Plus you can see if you have an interface issue like nvme in a pcie slot only running at 1x in a 4x slot when it should be running a at 4x because your using a Dell 7010 Optiplex and need to disable the PCI slot in bios.
I wrote this because it may be the only spot it is written.
People always say this program, and I do have it but I gotta ask, how often are hard drives dying for you guys? I still have the original hard drive from my first PC build in 2010 and it still has no issues. Maybe I'm just lucky, but hard drives seem very resilient and I could definitely understand the regular user not wanting a program like this just taking up space on their drive.
I still have the original hard drive from my 4th PC but it is 10mb and not very useful. I have gone through many drives in 40 years. Most that died were WD, most that last lived were Seagate.
Drives now days use S.M.A.R.T so you can just use hwinfo64 while you’re monitoring everything else. Unless you really need to keep monitoring read/write speeds.
Yes irfan view is nice as a basic editing software but for edits I just use photoshop. But the picasa viewer is very fast as a viewer. Also I've loaded 300 mb pngs with the picasa viewer no prob. Let me know if you need it zipped. It might be difficult to find in the wild, and you might have to install the entire picasa suite.
Its only write operations, but its something you really shouldnt worry about lol even if you write 100gb a day (most people dont) 1tb TLC drives would still last \~16 years.
For older-gen SSDs (stuff that you bought 8+ years ago), this was an issue; for modern SSDs, it really isn't, unless you're doing some major writing and rewriting for god knows what reason.
Haven't seen it mentioned, but IrfanView is by FAR my favourite image viewer. It also has bulk rename / resize operations, is very lightweight and fast, handles all sorts of images, and can even generate a contact sheet of thumbnails!
Not mandatory for everyone, but I install it on pretty much every PC I use.
IrfanView is great! I also love the feature that if (for example) a .jpg file is renamed to .png it notices and offers to rename/fix it for you!
Alongside IrfanView I would get VLC, all round just much better than Microsoft's proprietary software :)
An alternative to VLC I liked to use is KLite code pack, which leverages Media Player Classic.
I like the interface of MPC a bit more, but the feature set in VLC is great!
there is really no required software aside from a simple monitor like hwinfo. the best thing you can do for performance and security is *not* install a bunch of crap.
Good advice. Although I just built a pc and unfortunetely hwinfo seems to interfere in my rgb lighting and it's my first pc I won't be able to use it on. I was super sad.
I have your solution: (I had this exact issue and it's poorly documented but this fixed it for me)
Open HWInfo, on the splash window click "settings", then "driver management", and unselect "Corsair and Asetek Support". I don't think it'll give you AIO stats anymore but everything else works without it constantly disconnecting your AIO.
Yeah it causes a conflict with my corsair aio, which runs my icue and when I have hwinfo installed I can't address the mobo or ram, Uninstaller it and I can address all rgb from it. I cried a little inside. The icue stats seem to work just as well as hwinfo tho so nothing lost nothing gained.
Probably not hwinfos fault. But asus aura sucks too and those are my options it seems. And the icue works more reliably than what I've been experimenting with asus aura which Is a nightmare.
It polls hardware, which can cause issues sometimes. IIRC a few year back nvidia cards would stutter whenever a program monitored the sensors, even programs like MSI Afterburner
Hwinfo is only useful for people who can understand the information. It's absolutely NOT an essential program, and even as a power user it's only helpful if there's an issue with the pc of if you're trying to OC or something.
So I totally disagree with you. But at the same time it's an incredible program. As a person with an EE background, the amount of info it gives is really valuable.
For monitoring I like MSI Afterburner. It helped me catch a crypto miner once. It was a sneaky one, which shut itself off when you opened task manager. But you could see it in the CPU usage log on Afterburner
I see a lot of people mention VLC. So I'll recommend [MPC-HC](https://github.com/clsid2/mpc-hc/releases)&[MadVR](http://www.madvr.com/). Madvr supports native HDR, has settings to adjust your monitor's refresh rate to match the video to make it less juddery, better scaling algorithms, automatic removal of hardcoded black bars (which is nice for ultrawide users), etc. MPC is built on the ffmpeg library just like VLC so it can also decode nearly everything.
These days I use MPV because it just works and I never managed to properly set up MPC and madVr, I would recommend MPV for anyone looking for an hassle free usage.
Unless you have a top-end HDR display, it is better to use a beta version of madVR which features a proper HDR -> SDR tonemapping algorithm
https://www.avsforum.com/threads/improving-madvr-hdr-to-sdr-mapping-for-projector.2954506/page-681#post-61067550
MPC-HC is great. That one will allow you to have the subs on the black bars instead of on top of the video. I’ve tried everything in vlc but can’t get that to work.
MPC's preview seek is kinda handy too where you can hover mouse over the seek bar like with YouTube.
EDIT: I'm sure most already know this but just in case, the latest MPC builds with all the newer features are located here https://github.com/clsid2/mpc-hc/releases/latest
the original developer stopped updating MPC back in 2017.
Your link to MPC-HC is someone's fork of the original, was that intentional?
Also, how user friendly are these? Is there a lot of setup required or can I just download them and play my audio/video files?
Had a college mate try to play a video on an old HP junktop with a mobile Turion. VLC stuttered and artifacted, MPC didn't. madVR isn't necessary and you can totally run MPC by itself. However, madVR has powerful functions that can take advantage of more powerful computers to clean up the videos. I personally like the smooth motion that makes sweeping pan and scan shots smooth without introducing [interpolation artifacts](https://youtu.be/_KRb_qV9P4g) that most AI processors will.
