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Windows
in its nascent form is a pain in many respects, no doubt… but with some
customizations, it does turn around… some of my essentials upon a fresh
installation.
Really
good windows softwares (mostly freewares)
1. NOD 32 Antivirus (Minimum signature, no
clutter, reasonable)
2. Audacity (Sound card recording software,
needs lame dll separately for mp3 export).
3. Resource hacker (windows decompiler… change parameters and graphics in .exe and .dll files, lots of fun possible).
4. Zone alarm (free, short and sweet
firewall)
5. Startup monitor by Mike Lin
(http://www.mlin.net)(Control the irritating automatic
loading of programs at startup).
6. DVD region + CSS free (For making your
DVD region free) (not a freeware).
7. FlashSavingPlugin
for Internet explorer (forgot the provider).
8. Irfan view
(Started as a picture viewer, does virutually
anything under the sun).
9. Spybot search
and destroy (Anti Spyware) (Don’t forget the latest
definitions)
10. Opera (Browser) (I find it an amazing organizer, any PC is incomplete without it).
11. GoogleEarth
(Another of the Wonders)
12. Power DVD (Simply the best, don’t even
look at others).
13. Gimp for windows (Graphics program, slow
though).
14. More
to follow...
Modest
Windows tweaks
1. Removing windows startup splash screen
In
file boot.ini if you change the entry:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2K
Pro" /fastdetect
to
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2K
Pro" /fastdetect /noguiboot
the splash screen does not appear.
However,
you should remember to make note of this change, as you’d have no visible
assistance in case of windows crashing. The boot.ini file is a system file and
is usually invisible, you can uncheck that in folder
options.
Go
through gpedit.msc (group policies)… removal of some
of the usual rubbish like my documents and network neighborhood from the
desktop.
Clear
the clutter in the control panel by adding keys to registry at HKCU/control
panel/don’t load look for appropriate *.cpl files in
the system32.
2.
to add stuff to files context menu (with extn '*')
HKCR\*\shell\
make a new folder (also called 'key') here and write its
value to appear in context menu
make a subfolder "command" to that and add the
desired action as: "play.exe" "%1"
to add stuff to folder or directory context menu
HKCR\folder\shell\
HKCR\directory\shell\
alternatively,
you
can add a folder ('key') to HKCR with all this, and write the default value of
existing extension as this folder name (see how real player handles .mp3)
3.
Go through the two commands : gpedit.msc,
services.msc
4.
More to follow...