Slashdot had a topic about the first 10 applications you install on a fresh PC.
Heres my suggestions.
For the paranoid, I’d recommend installing AVG antivirus and ZoneAlarm firewalls from CD, so that you are protected before you even connect to the internet.
Have you noticed that printing in Outlook has slowed down over time? You could have too many temp files. Open your Application Data \ Microsoft \ Outlook folder (which can either be found in your Windows or %USERPROFILE% folder). If you see a ton of “Outlprnt#” files, consider getting rid of them (with the pound [...]
Windows XP and Win2000 SP2 come with a font editor called eudcedit.exe, usually in your Windows\System32 folder. Although your new font may look blocky or pixellated, Windows estimates a better vector representation that can be seen by selecting Show Outline on the View menu.
Use charmap.exe to use your new characters.
Delete old files from all your Windows temporary folders in one fell swoop with Erasetemp from http://www.webattack.com/get/erasetemp.html
More free deleters at http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/system/fwdiskclean.html
WinLIKE is the first professional Window-Manager for Web browsers. With WinLIKE, Web applications, Web sites, and portals can contain little windows – like you are used to from your desktop. WinLIKE is based of DHTML and is only 25 KB big. It works without any plug-ins in the Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 and Netscape Navigator [...]
DreamCalc is the de facto standard photo realistic scientific calculator for Windows. What’s more, it’s free! It is the only choice, which allows you to throw away your existing desk calculator. Supports natural fractions, extended trigonometry, conversions between metric and US or Imperial measures, scientific constants, optional true order mode, engineering, and base-n modes.
Windows 98, [...]
Test your network connection speed at http://www.broadbandreports.com/stest?more=1
I got a disappointing 664kbps from my 8Mbps ADSL line.
CutePDF Printer is a free PDF generator from http://www.acrosoftware.com/
PDF995 from http://www.pdf995.com/ also lets you create PDF files for free. It creates files slightly smaller and easier to read than CutePDF, but you have to install Free Converter too, and it popups ads in your browser when you use it.
Using Outlook 2003 you can view the header and source together, if you edit a registry key. This works on mail obtained from Internet mail transports, not Exchange server mailboxes. However, if you access the mailbox using an Internet transport, you’ll see the full source.
Open the registry editor and navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Options\Mail
right click on the right [...]
If you want to “tray” Outlook you need to create this registry key and set the value of MinToTray to 1.
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook\Preferences]
“MinToTray”=dword:00000001