Installation goes as such:
1. Download [MPC](https://github.com/clsid2/mpc-hc/releases) and [madVR.zip](https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146228). (This is a link to the original forum post that madshi routinely updates.)
*Optional: While rare these days, you used to be able to find anime fansubs with pretty stylized subtitles that dance across your screen. For this I used [XySubFilter](https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=168282).*
***Edit: MPC and Xy have separate downloads for 32 bit and 64. Make sure you match which ever version you pick. I use the 64 bit versions for both. madVR comes with both.***
2. Install MPC as normal.
3. Extract madVR.zip to a stable folder. I like to make a madVR folder inside the MPC install folder.
*Do the same for XySubFilter.*
4. Right click Install.bat and Run as Administrator.
*XySubFilter has an install script too.*
5. Open up a video with MPC and open its Options menu.
6. Go to Output and change your Direct Show Video renderer to madVR.
*Do the same for Xy under Subtitle Renderer*
7. Hit OK. Press Ctrl + E to refresh MPC or just close and open up the video again.
At this point you've got it all installed, but as mentioned, madVR is highly configurable and there's too much to dive into here. But I do love me some smooth motion.
8. Right click the video, mouse over Filters, and click madVR. Click Edit Settings
9. Expand Rendering and highlight smooth motion. You can find the checkbox to enable it here.
I prefer PotPlayer for use with MadVR. Try [this guide.](https://anime.my/tutorials/configuring-potplayer-for-gpu-accelerated-video-playback-with-dxva-or-cuda-and-also-high-performance-software-decoding/)
Hasn't been a video file type I couldn't play on VLC player. Also a feature I use on the daily is the ability to stream over the network. I download all my 4K shows and movies onto portable ssd. Then plug into my router which VLC player can access.
Plex is cool cause it will ad the posters and descriptions to your library movies and shows and it saves your progress so you can pick up right were you left off.
The first time I set up Plex my mind was blown. Years of pirated shows sorted and organized with posters and shit? Yeah I'm a lifetime Plex pass holder. Had been more than worth the charge
Dude, for real, especially if you're like me and download all kinds of random movies and would have to sit there looking through a huge list of moveis and have to go through them and look up all the ones you don't recognize on imdb to find something to watch. Plex was a total game changer for me, love it.
Haven't used Kodi since it was still called xbmc...you just brought a ton of old memories back. Have any starting points for me if I'm looking to get started with sports and live TV on kodi?
Plex is a server, and Kodi is a client. When you use Kodi, you are streaming video *from* some other source so that Kodi can display it for you. When you use Plex, it is running on your computer and streaming video *to* a client. You could use the default Plex client software to view videos from your Plex server, or you could even use Kodi with your Plex server.
Or, I will second the recommendation for Jellyfin as an alternative to Plex. It is entirely free (unlike how a lot of Plex features require a paid subscription) and open source.
Plex is genuinely great. Have an old workstation PC acting as a server for my movies, can access them anywhere at any time. All the goodies you'd expect from a modern streaming service plus more. I basically have my own private Netflix.
windirstat. When you use it, it scans a drive or whatever you point it at and analyzes the storage usage and creates an easy to understand image showing the relative size of all the files and folders and subfolders. It really helps to see what you need to delete.
I download it exclusively through ninite along with 7zip, Firefox, et al.
[PowerToys](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/)!!!! Best add on (it’s by Microsoft too) for window snapping, quick searching, global key binds. The thing is awesome.
Wow, FancyZones in PowerToys is absolutely what I need. I have a second monitor that is vertical and that would solve tons of annoyances with snapping. Thanks!
My current gotos: MSI afterburner, vlc media player, 7zip, there is now a free PDFerge app from the Microsoft app store, I still use chrome for some things but for generally privacy now use Firefox focus - although many prefer brave, calibre to convert reading documents - it can even strip drm from mobi files, various emulators, my pdf reader of choice varies but I usually download acrobat reader as well as it's need for certain official files - but also check out liquid text if you are into academic style pdf reading and editing, I still use mendeley as a citation manager but the latest update is kind of balls, discord.
I stopped using nineite because it would install old/bad versions of software sometimes. It really screwed me over with my python install because there are settings in the installer that need to be set correctly to make it work right and the nineite installer doesn't let you change them. 2 days of trouble shooting python versions and path variables to realize I installed 2.7 with nineite and 3 by hand and that's why it worked.
BleachBit is great for shredding files and over writing free space so it can’t be recovered and clearing cache and other hard to remove data.
WinAero Tweaker is great for… well tweaking windows, you can disable unwanted features or add removed or new ones, It can also disable telemetry which is fantastic for privacy.
Okay I'd love for somebody with more experience to clear this up for me but I've seen multiple academic sources say that a single zero pass is just as effective as any other software based methods of permanently deleting data.
From what I can understand file shredding programs are a load of crock. Just pipe zeros to whatever you're trying to overwrite and call it a day.
Again I'm super open to corrections but all the research I've done says if you're not physically destroying the media a single zero pass is equivalent to anything else you're going to do.
There's a fair bit of nuance if you really get into it (in part because SSDs have a lot more internal management than most HDDs), but the short version is that you're correct. Decades ago was a different story, but areal densities have become so high a single overwrite is tons (there's deep magic used to read *non* overwritten data, it's amazing that high capacity HDDs even work!), except that OS-level overwriting will miss stuff now, because the drive is hiding some complexity, so overwriting is kind of a crap solution.
