Essential Software for a New Windows 8 PC

[JEW UNIT NY]

What are your "essential" programs for a new Windows install? I am mainly using the PC for gaming, video editing, and Photoshop. 

 

"Fixes" for Windows 8?

 

Antivirus?

 

Malware?

 

Browser?

 

Benchmarks (CPU, GPU, RAM, HDD, ect.)?

 

Backup Software to an external HDD/NAS?

 

Media players? (I have a Blu-ray burner/player in my new rig)

 

Anything Else Useful?

[Raboo]

Microsoft Security Esstials

Malwarebytes

Google Chrome

Hardware monitor

VLC

[Scia]

 

What are your "essential" programs for a new Windows install? I am mainly using the PC for gaming, video editing, and Photoshop. 

 

"Fixes" for Windows 8?

 

There is some bad update, that will fuck up your disc cleaner and  sfc /scannow

run the following as Admin in CMD if you encouter these problems:

 

DISM.exe /online /Cleanup-image /ScanhealthDISM.exe /online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

 

Antivirus?

 

Using BitDefender / Malwarebytes, up to your preference.

 

Malware?

 

See above

 

Browser?

 

Firefox FTW!

 

Benchmarks (CPU, GPU, RAM, HDD, ect.)?

 

Prime95, OCCT, IBT, CrystalDisk, Afterburner, Memtest,  HWMonitor, what ever you think you'll need.

 

Backup Software to an external HDD/NAS?

 

Looking for a good one myself. But 8.1 will include a DéjaDup-ish feature if I am not mistaken so I'm still waiting.

 

Media players? (I have a Blu-ray burner/player in my new rig)

 

VLC. But your BD Drive should come with PowerDVD or something, that will contain the codecs and spare you the nuisance of getting around the fucking BD keys.

 

Anything Else Useful?

 

TrueCrypt, CCleaner, StartIsBack (If you get annoyed by the start screen or want to use both), Foobar 2000 / Winamp, all your Drivers ofc,  ^^

[Damikiller37]

Startisback... at least for me

[rashdanml]

VLC is capable of playing Blu-Ray. Don't need PowerDVD or any other proprietary solutions, even if it came as bundled software. 

[Scia]

VLC is capable of playing Blu-Ray. Don't need PowerDVD or any other proprietary solutions, even if it came as bundled software. 

 

Isn't there the keys that are being newly generated every now and then?

I know if you want to get BD running on Ubuntu, you'll have to add some PPA for the keys in order to watch them.

[rashdanml]

Isn't there the keys that are being newly generated every now and then?

I know if you want to get BD running on Ubuntu, you'll have to add some PPA for the keys in order to watch them.

I'm assuming it depends on the Blu-Ray itself. I've only tried it with one set (LOTR Extended Edition), which is about 2 years old now, and it works flawlessly (including burned in subtitles for Elvish parts). There are methods to get it working with VLC though, so even newer Blu-Ray movies shouldn't have an issue.

[Vitalius]

 

What are your "essential" programs for a new Windows install? I am mainly using the PC for gaming, video editing, and Photoshop. 

 

1. "Fixes" for Windows 8?

    

2. Antivirus?

    

3. Malware?

    

4. Browser?

    

5. Benchmarks (CPU, GPU, RAM, HDD, ect.)?

    

6. Backup Software to an external HDD/NAS?

    

7. Media players? (I have a Blu-ray burner/player in my new rig)

    

8. Anything Else Useful?

 

In order:

1. Classic Shell
2. Avast
3. Malware Bytes (And Spybot 2 for Spyware)
4. Chrome or Firefox - I prefer Chrome
5. AIDA64 for CPU, CrystalDisk for HDD/SSD, Afterburner for GPU, Memtest for RAM, etc.
6. AOMEI Backupper
7. Foobar for music and VLC for Blu-ray movies/videos.
8. Speedfan by Almico, CCleaner, Defraggler, and Speccy from Piriform.

That is all I got for now. I will probably have a lot more once I get home on my desktop with Windows 8. 

[JEW UNIT NY]

Thanx guys

[R4STABAN]

I would consider ripping your blu rays to mkv so that vlc can actually play them. Otherwise you may well end up wasting so much time trying to get the discs to play that you could've watched the movie already, if you had a set-top blu ray player and a TV.

[Woodypc]

In order:

1. Classic Shell
2. Avast
3. Malware Bytes (And Spybot 2 for Spyware)
4. Chrome or Firefox - I prefer Chrome
5. AIDA64 for CPU, CrystalDisk for HDD/SSD, Afterburner for GPU, Memtest for RAM, etc.
6. [Will add later via edits]
7. Foobar for music and VLC for Blu-ray movies/videos.
8. Speedfan by Almico, CCleaner, Defraggler, and Speccy from Piriform.

