One of the little projects I monitored on the computer today while I was doing other things was an install of Windows XP on my desktop computer. I wanted to be sure that I could do a podcast again some time soon, and I know for sure that the hardware and software support that I need should work with this OS (Windows 7 is kind of wonky with audio mixing on my hardware).
I do have a nice, easy slipstream’d XP-plus-SP3 disc that I can run when I need to do an XP install (used nLite and the tutorial that I read quite some time ago on Lifehacker). I have it set up so that I don’t have to key in the product key, pick my time zone, tell it who my users are, things like that. I put in the CD, tell it where to install, and in about 20 minutes it’s pretty much all set.
The only thing lacking is all the other software that you want to have with your “basic” installation. When I rolled this disc, anyway, there was no means of adding extra (i.e., non-Windows) software to your deployment. So, I often end up downloading and reinstalling a bunch of stuff anyway. With that in mind, here is my list of software that I NEED for what I consider “basic functionality” when I do a new Windows installation.
It should be noted that I wrote this with XP in mind, but to my knowledge, nearly all this software works in Win 7, too.
- Audacity
- AVG anti-virus
- DisplayFusion
- Firefox
- Image Resizer powertoy
- Flash player
- Java
- Launchy
- OpenOffice
- Pidgin
- cleartype tuner powertoy
- Skype
- Tomboy notes
- VLC
- WinSCP
- 7-zip
The good news: seems like the audio shat I need is back to functional. And I am back to making lunch…