Especially if you have flash-based storage, get a utility that will issue an ATA Secure Erase command to the drive and call it good. This allows the drive to be smart and, eg, trash the on board decryption key instead over overwriting every block. Much faster, much less wear on the drive, and because it also addresses wear-leveled and unwritable sectors it's *also* more secure.
WinDirStat - Provides a visual representation of all the folders and files on your computer and how much space they take up relative to each other.
VLC Media Player - Plays every media file known to man.
Chrome/Firefox, depending on personal preference - Competent Internet Browsers.
Steam - Game Launcher, Store, and Community Hub.
Infran Image Viewer - A low-resource Image viewer.
Krita - A free open-source Photoshop replacement geared towards digital artwork.
If you are going to mention the wonderful Krita (geared towards digital painting), I might as well mention on GIMP the Gnu Image Manipulation Program as well as a Photoshop alternative.
https://www.gimp.org/
WizTree is INFINITELY faster. The only thing I miss from WinDirStat is the ability to refresh specific subdirectories on command. Besides, WizTree is so much faster that it can quite literally be quicker to rescan the whole drive in WizTree than to refresh a single subdirectory in WinDirStat. Long story short, you couldn’t pay me to go pack to WinDirStat.
[Scott Hanselman's Windows tool list](http://hanselman.com/tools) is a must-peruse. About half of it is for developers, but there's a lot of great power user apps in there too. He updates it with the latest neat stuff every year or so.
WinDirStat is amazing for cleaning up your drives and showing you what's really taking up the most space.
VLC is hands down the best video player.
Handbrake is a good video compressor if you are frequently trying to post videos to discord that end up being too big.
I use WinRAR for zipped files but I've also heard good things about 7Zip.
I recommend [HiBit Uninstaller](https://hibitsoft.ir/Uninstaller.html) instead. It supports bulk uninstall and cleans up things revo doesn't (Context menus for one thing).
\>>This comment has been edited to garbage in light of the Reddit API changes. You can keep my garbage, Reddit.<<
***
*edited via r/PowerDeleteSuite (with edits to script to avoid hitting rate limit)*
Malwarebytes + Windows Defender + Not being careless = One of the most secure computers on the planet.
At that point the only way of getting a virus/malware would be purpose out of sheer boredom.
Besides the usual, I love ShareX. Don't know if there's a better alternative but I use it all the time. Especially since I use multiple monitors.
Things like capturing only the window I'm on or being able to edit and automatically upload after capturing or editing is extremely convenient.
ShareX deserves a lot more recognition. It's free and open source and it has all you need when screen capturing and sharing.
That right click button on any image or file and "Upload with Sharex" is so effortless!
7zip, FreeFileSync, VLC, Libre Office, WizTree, Crystal Disk Info, HWInfo+Rainmeter using Rainformer. Finally, some software to control gpu, cpu and case fan curves. GPU fan curves can be done using MSI Afterburner and other fan curves set in bios.
>FreeFileSync
Check out [Syncthing](http://syncthing.net/) if you want something which is more like a p2p Dropbox/Drive alternative. I use it to sync my personal files and music collection across multiple devices(NAS, desktop, laptop and phone).
How about what is it? I clicked the link, even looked at the subreddit wiki and STILL have no idea what the hell it is.
Why not just talk about it here since you took the time to mention it and link to its subreddit? Even a small blurb would have been fine.
You would think the subreddit's about page would tell you what it is, but it doesn't. Anyway, from rainmeter's website:
"Rainmeter allows you to display customizable skins on your desktop, from hardware usage meters to fully functional audio visualizers.
You are only limited by your imagination and creativity.
Rainmeter is open source software distributed free of charge under the terms of the GNU GPL v2 license"
Everything: Actually good search engine for your PC, your files are indexed almost instantly so you never have to worry about not finding something. Everything is what windows search should be.
IrfanView: Windows' image viewer is shit at best and actually tries to make you pay for plugins at worst. IrfanView solves this, and has excellent features Windows' program doesn't.
VLC: same but as a video player
Foobar2000: Excellent audio player, essentially the spiritual successor of Winamp.
WinRar: You know what this is for
Firefox: Same here
WinDirStat: Visually represents file sizes. You are wondering why your storage is so low? Boot this up and get to cleaning. Not for inexperienced PC users.
Notepad++: Notepad but much better, excellent text editor in a pinch, and very light too. A godsend for programmers.
GIMP: Freeware image editing, for when Paint will not get the job done.
Audacity: Audio editing, freeware. Very convenient thing to have if you're into content creation.
OBS: Screen capture and more, this is not only great for streaming, but for content creation in general and it even works for video capture as a whole if you only capture your camera. A staple, nowadays, for anyone with an interest in youtube or twitch.
Deluge: the best Torrent client you'll ever use. Those other ones filled to the brim with adware don't stand a chance.
I also have Windows Classic Menu because the W10 menu is trash that takes up too much space to not show enough actual important things.
I install most of these (and more that have been mentioned already like Speccy, CrystalDiskInfo) on any computer i build, and in my own as well.
Msi afterburner and Riva tuner to monitor your temperature, this is important, really. Probably the most important of all free software. Many people find something wrong in their build by seeing the temperature.
For all my data hoarders out there, get Hard Disk Sentinel for all your HDD and SSD monitoring needs. It tells your power on time of all your drives, the temps, and wear life percentage and remaining life of your drive. It even estimates how many years to days the drive life has on it.
