Windows Tools

Emulation
- see Emulation

Development

 * Ruby One-Click Installer (includes Rake)
 * innosetup

MSYS / MinGW
Download MinGW-x.x.x.exe (only in 'Proposed' release at time of writing) and MSYS-x.x.x.exe from mingw.org
 * 1) install MinGW (base tools, g++ compiler, MinGW Make) in default location
 * 2) install MSYS in default location, post install (y), MinGW installed (y), where: c:/mingw

'''Do not use the msysDTK-x.x.x.exe installer. The above stuff actually works!'''


 * experimental: install Cygwin user.exe, set up path to include c:\mingw\bin, c:\msys\1.0\bin and c:\cygnus\cygwin-b20\H-i586-cygwin32\bin and use bash.exe. Also, to fix rake and similar scripts, put a copy of bash.exe in c:/bin/sh.exe

Subversion
Get from http://subversion.tigris.org/ and add 'bin' to path.

If you want to use svn+ssh, you should copy ssh.exe from plink.exe (PuTTY). But it's easier to use WebDAV.

Rake
Rake doesn't work out of the 'one-click installer box', here's a dirty fix:

Start an MSYS shell and execute this: cat< /bin/rake ruby c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.2/bin/rake $* eof
 * 1) !/bin/sh

XNA
Don't use XNA, it strengthens the iron grip of Microsoft on the development community. However, my work requires I use it, so I am doomed to use these tools.
 * XNA Game Studio Express download page (Commonality color schemes)
 * NVidia FX Composer

Graphics

 * GrafX2 - cross platform Deluxe Paint clone
 * The GIMP
 * Blender
 * Fraps for recording video (requires Nvidia Geforce or ATI Radeon graphics card)
 * otherwise, use FrontCam

Music

 * Ableton Live
 * Audacity - use version 1.3.2+ with FLAC support!
 * Hotkey Sound Recorder - record using a hotkey - can only record up to 45 seconds in free version
 * SynthEdit
 * Traktor 2.6
 * DeliPlayer for more obscure Amiga music formats. Don't use it unless you are a very patient person, as the UI is frustrating and the command-line functionality leaves much to be desired.
 * VSTHost for playing around with VSTi's without starting a monster like Live - focus the onscreen keyboard and play on your computer keyboard = great fun!

Winamp
clamp /stop /loadnew %1 /plfirst /play And a script 'we.bat' for enqueueing: clamp /pladd %1 I have also assigned 'w.bat' to F12 and 'we.bat' to Shift+F12 in Total Commander for extremely fast music selection.
 * Plug-ins:
 * TFMXPlug for Chris Huelsbeck music. Change subtracks with Alt+3
 * Sidplay2 for C64 SID tunes. Change subtracks with slider
 * Oldsk00l MOD player for Protracker, Noisetracker and many synthformats found on the Amiga, including Future Composer and SoundMon.
 * Highly Experimental plugin for PlayStation .psf files
 * WinampSwitch is a very strange plug-in. It can start your computer as an alarm clock, and can shut it down after finishing the current playlist in Winamp, if Winamp is dragged beyond the left edge of the screen. Weird. But it works :). (Earlier, I used Windows Scheduled Tasks manually with clamp for alarm clock)
 * Automation:
 * Use clamp. I use a script 'w.bat' for playing a file or directory:

Network

 * Thunderbird
 * Pidgin
 * Netcat https://nmap.org/ or http://www.vulnwatch.org/netcat/
 * WinSCP http://winscp.net/eng/download.php
 * Streaming Download Project (SDP) http://sdp.ppona.com/
 * Ethereal
 * BitTorrent
 * FreeCap
 * HFS ~ Http File Server is AWESOME for transferring files between machines

Miranda IM
Plugins:
 * Clist Nicer
 * Message Export

Firefox
Download from http://www.getfirefox.com/

Must-have extensions:
 * mozless vi/less keys - or: vimperator if you're a hardcore Vim user
 * FoxMarks synchronized bookmarks(syl//s8c)
 * Adblock Plus ad blocking
 * It's All Text! use external editor for textareas.