That is all I got for now. I will probably have a lot more once I get home on my desktop with Windows 8. 

Basicly this is spot on.

[Vitalius]

Note: Edited my earlier post with AOMEI Backupper. Pretty great, free, backup program. 

[Lexlazootin]

Start Menu - Start8 / ClassicStart

Torrents - Halite / Qbittorrent / Deluge (Open Source options that ARE better)

Music - Foobar + WASPI

Video - MPC-HC + MadVR (Looks so much better than VLC)

Anti Virus - Avast FREE / Malware Bytes FREE

Firewall - Netbalancer / PeerBlock /

Web Browser - Firefox (logicalincrements.com/firefox)

Cleaners/Fixes - CCleaner / Defraggler

Runtimes - ninite.com (tick all the Runtimes)

I'll type more I think of them...

[ultimatemythbuster]

I only have one piece of software that is absolutely required for Windows 8. It's called Windows 7, and it is great.

[TheProfosist]

Idk I always have a big list of programs ininstall on a pc right off the bat. The first being probably 7zip so I can open other programs and even some drivers.

[GoodBytes]

Simple.

- Microsoft Live Essentials (for the photo editor/viewer called Photo Gallery)

- Firefox (Firefox Aurora Build if you have a touch screen device, for the Modern UI app)

- Shark007 codec pack + 64-bit component. Best codec pack you can get, with thumbnail preview, doesn't replace Windows codecs, but simply registers the new ones, avoiding conflicts and issues.

- Windows 8 Pro Media Center Pack (10$) - Gives you Media Center and DVD codec for Media Center. If you look at prices at half decent DVD codecs tehy are 50-100$, so it's a good deal.

How about an ISO loader app? Windows 8 can do that already. Double click an on ISO.

How about Zip files extractor? Windows 7 and 8 does that.

How about Backup?

- Use Windows 8 File History. Awesome! Not only does a backup to another drive at a delay you want (daily, hourly, every 10min, and everything in between), but has no performance drops, as it only gathers the changed bits and merge/replace them from the backup. And stores the bits on the external HDD, to allow you to go back in time, without having a physical backup. If you re-install Windows 8, all you need to do, is turn it back on, the feature, Windows will redirect everything and RESUME the backup. So you will have no problem going back in time of your personal files before you re-install Windows

How about Music?

- Zune desktop software. Fully GPU rendered, easy to use, and awesome.

- Music Modern UI app, for XBox Music, Free music streaming from a 30 million+ library song, growing about each week since Win8 was released. Free!

(If you get XBox Music Pass, you have unlimited music streaming, and DOWNLOAD, no ads, and you can use it with the Zune desktop software, AND you can use the iOS or Android player on your phone!)

There is a 30 days trial, definitely worth a look. Zune desktop software works on XP, Vista, Win7 systems, if you wonder.

There is also use the web browser version of it (music.xbox.com), no plug-in required to install. All in HTML5. Works with all HTML5 compliant web browsers.

How about a Start Menu replacement?

Please, just learn how to use it. It won't go away. After a month in, you'll prefer it over Win7.

-> You can pin all your games in a group, allowing you to quickly launch them. No need to Start Steam, go on library, check if your game is there.. oh wait it's not.. it's maybe on UPlay... oups no... maybe Origin... then do 2-3 clicks to get the game to start. No. You click and start. The game is right there. No B.S

-> You can pin your folders, for quick and fast access

Here a very old picture of my Start Screen, for reference.

http://www.helpweaver.com/dss.png

Notes:

- My most used apps are pinned on the Task Bar

- Most used items are at the bottom left corner of the screen, for quick access.

- I have a lot more games now. The screen shots was done when Win8 was fairly newly installed on my desktop.

Anti-Virus is already in Windows 8 (Microsoft Security Essentials)

[TheProfosist]

Heres a short mostly complete list of what I install generally on my PCs:

 

[JEW UNIT NY]

Thanx everybody =D

[silencerbob]

MediaPortal

[AidanJMessenger]

+1 for StartIsBack hahaha. 

All my computers connect to a server, so for me the essential thing to get done is set up a local account, and from there add the computer to a domain which I then have access to log into all the romaing user accounts (In other words logging in to any computer on the network and having access to everything with the same username / password like in businesses). From there, Chrome is very important, I usually just rely on windows 8's built in Anti Virus. I live in the mac world where I've gotten used to never getting viruses, so I feel pretty safe in windows 8 now too. After that, office is often installed, and depending who will be using the computer things like skype etc are installed. I don't use windows that often so I don't have to install much. I only really use it for gaming