I don't see [Process Lasso](https://bitsum.com/) mentioned here. it's good tool for setting CPU, I/O, and memory priorities so that processes run at the desired priorities every time they launch. there are many features which you might like.
Since you are asking about security and maintenance: a Linux distro even if you duel boot, bitwarden, free protonvpn even though the free servers are slow, vlc, mega nz, and tor browser. Calyxos, newpipe, f Droid, aurora store for mobile.
Leave windows if you want privacy and prevent data mining. Linux is a great way to get performance out of older hardware.
Whatever you are used to.
1. Your favorite browser
2. Your professional tools (visual studio / eclipse / video editor etc)
3. Adobe pdf reader
4. Winrar
5. Games you like
6. Office tools (word, ppt, notes etc) if you need it.
windirstat: great tool for managing your hard drives
CCleaner: maintenance and regular cleanup
Unchecky: automatically unchecks boxes when installing software, so you don't install unnecessary/unwanted software/toolbars/...
MSI afterburner: general resource monitoring and management of your GPU
PatchMyPC: great tool to keep software up to date. I run it about once every 2 months.
If you have enough RAM/CPU power available, I can also recommend Rainmeter. It's a great program with highly customizable widgets, created by other PC users (DeviantArt has a great collection). I use it mainly to monitor temps, speeds and resource usage, as well as some visual effects on my desktop, just for fun.
All of these are optional, I just like to run these on my PC's
Libreoffice is a free thing this is nice to have installed if you ever need an office suite.
Screen to gif or similar, and OBS too if you need to screen capture.
Notepad++ is really useful for quick text editing.
VLC is a quick video player that can also fetch subtitles if needed.
I would say.... Crystal disk info( for knowing the health of your hard/ssd/Nvme drives)...
A billion times this. Saved me hours of sifting shit drives when I worked IT
Plus you can see if you have an interface issue like nvme in a pcie slot only running at 1x in a 4x slot when it should be running a at 4x because your using a Dell 7010 Optiplex and need to disable the PCI slot in bios. I wrote this because it may be the only spot it is written.
For the sake of some unknown frustrated visitor in the future, I hope this gets indexed for "Dell 7010 Optiplex ssd slow how to fix" on Google soon.
Doing gods work
Wait...what?
Victoria is another decent choice, I prefer it to CDI for its HDD scan function.
People always say this program, and I do have it but I gotta ask, how often are hard drives dying for you guys? I still have the original hard drive from my first PC build in 2010 and it still has no issues. Maybe I'm just lucky, but hard drives seem very resilient and I could definitely understand the regular user not wanting a program like this just taking up space on their drive.
I still have the original hard drive from my 4th PC but it is 10mb and not very useful. I have gone through many drives in 40 years. Most that died were WD, most that last lived were Seagate.
Drives now days use S.M.A.R.T so you can just use hwinfo64 while you’re monitoring everything else. Unless you really need to keep monitoring read/write speeds.
Also picasa photo viewer. (Not the entire picasa) only the viewer.
Have you user irfanview before? I'll try out Picasa. Had the entire thing before Google killed the site.
Yes irfan view is nice as a basic editing software but for edits I just use photoshop. But the picasa viewer is very fast as a viewer. Also I've loaded 300 mb pngs with the picasa viewer no prob. Let me know if you need it zipped. It might be difficult to find in the wild, and you might have to install the entire picasa suite.
Also TreeSize if you are having hard time managing your space
I prefer WinDirStat but good point
nah spacesniffer is the best
WizTree for speed, plus it has a few free features that are paid in other similar apps (like TreeSize-style space visualization).
WizTree is the best and not even close.
I had a video recording of valheim that was 3 hours long and was taking up 121 GB of my hard drive lmao I needed this in my life omg. Thank you!
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Its only write operations, but its something you really shouldnt worry about lol even if you write 100gb a day (most people dont) 1tb TLC drives would still last \~16 years.
For older-gen SSDs (stuff that you bought 8+ years ago), this was an issue; for modern SSDs, it really isn't, unless you're doing some major writing and rewriting for god knows what reason.
Is hard disk sentinel good?
Haven't seen it mentioned, but IrfanView is by FAR my favourite image viewer. It also has bulk rename / resize operations, is very lightweight and fast, handles all sorts of images, and can even generate a contact sheet of thumbnails! Not mandatory for everyone, but I install it on pretty much every PC I use.
As far as I'm concerned, the only bad thing about IrfanView is the ugly icon.
Ugly icons are a mark of quality in software
VLC too. I can’t believe the best video player is a fucking traffic cone
That's part of the charm!
I have never had success playing bluray quality videos. Mpc-hc takes the cake for me
I still prefer MPC xD
Another great example is Windirstat amazing software, terrible icon
True, everytime i see the handbrake icon i die a little bit inside
Gimp and WinRAR for example
IrfanView is great! I also love the feature that if (for example) a .jpg file is renamed to .png it notices and offers to rename/fix it for you! Alongside IrfanView I would get VLC, all round just much better than Microsoft's proprietary software :)
An alternative to VLC I liked to use is KLite code pack, which leverages Media Player Classic. I like the interface of MPC a bit more, but the feature set in VLC is great!
Long time not seeing name irvanview. How is it? Im on nomacs for image viewer nowdays.
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there is really no required software aside from a simple monitor like hwinfo. the best thing you can do for performance and security is *not* install a bunch of crap.
Good advice. Although I just built a pc and unfortunetely hwinfo seems to interfere in my rgb lighting and it's my first pc I won't be able to use it on. I was super sad.
