After every fresh installation of Windows, there’s a usual suite off applications I load on to get the computer ready for use.

In almost every case, the first application I load is an application to trim the fat, so to speak, from Windows. That application is XPLite. There are both free and professional variants, and while the professional version is pretty inexpensive considering it’s utility, it’s not practical to purchase a license for every client. That’s not a problem though because the free version is still quite useful! This neat little application allows you to remove some unused features from Windows XP and 2000, such as bundled sound clips, movie clips, pictures and even some applications, such as the migration suite. The level of control gets pretty fine grained, even allowing you to remove applications such as notepad (I use free GVim anyway), document templates (those are in the right-click menu) and many, many other little things that can clutter up Windows. With this application, it’s quite possible to strip 200 megabytes off of your Windows installation, and not even realize your missing anything! If you do miss it though, the removal process is completely reversible, just check the items you can restored, pop in your Windows disk and it’s back! No harm, no foul. For those of us who are ultra-picky, the professional edition is one of the few applications that can remove Internet Explorer from your computer, for real, instead of just removing it’s shortcut. The control is fine grained enough to allow you to remove the application but leave the rendering engine behind, as a lot off applications use the Trident engine to power their interfaces, or remove the engine as well for a completely IE-free PC! I know some of you are jumping for joy on that one. This application is definitely worth a look for anyone interested in gaining a little (ok, a lot) more control over what’s on their computers.

Driver Detective 6.2 is a powerful tool to scan your computers hardware and find drivers with minimal input from the user.

Whether finding a driver for a piece of obscure hardware or updating your new graphics card, Driver Detective utilizes on of the most comprehensive databases ever compiled. You can also backup your drivers to a disk, for those emergency times when you need to go online to get your modem driver.

If you’ve recently stumbled upon or have been emailed a document with the .docx extension, you’ve probably been wondering what it is and what you can view it with.

Well it turns out that DOCX is the new document format for Microsoft Word 2007. The big problem is that this type of document is not compatible with older versions of Microsoft Word, so you’ll find that even if you have Microsoft Word (earlier than 2007 version) installed, you won’t be able to open your file. You could resort to one of the websites that do or claim to convert DOCX documents to DOC files readable by Microsoft Word 2003 and older, but the best solution is to use a compatibility pack offered by Microsoft which updates your Word installation with the necessary components. It’s as easy as downloading the update pack and running it. You can download this package here.

If you thought there’s nothing in between the terrible old paint program that comes shipped with Windows and expensive, bulky programs like Adobe Photoshop, think again.

Based on the flexible .net platform, developer Rick Brewster has done our digital world a true favor by creating paint.net. It is a blazingly fast versatile photo editing program (even on relatively old computers), which makes it the first choice if you’re not planning on updating hardware any time soon. Currently in version 3.5, it has been revised well enough to be highly stable and reliable.

Paint.net includes all common features for image/photo editing, such as layering, advanced color editing, typesetting, working with selections, smart resizing and more. It uses very few resources, especially compared to the large photo editing suits. It is ideal when working at the airport using only a small notebook.

But there’s more. A quick search yields plenty of extremely interesting plugins that you can simply copy to your plugin directory. Such plugins include different renderers for geographical shapes, clouds, 3D transformation, advanced blurring/distortion, file format conversions. Even in the hands of a novice computer user, paint.net can become a powerful tool for swiftly designing a logo, a custom background, or overlaying and watermarking your photos.

Have you ever used Windows’s built in disk deframentation tool. The typical experience is that a well intentioned user will start the process only to get an estimated time of 17 to 25 hours and said “forget it”.

Ashampoo has solved the problem with a great tool called Magical Defrag. Magical Defrag works in the background when your system isn’t too busy. It automatically pauses if you decide to use your computer for anything more than viewing webpages. The interface is easy to understand and use. This tool keeps on top of all your drives keeping them lean and clean, speeding up your entire system. More importantly, it is a continual process, so you don’t have to leave your computer on for several hours when you aren’t using it. I’ve often looked at the fragmentation map provided by windows built in defrag tool and bristled at the state of disorganization of my data. And I go through a lot of data. Magical Defrag 2 has saved the day. Now I can look at a map of my drives and smile: everything’s in order!

Netlimiter 2 This software is not only data transmission counter but more complex application.

Netlimiter is able to monitor a “consumption” of transmitted data for all processes that are in touch with network connection. Furthermore it is possible to define the maximum transfer rate (both upload and download) for each single process. Program offers detailed statistics (plots) and a scheduler. Netlimiter can be used as a firewall as a bonus. If you are interested only in monitor function then look for the “Monitor” version which is free.