First Ten Programs on New Install? 1659
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?
My First 10... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My First 10... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't you enable the built in firewall before putting the machine online?
If you don't like that, download a copy of zonealarm, stick it on removable media and install it before putting the machine online.
Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Informative)
Slip-streaming isn't possible though with those confounded restore CDs from OEMs though. Grrrr....
Soko
Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Informative)
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)
Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:My First 10... (Score:4, Informative)
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)
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)
Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Informative)
How about the first 10 things you UNinstall from a fresh WinXP install?
2) System Restore Service
I used to wonder what System Restore does, but apparently it saves backups of your registry on your hard drive when various things happen, such as installing a hotfix or Windows Installer package. This has saved me a couple times when the registry got corrupted; a simple boot into recovery mode and copying over the HKLM registry file fixed things (of course, the problem of corruption still remains). Keep that in mind when you disable System Restore.
Re:My First 10... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:My First 10... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure, maybe the same person who ends up having to format and reinstall his OS at least once a month? (Not saying poster was in his right mind...)
Seriously though, a note to reddigitaldragon:
If you know you're gonna reinstall and you know what you're gonna put on the system after installing, you really should invest in a copy of Ghost (or DriveImage, but I haven't worked with that, so I can't personally vouch for its functionality). It'll save you several hours each month. Do your install once, install your progs, defrag (for good measure) make a Ghost image, burn it to CD along with ghost.exe and next time the whole process will take you ~10 minutes.
Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, just "cp /dev/hda /dev/hdc".
And yes, I have heard about 'dd'. cp works just fine [beowulf.org]
Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Informative)
cat's my tool of choice.
cat
Image-based Backup and compression, without the hefty expense. Add in gpg to that chain, and it's encrypted, too.
__
Okay, back on-topic.
1: OpenOffice.org
http://www.openoffice.org
2: Winamp
http://www.winamp.com
3: Mozilla
http://www.mozilla.org
4: SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com
5: Spybot Search & Destroy
http://www.safer-networking.org
6: Trillian
http://www.trillian.cc
7: 7-Zip
http://www.7-zip.org
8: Really Slick Screensavers
http://www.reallyslick.com
9: X-Setup
http://www.xteq.com
10: BigFix
http://www.bigfix.com
I know number 4 is two proggies, but I figure that they're closely related enough to be considered one solution.
Partimage works fine on NTFS (Score:5, Informative)
Booted into Knoppix, made a bz2 compressed image of both his installs in ~5 minutes. Burned to 2 CDs.
Wrote it back to disk, worked fine. Took ~3 min to overwrite.
Re:My First 10... (Score:4, Insightful)
I really don't want my image program to understand the filesystem. What happens if in a future version they decide not to support a certian filesystem, or if I switch operating systems and there's no unimager for my new operating system? Even if it is a bit of a waste of space, I'd rather just have the image program take a snapshot of the raw disk image, completyly agnostic to the filesystem. Then I can restore it however I want because there has been no interpretation of the data, it's just plan old raw data.
Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:My First 10... (Score:4, Interesting)
Tried ghost, forget about it.
Re:My First 10... (Score:4, Interesting)
Due to crappy power at my apartment, I had the root filesystem get completely fried on my Debian box at home (back before I bought a UPS)
Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Interesting)
My thinking exactly...why would anyone need to re-install their OS monthly???
Here's why. I don't want to spent $150 on a copy of windoze XP. But I prefer it over my copy of 95/98 because it's easy to install, it's stable, and has true multitasking capabilities. Windows is, has been, and probably always will be the PC gamers OS(As there is still no OS answer for DirectX on Linux).
Here's where the 1 month re-format comes in:
XP allows a 30-day "grace period" before you need to register online. So what I do is install my fathers copy of WinXP, use it for 30 days...then I have to go through my monthly ritual of completely reformatting the HD and then reinstalling XP. It sucks, but this is the world of the broke PC gamer today.
Now you know.
Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:My First 10... (Score:5, Informative)
If you're in the UK you can order just about every microsoft product from free from this page [microsoft.com]. I can't find the US link, but search for windows xp evaluation edition.
While you're there, order yourself a security update CD [microsoft.com], it saves a hell of a lot of downloading. (I don't know why MS isn't forced to post these to every windows user.)
Wimp. (Score:5, Funny)
-1 : TACO! WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?
Gator! (Score:5, Funny)
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
Re:Gator! (Score:5, Funny)
That's funny, I don't install Gator... (Score:5, Informative)
I install Mozzie first, then I download and run Spybot Search and Destroy and run the cleanup/immunize functions, and then I install AVG. Nothing else is an "absolute" but I usually install them. (I don't install Visual Studio on other people's boxes, of course!)
Re:That's funny, I don't install Gator... (Score:5, Informative)
- OpenOffice.org
- AbiWord
- GIMP
Internet & Communication
- Mozilla
- FileZilla
- TightVNC
- WinHTTrack
- PuTTY
Multimedia & Games
- Audacity
- CDex
- Crack Attack!
- Sokoban YASC
- Celestia
- Really Slick Screensavers
Utilities & Other
- 7-Zip
- SciTE
- WinPT
- NetTime
Source: TheOpenCD [sunsite.dk]
Re:That's funny, I don't install Gator... (Score:5, Funny)
That was actually the first thing they installed when they rebooted Iraq.