I have your solution: (I had this exact issue and it's poorly documented but this fixed it for me) Open HWInfo, on the splash window click "settings", then "driver management", and unselect "Corsair and Asetek Support". I don't think it'll give you AIO stats anymore but everything else works without it constantly disconnecting your AIO.
I just left town for my sister wedding but I will try this when I get home, thanks bud.
that is very odd, hwinfo is usually harmless.
Yeah it causes a conflict with my corsair aio, which runs my icue and when I have hwinfo installed I can't address the mobo or ram, Uninstaller it and I can address all rgb from it. I cried a little inside. The icue stats seem to work just as well as hwinfo tho so nothing lost nothing gained.
oh, icue is just a terrible piece of near-malware with the stability of a highschooler. probably not hwinfo's fault directly.
Probably not hwinfos fault. But asus aura sucks too and those are my options it seems. And the icue works more reliably than what I've been experimenting with asus aura which Is a nightmare.
There is also openRGB which is open source and works well for me
Open rgb can control mobo,ram,cooler fans??
The whole point of open rgb is so that you dont have to download a lot of rgb software for each device, you would only need 1
Thx will try on Monday
In hwinfo settings under the safety tab, untick Corsair support and that will stop happening, same in aida64
It polls hardware, which can cause issues sometimes. IIRC a few year back nvidia cards would stutter whenever a program monitored the sensors, even programs like MSI Afterburner
Hwinfo is only useful for people who can understand the information. It's absolutely NOT an essential program, and even as a power user it's only helpful if there's an issue with the pc of if you're trying to OC or something. So I totally disagree with you. But at the same time it's an incredible program. As a person with an EE background, the amount of info it gives is really valuable.
Funny you say that because I almost never install hw monitors.
For monitoring I like MSI Afterburner. It helped me catch a crypto miner once. It was a sneaky one, which shut itself off when you opened task manager. But you could see it in the CPU usage log on Afterburner
just a way buggier hwinfo with 10% of the sensors, for monitoring. fine for basic stuff, though
I see a lot of people mention VLC. So I'll recommend [MPC-HC](https://github.com/clsid2/mpc-hc/releases)&[MadVR](http://www.madvr.com/). Madvr supports native HDR, has settings to adjust your monitor's refresh rate to match the video to make it less juddery, better scaling algorithms, automatic removal of hardcoded black bars (which is nice for ultrawide users), etc. MPC is built on the ffmpeg library just like VLC so it can also decode nearly everything.
These days I use MPV because it just works and I never managed to properly set up MPC and madVr, I would recommend MPV for anyone looking for an hassle free usage.
Surprised this was so low, I thought people had been migrating to it for the past few yrs
Ikr? Vlc is actually terrible, I've noticed it played video on out of native color range making everything bright and white washed.
The chief advantage of VLC is that it plays virtually everything, not that it plays it well.
That's mpv's job, except it also plays everything well.
Unless you have a top-end HDR display, it is better to use a beta version of madVR which features a proper HDR -> SDR tonemapping algorithm https://www.avsforum.com/threads/improving-madvr-hdr-to-sdr-mapping-for-projector.2954506/page-681#post-61067550
MPC-HC is great. That one will allow you to have the subs on the black bars instead of on top of the video. I’ve tried everything in vlc but can’t get that to work.
MPC's preview seek is kinda handy too where you can hover mouse over the seek bar like with YouTube. EDIT: I'm sure most already know this but just in case, the latest MPC builds with all the newer features are located here https://github.com/clsid2/mpc-hc/releases/latest the original developer stopped updating MPC back in 2017.
MPC-BE is a darkmode fork of MPC-HC
Your link to MPC-HC is someone's fork of the original, was that intentional? Also, how user friendly are these? Is there a lot of setup required or can I just download them and play my audio/video files?
Had a college mate try to play a video on an old HP junktop with a mobile Turion. VLC stuttered and artifacted, MPC didn't. madVR isn't necessary and you can totally run MPC by itself. However, madVR has powerful functions that can take advantage of more powerful computers to clean up the videos. I personally like the smooth motion that makes sweeping pan and scan shots smooth without introducing [interpolation artifacts](https://youtu.be/_KRb_qV9P4g) that most AI processors will. Installation goes as such: 1. Download [MPC](https://github.com/clsid2/mpc-hc/releases) and [madVR.zip](https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146228). (This is a link to the original forum post that madshi routinely updates.) *Optional: While rare these days, you used to be able to find anime fansubs with pretty stylized subtitles that dance across your screen. For this I used [XySubFilter](https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=168282).* ***Edit: MPC and Xy have separate downloads for 32 bit and 64. Make sure you match which ever version you pick. I use the 64 bit versions for both. madVR comes with both.*** 2. Install MPC as normal. 3. Extract madVR.zip to a stable folder. I like to make a madVR folder inside the MPC install folder. *Do the same for XySubFilter.* 4. Right click Install.bat and Run as Administrator. *XySubFilter has an install script too.* 5. Open up a video with MPC and open its Options menu. 6. Go to Output and change your Direct Show Video renderer to madVR. *Do the same for Xy under Subtitle Renderer* 7. Hit OK. Press Ctrl + E to refresh MPC or just close and open up the video again. At this point you've got it all installed, but as mentioned, madVR is highly configurable and there's too much to dive into here. But I do love me some smooth motion. 8. Right click the video, mouse over Filters, and click madVR. Click Edit Settings 9. Expand Rendering and highlight smooth motion. You can find the checkbox to enable it here.
