10 must have apps...

Wisewiz · Nov 9, 2021

TheMystic said:
There is always a payment involved. Either in cash or by data. :)

Cynical me speaking: That remark reminds me of the signs we had in our vans in the 60s:

Gas, grass, or --s: Nobody rides for free.

I gave a LOT of free rides.

larc919 · Nov 9, 2021

Things I rely on regularly (more than 10):
1- Firefox (OK, it does stream. But I use it for so much more.)
2- Thunderbird
3- Forté Agent (I still access some USENET news groups)
4- Free Commander XE (file manager)
5- Libre Office
6- XnView MP (replaces Windows Viewer)
7- Macrium Reflect
8- Malwarebytes
9- Foxit Reader
10- Pot Player (I prefer it to VLC)
11- Google Earth Pro
12- CCleaner (Slim version)
13- T-Clock Redux (replaces Windows clock)
14- MiniTool Partition Wizard
15- Rufus
16- Winaero Tweaker
17- IrfanView
18- Revo Uninstaller

PerpetualCycle · Nov 9, 2021

TheMystic said:
Assuming that you actually install all of these on your system at the same time, my question is why do you bother so much with that many details?

I use everything I listed quite often. I overclock, I monitor disk dive health, I manage disk space, and troubleshoot Windows and other software issues, I test performance after upgrades of software or hardware. So each have an important use to me or I wouldn't have them installed on my system and I just couldn't list one. Here is my HWInfo display. I have used each of these plots at one time r another:

BunnyJ · Nov 9, 2021

Wow.. lots of great tools here and suggestions.. thanks.

TairikuOkami · Nov 9, 2021

TheMystic said:
Why would you slow down the fan when it is trying to cool your system down?

Because most of the time, it does not need it, it is just the default setting, tweaking it would require too much time and effort. I had a laptop, which I undervolted and overclocked and it was actually running 30C cooler and faster, rofl. I bought the PC to serve me, not to be subdued by it's tantrum. I have 1300rpm fans, but I have limited them to 700rpm max, even CPU. My PC is so quiet that I can not even tell, if it running and that it is the way I like it. Only the GPU runs loud, when it reaches 100%, so I have limited it to 48 FPS max.

Dru2 · Nov 9, 2021

OK, I'll play. These are my must have apps...

Office 365 - Outlook desktop app, Excel, Word
One Note for Windows 10 (prefer the Windows 10 version)
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Lightroom
Acronis - used to restore backups
Companion Link - Sync's Outlook's Contacts, Calendar, and Tasks to Android Phone
JRiver Media Center - used to play music files locally
Plex - used to stream music across all my devices.
Steam - Gotta have my games
Simple Solitaire - time waster
ImagePrint - Printer RIP for printing my photos

PerpetualCycle · Nov 9, 2021

TheMystic said:
You are focusing on the symptoms rather than the problem. If the fan runs fast when you are playing music or watching video, there is a lot more happening behind the scenes than it should. Why would you slow down the fan when it is trying to cool your system down?

This is like taking a paracetamol to bring down the fever, when your body is actually increasing the temperature to kill an infection. In other words, fighting your own body instead of helping it!

Either you have malware, or badly coded programs that are doing too much than they should, or you have too many things running in the background. Whatever the case may be, the fan is trying to cool your system down and by slowing it down, you are doing just the opposite of what is required. The fan running loud is just a symptom. Treating the symptom won't address the underlying problem. It would actually make it worse because symptoms are good, they point you to a problem.

Default fan curves run the fans on the high side, much more than needed in general. As long as you keep the temperatures within a good range, you can get a much quieter system. I like a dead-silent system when I am doing low impact things like browsing the web, listening to movie or music so I set my fan curves accordingly. What I am trying to say is often the user knows better and on high performance desktop systems you should optimize the fan curves.

Laptops can run pretty hot because of the limited real-estate for cooling. But I can't get the fan running on my current laptop (macbook pro m1) no matter what I do. In the past I have had poorly written or buggy programs ramp up the heat and fans (my workplace macbook pro and the anti-virus software we were required to run). Basically I don't try to interfere with defaultlaptop fan curves.

Dru2 · Nov 9, 2021

TairikuOkami said:
Because most of the time, it does not need it, it is just the default setting, tweaking it would require too much time and effort. I had a laptop, which I undervolted and overclocked and it was actually running 30C cooler and faster, rofl. I bought the PC to serve me, not to be subdued by it's tantrum. I have 1300rpm fans, but I have limited them to 700rpm max, even CPU. My PC is so quiet that I can not even tell, if it running and that it is the way I like it. Only the GPU runs loud, when it reaches 100%, so I have limited it to 48 FPS max.