Re:That's funny, I don't install Gator... (Score:4, Informative)
No, Mozilla definitely does not install spyware on your computer. Most spyware is added on as part of software that you did intend to install.
However, the default Windows install does include some things that Spybot will pick up.
Re:Gator! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You forgot some essentials! (Score:4, Informative)
forget winrar (Score:5, Informative)
Re:forget winrar (Score:3, Informative)
Forget 7-Zip (Score:5, Informative)
Instead, use the other free alternative, IZArc [izsoft.dir.bg]. It handles everything, plus 7-Zip, actually. The user interface is very clean and contains at least as many features as WinZip. Gets a full recommendation from me!
Re:forget winrar (Score:5, Informative)
Six...Seven...Eight... (Score:5, Funny)
Might I suggest adding a calculator [allersoft.com] to round out that list?
linux/openbsd/freebsd (Score:5, Informative)
Bonzi Buddy (Score:5, Funny)
A list (Score:5, Informative)
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)
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)
A fine text editor!
Re:A list (Score:3, Interesting)
Comments + Links! (Score:5, Informative)
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)
Re:Just one (Score:5, Funny)
First thing to install on a Windows machine... (Score:5, Funny)
TweakUI (Score:5, Interesting)
Immediately followed by (Score:5, Interesting)
the Cygwin [cygwin.com] installer.
My choices (Score:5, Informative)
Re:My choices (Score:5, Informative)
1) Anit-Virus
2) AdAware
3) Firewall (if necessary... if it's for home, it's behind 2 already)
4) SP xx (From a CD)
5) Security Updates (From CD)
6) Mozilla/Firefox/etc. (From CD)
7) Zip/RAR Proggie of the week (From the CD)
8) The Windows CAB files
9) From here on it depends on the purpose of the build, but the machine can now join my network
Most important of all on Windoze Boxen... (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Re:Most important of all on Windoze Boxen... (Score:3, Informative)
Secure from what? Unless you downloaded a warez copy of Windows odds are it wont have a virus. Network security has nothing to do with antivirus software. Get a firewall, dont rely on the OS to provide security.
Re:Most important of all on Windoze Boxen... (Score:3, Informative)
True, if there is another system with a virus on your network it can infect any open shares you have. But then again, in that case you have problems that a single install of an antivirus program wont fix.
"Also if you don't have your browser and email client patched there is a chance that a virus can be launched when you check your email or open a webpage."
By default even Outlook Express will prompt you before launcing an attachment. As for the webpage part, this has been claimed a lot, but no one has ever been able to point to a page that infects a computer.
Mine? (Score:5, Informative)
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
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Quick Everyone! He uses Windows! (Score:5, Funny)
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)
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)
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?
Re:What? (Score:3)
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What? (Score:4, Funny)
For me.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:For me.. (Score:5, Informative)
first few programs (Score:3, Informative)
putty, gaim, mozilla
On linux,
aptitude, ssh, joe, gnome, gaim, epihpany-browser
WTF are you doing to it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:WTF are you doing to it? (Score:3, Informative)
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 allowed to exist) are a different story.
For Windows... (Score:3, Informative)
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)
Don't reformat: use Knoppix/Partimage/NFS (Score:5, Informative)
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
I don't reinstall, I update (Score:5, Informative)
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)
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)
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)
* 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)
On 'nix, it's definately vi or vim. Bash is a close second.
why? (Score:3, Funny)
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)
(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)
Install Nothing.... (Score:3, Funny)
Once a month...? (Score:5, Funny)
On windows? Here's the whole interoperability kit (Score:5, Informative)
More on Linux and MacOS X later, I guess...
On MacOS X? Here's the whole interoperability kit (Score:3, Informative)
ok, since you asked (ooo the exCITEment!) (Score:3, Interesting)
Honest answer : for Windows (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Adobe Acrobat
2. Acdsee -
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)
Market research (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides stuff from Windows Update? (Score:3, Interesting)
1. NVIDIA Apps for multiple desktop, etc.
2. Opera
3. Visual Studio
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)
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)
I'll grab bittorrent (official client), firefox, thunderbird, and I think that's about it.
After Os X install (Score:5, Interesting)
Heres an Os X user's list
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)
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)
* 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)
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.
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)
http://someonewhocares.org/hosts [someonewhocares.org]
top programs. (Score:5, Informative)
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)
Butler
Vim (Cocoa)
Firefox
Fugu
GPG
GPG-Mail
Fink
Konf
X-Chat
Thunderbird (for newsgroups)
Contents of my install "thumb" drive. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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.
On MacOS X (Score:5, Informative)
Sendmail
Bring Perl Current
SpamAssassin and SpamAssassin Milter
Microsoft Office (Yuck! Please get us an Aqua Native Open Office!)
Mozilla Firefox
RealMediaBurner (as close to Nero as you're going to get)
BitTorrent
MultiDesktop
CarbonCopyCloner
Software firewall == BAD (Score:5, Insightful)
The best of the worst in software firewalls IMHO is Norton Internet Security. Good support, and if it hoses your TCP/IP stack (like most any software-based firewall has a tendency to do over time...), there's at least well documented support.
If they're a dialup user, security patch the hell out of the box and be done with it. If they're broadband, figure out a way to put a hardware solution in there. Don't compromise the stability of the TCP/IP stack with software filtering. I don't know how many machines I've had to rebuild the stacks on because of shitty software-based firewalls for Windows.
And, as always, YMMV.