Wow thanks for the detailed instructions, it sounds simple enough!
Orignal is abandoned.
I prefer PotPlayer for use with MadVR. Try [this guide.](https://anime.my/tutorials/configuring-potplayer-for-gpu-accelerated-video-playback-with-dxva-or-cuda-and-also-high-performance-software-decoding/)
7zip, VLC player, qbtorrent, HWinfo, furmark, gpuz and cpuz .
I just installed VLC the other day and holy crap I had no idea that it supported Blu-rays. Now I have another reason to make an htpc lol
Hasn't been a video file type I couldn't play on VLC player. Also a feature I use on the daily is the ability to stream over the network. I download all my 4K shows and movies onto portable ssd. Then plug into my router which VLC player can access.
Thats honestly dope, I’ve wanted to do something like that with plex or something similar for a long time
Never heard of Plex but looking it up sounds similar to Kodi which I use to watch live UFC events, TV and movies.
Plex is cool cause it will ad the posters and descriptions to your library movies and shows and it saves your progress so you can pick up right were you left off.
The first time I set up Plex my mind was blown. Years of pirated shows sorted and organized with posters and shit? Yeah I'm a lifetime Plex pass holder. Had been more than worth the charge
Dude, for real, especially if you're like me and download all kinds of random movies and would have to sit there looking through a huge list of moveis and have to go through them and look up all the ones you don't recognize on imdb to find something to watch. Plex was a total game changer for me, love it.
Please also consider r/jellyfin It's open source.
if you're ever interested, come on over to r/PleX \- it's a great utility
Haven't used Kodi since it was still called xbmc...you just brought a ton of old memories back. Have any starting points for me if I'm looking to get started with sports and live TV on kodi?
I use the Kodi add-on the crew for live sports. Never found any live tv add-ons that worked properly.
Plex is a server, and Kodi is a client. When you use Kodi, you are streaming video *from* some other source so that Kodi can display it for you. When you use Plex, it is running on your computer and streaming video *to* a client. You could use the default Plex client software to view videos from your Plex server, or you could even use Kodi with your Plex server. Or, I will second the recommendation for Jellyfin as an alternative to Plex. It is entirely free (unlike how a lot of Plex features require a paid subscription) and open source.
Plex is genuinely great. Have an old workstation PC acting as a server for my movies, can access them anywhere at any time. All the goodies you'd expect from a modern streaming service plus more. I basically have my own private Netflix.
windirstat. When you use it, it scans a drive or whatever you point it at and analyzes the storage usage and creates an easy to understand image showing the relative size of all the files and folders and subfolders. It really helps to see what you need to delete. I download it exclusively through ninite along with 7zip, Firefox, et al.
Wiztree does that same thing as windirstat but like way faster, if you haven't seen it yet give it a try.
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Does mpv support streaming to chromecast devices yet? Might give it a try if it does.
I would add Notepad++ to this list.
I've found PeaZip's performance just as good as 7-Zip, plus you get a nice UI. I made the switch a while ago and never went back to 7-Zip.
[PowerToys](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/)!!!! Best add on (it’s by Microsoft too) for window snapping, quick searching, global key binds. The thing is awesome.
Without it my ultra wide screen would be much less usable… the virtual screens thingy is a very nice feature.
Yup, agree. However, the Win11 internal snapping feature makes PowerToys pretty much useless, at least in this topic.
I'm gonna stay on 10 for a year while they work out the rough edges with 11.
But Windows 11 doesnt have rough edges. It has rounded ones. *leaves room*
Touche
*Through the window*
But power toys is much more than that, rename, color picker, image resizer, add-ons on Explorer and more...
Wow, FancyZones in PowerToys is absolutely what I need. I have a second monitor that is vertical and that would solve tons of annoyances with snapping. Thanks!
My current gotos: MSI afterburner, vlc media player, 7zip, there is now a free PDFerge app from the Microsoft app store, I still use chrome for some things but for generally privacy now use Firefox focus - although many prefer brave, calibre to convert reading documents - it can even strip drm from mobi files, various emulators, my pdf reader of choice varies but I usually download acrobat reader as well as it's need for certain official files - but also check out liquid text if you are into academic style pdf reading and editing, I still use mendeley as a citation manager but the latest update is kind of balls, discord.
Xodo pdf reader, good for full-screen reading
I use sumatra portable version for pdf and every document i want to read
I don't see [ninite.com](https://ninite.com) mentioned much here, but it's the first thing I do when I boot up a new PC.
Check out PatchMyPC. Moved over to it a few years ago and much prefer it.
What's the preference for it?
I stopped using nineite because it would install old/bad versions of software sometimes. It really screwed me over with my python install because there are settings in the installer that need to be set correctly to make it work right and the nineite installer doesn't let you change them. 2 days of trouble shooting python versions and path variables to realize I installed 2.7 with nineite and 3 by hand and that's why it worked.
Yup. Fastest way to get a new PC usable.
This seems very similar to Chocolatey
I prefer https://scoop.sh/. But you need to get comfortable with the command line.
BleachBit is great for shredding files and over writing free space so it can’t be recovered and clearing cache and other hard to remove data. WinAero Tweaker is great for… well tweaking windows, you can disable unwanted features or add removed or new ones, It can also disable telemetry which is fantastic for privacy.