That's me, I tune my fans to run quieter while also keeping things cool. My main rig is only running 3 case fans - two front 200mm fans, and one rear 140mm fan. I keep the two 140mm Corsair AIO H115i fans set to 900 RPM instead of their maxed 1800 RPM jet noise setting. I even have my power supply's Eco mode turned on, meaning the PS fan never runs unless it's pushed. Nothing in my system needs a 1000 watts so,... :)

It also helps that I don't overclock, but instead opt for a quite system since I also use my system as my audiophile player.

And yes, the only time the system gets loud is during gaming sessions.

MisterEd · Nov 9, 2021

01. 8GadgetPack (34.0)
02. ABBYY FineReader (5.0)
03. Acrobat Reader DC (2021.07)
04. Acronis True Image (2018)
05. Adobe Photoshop Elements (11)
06. AIDA64 Extreme (6.50)
07. Belarc Advisor (11.1)
08. Core Temp (1.17) & Core Temp Gadget (2.8)
09. CPU-Z (1.98)
10. CrystalDiskInfo (8.4.0)
11. CrystalDiskMark (8.0.1)
12. Firefox (94.0.1)
13. Greenshot (1.2.10)
14. HWinFO64 (7.0.6)
15. HWMonitor (1.45)
16. Malwarebytes Premium (4.4.10)
17. Microsoft Office Pro Plus (2019)
18. RealPlayer (20.0)
19. RoboForm (9.2.1.1)
20. Speedtest by Ookla (1.15.163.0)
21. WinRAR (6.02)
22. Zoom Client (5.8.3 (1581))

BTW, I bought ABBYY FineReader 5.0 back in 1999 when I had Windows 98. It works fine with Windows 11.

Birk · Nov 9, 2021

0. STabLauncher <== I've forgotten what the Start menu looks like
1. Brave browser <== Chrome based, built-in ad eliminator, built-in password manager that syncs with phone
2. Thunderbird <== does anyone not use this?
3. FreeCommander <== built in archiver/extractor; handles password protected archives
4. Google Calendar <== syncs with phone
5. Autoruns64 <== kill those annoying startup and TSR apps
6. IOBit Uninstaller <== I test (and delete) lots of apps
7. WiseCare 365 <== I've tried them all and this one seems to be the best
8. Faststone Image Viewer
9. Lightshot <== works the way Microsoft's screen grabber is supposed to
10. Screenpresso <== for video capture
11. MBar <== Malwarebytes virus scanner and rootkit finder
12 Macrium Reflect <== what's with the Ver. 8 Trial notice expiration?
13. Syncback Free
14. MS Office 16 <== bah humbug to subscriptions; Office has been fully developed; who needs updates?
15. Google Earth <== street view for seeing what a destination looks like (plus the flight sim is quite cool)

hdmi · Nov 9, 2021

TheMystic said:
You are focusing on the symptoms rather than the problem. If the fan runs fast when you are playing music or watching video, there is a lot more happening behind the scenes than it should. Why would you slow down the fan when it is trying to cool your system down?

Power consumption affects the temps, and, the temps automatically control the fan speed. So there is no way to keep the fan from getting louder, if I can't limit the power. Undervolting is not possible with a Tiger Lake CPU. I don't want to disable background processes nor want to spend 45% extra cash on a laptop with a much heavier cooling system that still also becomes audible, if I don't disable said processes. This laptop is more than fast enough for what I do. I don't play games. It does not overheat, even by a long shot. But whenever I want it to remain silent, I need to limit power. Therefore, the best solution is to take control over Speed Shift EPP and Turbo Boost, which is what ThrottleStop mainly is for, if you have a modern Intel CPU that can't be undervolted. I used to undervolt my Kaby Lake (i5-7200U) using ThrottleStop, but I decomissioned that one some months ago after it had served me well for 3 and a half years.

TheMystic said:
This is like taking a paracetamol to bring down the fever, when your body is actually increasing the temperature to kill an infection. In other words, fighting your own body instead of helping it!

Either you have malware, or badly coded programs that are doing too much than they should, or you have too many things running in the background. Whatever the case may be, the fan is trying to cool your system down and by slowing it down, you are doing just the opposite of what is required. The fan running loud is just a symptom. Treating the symptom won't address the underlying problem. It would actually make it worse because symptoms are good, they point you to a problem.

