Essential programs for your PC - My take

I've used many of the mentioned tools off and on, but a few I have not. New toys. :)

As far as "essential" add-ons, as someone noted modern Windows (I am recently on 11) is much better at a lot of things than it used to be. Other things not so much, and a lot depends on what you use your computer to do for you. But if you want alternatives, there are some great ones listed above.
 
I've used many of the mentioned tools off and on, but a few I have not. New toys. :)

As far as "essential" add-ons, as someone noted modern Windows (I am recently on 11) is much better at a lot of things than it used to be. Other things not so much, and a lot depends on what you use your computer to do for you. But if you want alternatives, there are some great ones listed above.
Sorry, but modern Windows is just jam packed full of bloatware. It needs a super computer just to run it! Witness that Windows 11 requires the latest and greatest hardware just to install it ...

Killing off as much of the bloatware as possible is the only way to make it bearable!
 
Bloatware is mostly added by vendors, in my experience. That's not Microsoft's fault. And it certainly doesn't need a "super computer" to run it, google the minimum system requirements. The biggest snafu people run into with Win11 is the TPM requirement, and I wholeheartedly agree that is ridiculous. I am no MS fanboi, not by a longshot, but it has improved a lot and as someone who has dealt with Microsoft for 30+ years, they are not as arrogant or swarmy these days as they were when Gates, Ballmer and Co. ran things. Still room for improvement, of course. :)
 
Bloatware is mostly added by vendors, in my experience. That's not Microsoft's fault. And it certainly doesn't need a "super computer" to run it, google the minimum system requirements. The biggest snafu people run into with Win11 is the TPM requirement, and I wholeheartedly agree that is ridiculous. I am no MS fanboi, not by a longshot, but it has improved a lot and as someone who has dealt with Microsoft for 30+ years, they are not as arrogant or swarmy these days as they were when Gates, Ballmer and Co. ran things. Still room for improvement, of course. :)
I've been in the system since well before Microsoft even existed. I've interacted with both Gates and Ballmer (via email) about 30 years ago.

With all due respect, I can recognise bloatware from kilometres away. Almost every computer OS is full of it.

Sloppy programmers, sloppy programming and crappy compilers all contribute.
 
I've been in the system since well before Microsoft even existed. I've interacted with both Gates and Ballmer (via email) about 30 years ago.

With all due respect, I can recognise bloatware from kilometres away. Almost every computer OS is full of it.

Sloppy programmers, sloppy programming and crappy compilers all contribute.
Been playing with Unixen/Unix like systems since school after the army in 1985 or there abouts. Found Minix and was ecstatic while following 386BSD in Doctor Dobbs Journal (Now that's a rag I miss almost as much as Byte). Linus and his kernel was interesting but I always hoped the BSD's would win. Alas, ATT & SCO slowed them down too much. Modern Linux has almost as much bloatware as MS but that's because they're trying to match what Redmond ships. If I have a choice, I'll do a FreeBSD install because you can choose so much more of everything.

The new CLANG compilers seem to be a vast improvement on GCC, too.
 
Please don't laugh but I'm sticking with Win 10 until forced to upgrade. Sadly I'm close to that point, since the new Capture One won't run under 10 and nor will some others, so when I upgrade to cameras that are not recognised by my editing software, I'll have to go all in and get a new box entirely. I am honestly dreading that day
Irene, the only difference between us is that I'm running Windows 7 64 Pro on 10 y.o. hardware.

I foresee a new MB, CPU, RAM and video card in my fairly near future ...
 
Irene, the only difference between us is that I'm running Windows 7 64 Pro on 10 y.o. hardware.

I foresee a new MB, CPU, RAM and video card in my fairly near future ...
I'm glad to be in such good company 😊. My hardware is robust for now but I know it will require new elements for Win11. Such a shame. My daughter, even more of a luddite than me, was forced into a full upgrade of hardware and software to do her video rendering (from hand drawn elements) and she constantly complains about the OS
 
I'm glad to be in such good company 😊. My hardware is robust for now but I know it will require new elements for Win11. Such a shame. My daughter, even more of a luddite than me, was forced into a full upgrade of hardware and software to do her video rendering (from hand drawn elements) and she constantly complains about the OS
My advice to my clients over the (many) years "Never interfere with a working system" ...

I hate being forced to upgrade my main PC. All the others are straightforward.
 
Main PC is now a Mac Mini. However, I still keep a Wintel box for some stuff I can’t do on Apple kit and the indispensible things are:

- XYplorer for organising data,
- SimpleMind Pro for organising thoughts,
- Bvckup 2 for organising backups,
- Lastpass for organising access,
- P-Touch software for the Brother 1230 label printer for which there are no Apple drivers :mad:,
- LogoManager for managing the graphics, ringtones and contacts on my 21 year old Nokia 3330.
 
Please don't laugh but I'm sticking with Win 10 until forced to upgrade. Sadly I'm close to that point, since the new Capture One won't run under 10 and nor will some others, so when I upgrade to cameras that are not recognised by my editing software, I'll have to go all in and get a new box entirely. I am honestly dreading that day
I'm with you. both of my computers will handle Win 11 easily enough, but I will wait a good long while before updating. Nothing wrong with my current OS, why change for the sake of change?
 
I just use the free version and turn off all the nags in settings. I don’t really need or want to run it automatically which is all the paid version really offers. They also have another program called “Defraggler” and I do the same thing with it.
Thanks for the heads-up on Defraggler. I've been using CCleaner for many years but didn't know about this one... so I downloaded it and ran it. It took a few hours... but it made a significant difference to the speed of my laptop. This is with my laptop being new this year, too! I use the free version of both of them.
 
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