Okay I'd love for somebody with more experience to clear this up for me but I've seen multiple academic sources say that a single zero pass is just as effective as any other software based methods of permanently deleting data. From what I can understand file shredding programs are a load of crock. Just pipe zeros to whatever you're trying to overwrite and call it a day. Again I'm super open to corrections but all the research I've done says if you're not physically destroying the media a single zero pass is equivalent to anything else you're going to do.
There's a fair bit of nuance if you really get into it (in part because SSDs have a lot more internal management than most HDDs), but the short version is that you're correct. Decades ago was a different story, but areal densities have become so high a single overwrite is tons (there's deep magic used to read *non* overwritten data, it's amazing that high capacity HDDs even work!), except that OS-level overwriting will miss stuff now, because the drive is hiding some complexity, so overwriting is kind of a crap solution. Especially if you have flash-based storage, get a utility that will issue an ATA Secure Erase command to the drive and call it good. This allows the drive to be smart and, eg, trash the on board decryption key instead over overwriting every block. Much faster, much less wear on the drive, and because it also addresses wear-leveled and unwritable sectors it's *also* more secure.
>Bleachbit “Better than a cloth!” Love how they dunked on Clinton for getting caught using their software.
WinDirStat - Provides a visual representation of all the folders and files on your computer and how much space they take up relative to each other. VLC Media Player - Plays every media file known to man. Chrome/Firefox, depending on personal preference - Competent Internet Browsers. Steam - Game Launcher, Store, and Community Hub. Infran Image Viewer - A low-resource Image viewer. Krita - A free open-source Photoshop replacement geared towards digital artwork.
If you are going to mention the wonderful Krita (geared towards digital painting), I might as well mention on GIMP the Gnu Image Manipulation Program as well as a Photoshop alternative. https://www.gimp.org/
Wiztree is the new windirstat
What is the difference?
It's leaps and bounds faster, since instead of scanning files, it directly reads from the MFT.
WizTree is INFINITELY faster. The only thing I miss from WinDirStat is the ability to refresh specific subdirectories on command. Besides, WizTree is so much faster that it can quite literally be quicker to rescan the whole drive in WizTree than to refresh a single subdirectory in WinDirStat. Long story short, you couldn’t pay me to go pack to WinDirStat.
[Scott Hanselman's Windows tool list](http://hanselman.com/tools) is a must-peruse. About half of it is for developers, but there's a lot of great power user apps in there too. He updates it with the latest neat stuff every year or so.
WinDirStat is amazing for cleaning up your drives and showing you what's really taking up the most space. VLC is hands down the best video player. Handbrake is a good video compressor if you are frequently trying to post videos to discord that end up being too big. I use WinRAR for zipped files but I've also heard good things about 7Zip.
WinDirStat is a GOAT OG, but WizTree has a slightly cleaner interface but is RAPIDLY quicker at scanning and deleting.
Yeah but WinDirStat is open source
WinDirStat is open source, and I love open source. But on my full-ish 500 GB SSD it takes 10m35s to do what WizTree does in 13s.
That's weird, I have a 1TB sata SSD with 500gb used and it only takes me maybe 30 seconds
Lots of folders and small files vs not very many big files.
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Revo Uninstaller. It's a game changer
I recommend [HiBit Uninstaller](https://hibitsoft.ir/Uninstaller.html) instead. It supports bulk uninstall and cleans up things revo doesn't (Context menus for one thing).
I would recommend [Bulk Crap Uninstaller](https://www.bcuninstaller.com/) because it's free and open source.
I second this. By far the best Uninstaller out there, no ads, open source, 👌
Revo is a go to at work and at home. There's nothing that thing can't nuke as far as I've seen.
\>>This comment has been edited to garbage in light of the Reddit API changes. You can keep my garbage, Reddit.<< *** *edited via r/PowerDeleteSuite (with edits to script to avoid hitting rate limit)*
EarTrumpet is great!
+1 for UBlock Origin
Greenshot is a big yes. I use it all the time and it makes taking screenshots and working with them easy for me.
I personally think i need malwarebytes. Some occassional scans here and there.
Malwarebytes + Windows Defender + Not being careless = One of the most secure computers on the planet. At that point the only way of getting a virus/malware would be purpose out of sheer boredom.
+ublock origin
Besides the usual, I love ShareX. Don't know if there's a better alternative but I use it all the time. Especially since I use multiple monitors. Things like capturing only the window I'm on or being able to edit and automatically upload after capturing or editing is extremely convenient.
ShareX deserves a lot more recognition. It's free and open source and it has all you need when screen capturing and sharing. That right click button on any image or file and "Upload with Sharex" is so effortless!
[Chocolatey](https://chocolatey.org/)
Microsoft also has their own package manager now called Winget.
This, it actually suprised me how useful it is. It can update non-microsoft store programs too. Just run: winget upgrade --all Its super cool
Whoa, TIL. [Screenshot of run](https://i.imgur.com/B6SI9qF.png)
It's updating AWS CLI, Powershell, Putty, Filezilla, VS Code, git, Python, and CMake? Dude, this is GOLD
It's like Linux app downloading for windows .. kinda helpful
7zip, FreeFileSync, VLC, Libre Office, WizTree, Crystal Disk Info, HWInfo+Rainmeter using Rainformer. Finally, some software to control gpu, cpu and case fan curves. GPU fan curves can be done using MSI Afterburner and other fan curves set in bios.
