    • WCPUID
    • WinZip 9
    • Zone Alarm (free version(
    • As many of the MS hotfixes as can fit. Learning how to slip-stream these would be useful, but I would have to burn a new disk every month to keep up.

    If I can get a bigger thumb drive, I would add PowerDVD, the XP SP1, all the hotfixes, Audiograbber, Mozilla Thunderbird, a VNC client and server, Retrospect Desktop and one game. I'd like to add Partition Magic and Ghost but can't figure out how to use it and stay legal under the licensing. I will also add an OpenOffice disk when I get a moment.

    If I encounter Win9x I make them upgrade before I will help them (I'll perform the upgrade if they ask.) I make them pay for the licenses for anything I use though. I also make sure they have a backup protocol and run at least one backup so I don't have to repeat my work.

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