Choosing to have many things running in the background is not a problem as long as they don't cause the CPU to increase power consumption beyond a certain level, during those times when silence is feasible. I don't know about you, but I paid for Speed Shift and Turbo Boost, so I'll use them to achieve my goals one of which is to enjoy silence in situations when many processes need to continue running in the background.

abactuon · Nov 9, 2021

MSI Afterburner
Prey (2017)

Dru2 · Nov 9, 2021

hdmi said:
Power consumption affects the temps, and, the temps automatically control the fan speed. So there is no way to keep the fan from getting louder,

If we're talking desktop boards, I'm afraid you're wrong. You CAN set fan profiles in your BIOS that will keep fans at the speeds you set. That's fact as I've definitely done that on my Gigabyte Aorus Z390 Xtreme board. And that's not the only Gigabyte board featuring "Smart Fan"

But yes, there could be a potential cooling issue if the fans are run too low and not allowed to ramp up by temperature.

Pirilampo2 · Nov 9, 2021

1.- Winrar
2.- Firefox
3.- Microsoft PowerToys
4.- Microsoft Office
5.- Nitro PDF Pro
6.- Restore Windows Photo Viewer
7.- Telegram
8.- CCleaner
9.- Iobit Uninstaller
10.- K-Lite Codec Pack + Media Player Classic
... and many, many more.

TheMystic · Nov 9, 2021

geneo said:
I use everything I listed quite often. I overclock, I monitor disk dive health, I manage disk space, and troubleshoot Windows and other software issues, I test performance after upgrades of software or hardware. So each have an important use to me or I wouldn't have them installed on my system and I just couldn't list one. Here is my HWInfo display. I have used each of these plots at one time r another:

View attachment 13169

I find myself having a much better user experience when I don't bother with these things. That's also because I consider myself less knowledgeable than Windows and OEM built-in tools, so I let them handle these on their own.

On my part, I am aware that the system is designed to throttle performance and do the needful, including shutting down, when the hardware begins to overheat. For my usage, I don't have any performance issues as I have only a limited number of well known programs installed. Higher the number of programs installed, especially those that need to constantly run in the background, greater the impact on the hardware, and therefore, its performance.

More than the amount of control one has, what is more important is whether the system is performing optimally. Just my take.

TheMystic · Nov 10, 2021

TairikuOkami said:
I bought the PC to serve me, not to be subdued by it's tantrum.

True. It is fine only as long as you have complete control on what you are doing.

TairikuOkami said:
I have 1300rpm fans, but I have limited them to 700rpm max, even CPU. My PC is so quiet that I can not even tell, if it running and that it is the way I like it. Only the GPU runs loud, when it reaches 100%, so I have limited it to 48 FPS max.

If fan speed is directly linked to the temperature of the components, and the fan isn't running as fast as it should, I guess the system will begin thermal throttling sooner because the fans aren't able to keep the temperature lower. If you are going to limit the hardware from attaining full performance, why buy a higher specked hardware in the 1st place?

TheMystic · Nov 10, 2021

geneo said:
What I am trying to say is often the user knows better.

Not the average user, i.e. over 95% users.

TheMystic · Nov 10, 2021

hdmi said:
which is to enjoy silence in situations when many processes need to continue running in the background.

Does that mean you are prepared to trade an increase in temperature to keep things silent? Don't think that is a good idea, unless it is done in very specific, rare situations.

RazorKat83 · Nov 10, 2021

Not in any particular order

Adobe CC
FileZilla
WSV3 (Weather Radar)
GRLevelX (Weather Radar)
Radarscope (Weather Radar)
WinZip
VLC Player
uTorrent
Windscribe VPN
Notepad++
FolderMarker
Microsoft Office
8 Gadget Pack

No I do not use an Antivirus or Firewall. They are useless to me. I disable Defender Services completely through Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc)

abactuon · Nov 10, 2021

hdmi said:
Therefore, the best solution is to take control over Speed Shift EPP and Turbo Boost

You can simply limit the maximum CPU frequency to the value you want:

C:\Windows\System32\powercfg.exe /SETACVALUEINDEX SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_PROCESSOR PROCFREQMAX 3300
C:\Windows\System32\powercfg.exe /SETDCVALUEINDEX SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_PROCESSOR PROCFREQMAX 1600

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