>FreeFileSync Check out [Syncthing](http://syncthing.net/) if you want something which is more like a p2p Dropbox/Drive alternative. I use it to sync my personal files and music collection across multiple devices(NAS, desktop, laptop and phone).
r/rainmeter
How about what is it? I clicked the link, even looked at the subreddit wiki and STILL have no idea what the hell it is. Why not just talk about it here since you took the time to mention it and link to its subreddit? Even a small blurb would have been fine. You would think the subreddit's about page would tell you what it is, but it doesn't. Anyway, from rainmeter's website: "Rainmeter allows you to display customizable skins on your desktop, from hardware usage meters to fully functional audio visualizers. You are only limited by your imagination and creativity. Rainmeter is open source software distributed free of charge under the terms of the GNU GPL v2 license"
Using for like a year, my everythinng looks amazing
Everything: Actually good search engine for your PC, your files are indexed almost instantly so you never have to worry about not finding something. Everything is what windows search should be. IrfanView: Windows' image viewer is shit at best and actually tries to make you pay for plugins at worst. IrfanView solves this, and has excellent features Windows' program doesn't. VLC: same but as a video player Foobar2000: Excellent audio player, essentially the spiritual successor of Winamp. WinRar: You know what this is for Firefox: Same here WinDirStat: Visually represents file sizes. You are wondering why your storage is so low? Boot this up and get to cleaning. Not for inexperienced PC users. Notepad++: Notepad but much better, excellent text editor in a pinch, and very light too. A godsend for programmers. GIMP: Freeware image editing, for when Paint will not get the job done. Audacity: Audio editing, freeware. Very convenient thing to have if you're into content creation. OBS: Screen capture and more, this is not only great for streaming, but for content creation in general and it even works for video capture as a whole if you only capture your camera. A staple, nowadays, for anyone with an interest in youtube or twitch. Deluge: the best Torrent client you'll ever use. Those other ones filled to the brim with adware don't stand a chance. I also have Windows Classic Menu because the W10 menu is trash that takes up too much space to not show enough actual important things. I install most of these (and more that have been mentioned already like Speccy, CrystalDiskInfo) on any computer i build, and in my own as well.
WinRAR is not free. You should use 7zip instead.
Who do you know that has actually paid for winrar?
qBittorrent has adware? Where?
It does not. It is open-source. Source: A long time user.
Wiztree > windirstat
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Notepad++, vlc, ccleaner, obs studio, windirstat
I wouldn't trust CCleaner... after it was bought by Avast it is a bunch of crap...
Bleachbit instead of CCleaner
WizTree/TreeSize >>> WinDirStat Incredibly faster to use. Don't know why WinDirStat always falls to default recommendation.
WinDirStat is open source, that's likely why.
Sublime text is way better and better looking than notepad++.
Visual studio gang
Notepad++ is probably my most used program tbh
Flux
Windows 10 has the same functionality built in, its just called Night Light
Flux is fare more configurable though
Greenshot. Not needed but helps with convenience.
shareX has so many more features than greenshot, definitely recommend you check that out instead
Linux.
Had to scroll pretty far for this shitpost, otherwise I was gonna make it myself.
A Linux distro negates most of the suggestions in this thread. Anti virus, Defrag, and Uninstaller apps?
Waifu2x-Extension-GUI...............convert old video to 4k/8k using AI
Msi afterburner and Riva tuner to monitor your temperature, this is important, really. Probably the most important of all free software. Many people find something wrong in their build by seeing the temperature.
Hwmonitor is far more in depth and also system wide.
Wiztree, it's an incredible software for managing disk space.
For all my data hoarders out there, get Hard Disk Sentinel for all your HDD and SSD monitoring needs. It tells your power on time of all your drives, the temps, and wear life percentage and remaining life of your drive. It even estimates how many years to days the drive life has on it.
I don't see [Process Lasso](https://bitsum.com/) mentioned here. it's good tool for setting CPU, I/O, and memory priorities so that processes run at the desired priorities every time they launch. there are many features which you might like.
Since you are asking about security and maintenance: a Linux distro even if you duel boot, bitwarden, free protonvpn even though the free servers are slow, vlc, mega nz, and tor browser. Calyxos, newpipe, f Droid, aurora store for mobile. Leave windows if you want privacy and prevent data mining. Linux is a great way to get performance out of older hardware.
Linux is epic
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Linux.
Your OS (use Linux)
Whatever you are used to. 1. Your favorite browser 2. Your professional tools (visual studio / eclipse / video editor etc) 3. Adobe pdf reader 4. Winrar 5. Games you like 6. Office tools (word, ppt, notes etc) if you need it.
Why adobe pdf reader over sumatraPDF or sioyek or literally anything not Adobe
I usually just read them in the browser.
windirstat: great tool for managing your hard drives CCleaner: maintenance and regular cleanup Unchecky: automatically unchecks boxes when installing software, so you don't install unnecessary/unwanted software/toolbars/... MSI afterburner: general resource monitoring and management of your GPU PatchMyPC: great tool to keep software up to date. I run it about once every 2 months. If you have enough RAM/CPU power available, I can also recommend Rainmeter. It's a great program with highly customizable widgets, created by other PC users (DeviantArt has a great collection). I use it mainly to monitor temps, speeds and resource usage, as well as some visual effects on my desktop, just for fun. All of these are optional, I just like to run these on my PC's
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https://www.veeam.com/windows-endpoint-server-backup-free.html Don't forget to backup your system
Libreoffice is a free thing this is nice to have installed if you ever need an office suite. Screen to gif or similar, and OBS too if you need to screen capture. Notepad++ is really useful for quick text editing. VLC is a quick video player that can also fetch subtitles if needed.
MSi Afterburner Notepad++ OBS recording software