Windows Utilities

Michael Jacobsen

The following is a list of the programs and tools that I install when I get a new computer or reinstall it. I have divided the list into two: The first list contains programs and utilities which can be downloaded and at least tried out for free (some are shareware). The second list contains the proprietary software that I use.

  • Total Commander - a Shareware file manager in the spirit of Norton Commander.

  • Vim - an editor available on every platform. I use it for small quick edits such as commit messages.

  • Emacs is still the editor that fits my the best. I’ve been an Emacs user for 16 years and prefer it for working with larger amounts of text and code (other than C# which I edit in Visual Studio.

  • Google Chrome - a minimalistic browser with the right feature set for me. Firefox has some better extensions but Chrome has in my opinion a better feel. I do keep the other browsers around to test compatibility and logins of different users.

  • Putty - SSH client.

  • Subversion (slik) - I prefer to do check ins, updates etc from the command line. The sliksvn build of Subversion has served my well. The environment variable for the EDITOR is set to vim.

  • Tortoise SVN - I use Tortoise SVN when I need to inspect the log and the history of files.

  • Winmerge - is used together with Tortoise SVN to inspect changes in my/our source code.

  • Skype - currently involved in a EU project with participants from several countries in Europe. Skype makes it easy to talk to one or more of them.

  • MagigDisk - to mount ISO images from MSDN. Save the environment - do not burn ISOs to physical disks. However, Microsoft included this functionality in Windows 8.

  • Keepass - generates and keeps all my passwords. The password file is stored in my Dropbox and is therefore available at all my devices.

  • Dropbox - synchronizes files between my computers and makes them available to my iPad.

  • Evernote - I scan a lot of papers and receipts and send them to Evernote. Evernote does OCR on the scans and makes them searchable.

  • 7-zip - freeware archive program.

  • Filezilla - FTP/SFTP/SCP program. Even though Total Commander also provides FTP support I prefer Filezilla for transfers of a large number of files.

The above list is free to download and try out. I also use a number of programs (from Microsoft) that are not free. They are provided by my employer:

  • Microsoft Windows 7 - it actually works - and they copied my multiple screen keyboard navigation setup and made it the default!

  • Microsoft Windows 8 - in most aspects an improved Windows 7. However, the Metro/Modern part of the OS has not shown usefull to me as of now.

  • Visual Studio 2005, 2008, 2010. I use 2005 and 2008 for programming .NET CF 1.0 programs and a program that used a charting library that I cannot get to work with 2008.

  • Word: Forced to use Word. Tex/LaTex is much more in line with my way of producing documents. How it is possible to write anything but a poster about a missing cat is a mystery. Word is a world of pain.

  • OneNote: One of the best Microsoft programs I know of. The best note taking experience with mouse and keyboard. If only OneNote was available on the iPad (with handwriting recognition and such). The OneNote thing currently available for the iPhone/iPad is not released in the Danish iTunes store so I cannot say whether it is any good.

  • Excel: Decent tool for budgets and the like.

  • Outlook: Decent but a resource hog - how can it use 80 threads and still freeze and seem to do nothing of importance to the user?