Other interesting extensions:
 * ViewSourceWith external editing - use with vim:
 * QuickProxy proxy switch
 * Split Browser splitscreen
 * Fullerscreen full fullscreen
 * Remove It Permanently (RIP)
 * Download Statusbar
 * Firebug

Sidebar Right
Add this to profile dir/chrome/userChrome.css: /* Display the sidebar in opposite side */ -moz-box-direction: reverse; } Or use the Rightbar add-on
 * 1) browser {

Vimperator
Download vimperator here.

It works better with javascript focus disabled, which you can do in your 'user.js' file by adding this line:

user_pref("capability.policy.default.HTMLInputElement.focus", "noAccess");

- See also mozilla.org: Configurable Security Policies.

PuTTY
Download from http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html Install     :   %ProgramFiles%\PuTTY PATH        :   ;c:\progra~1\putty * copy plink.exe to ssh.exe (in install dir) to make subversion work properly * use ssh-keygen to create new private key and place in %HOMEPATH%\.ssh\identity.ppk and public key in %HOMEPATH%\.ssh\[computername].pub

I like using the Andale Mono font for PuTTY. I don't know why, but the keyboard setting for Function keys that seems to work for me nowadays is 'Xterm R6'.

Novell NetDrive (WebDAV client)
Download netdrive.exe

Check Program Settings... >> Cache and set 'Expire Directory Listings...' and 'Expire Files...' to sensible values, e.g. a few seconds.

Also remember to set the proxy settings if you are behind a proxy.

Science

 * Graphing Calculator 3D
 * Maple

System

 * GNU Bash for Windows - set environment variable  to something like
 * Emerge Desktop - replaces Windows Explorer
 * Console - CMD replacement with tabs. Be sure to get the newest development build, as the older ones are very buggy and crashes a lot. Might require you to manually install msvcr71.dll and msvcp71.dll into.
 * cwRsync
 * QSoft RAMDisk
 * Craig's PCI Programs - PCI32 is like lspci for linux
 * muCommander - cross platform classic file commander. See the muCommander page for more information.
 * produkey - Shows Windows product keys
 * smartmontools - Can show HDD power state

UnixUtils

 * Download UnxUtils here and add 'wbin' to path.
 * GnuWin32

Total Commander
Get from http://www.ghisler.com/download.htm

Plugins - Just download and open zip file in Total Commander, and they will magically install :)
 * 7-zip

SysInternals Tools
Get these and put in 'c:/bin':
 * PsTools
 * Process Explorer
 * junction

Text

 * OpenOffice

MikTex
Download and install basic-miktex-VERSION.exe (where VERSION >= 2.5) with standard settings. During compilation, when it encounters a package that is not installed:
 * 1) change package repository with 'Change...'
 * 2) select 'Packages shall be installed from the Internet'
 * 3) select a nearby package repository
 * 4) disable 'Always show this dialog before installing packages'

Vim
Get bleeding edge from ftp://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/unstable/pc - filename gvimVERSION.exe or stable from http://www.vim.org/download.php#pc

set $HOME install configuration in: $HOME/.vimrc $HOME/.gvimrc $HOME/vimfiles

Extensions

 * vimball - open  files directly in vim and install by   (required by some of the other extensions)
 * taglist - gentoo: app-vim/taglist - use
 * Align - gentoo: app-vim/align - example: use  to align assignments
 * Universal Text Linking - example: write  in a text file and use gu to jump to that file
 * Vim/Ruby Configuration Files
 * OmniCppComplete : C++ completion omnifunc with a ctags database
 * a.vim : Alternate Files quickly (.c --> .h etc)
 * gnupg.vim - transparently edit .gpg encrypted files

Omni Completion

 * You'll need exuberant-ctags for generating tag files. This version of ctags is patched to work with omni completion.
 * Currently, I'm trying out OmniCppComplete : C++ completion omnifunc with a ctags database. Installation in short terms:
 * install to vimfiles
 * run

cscope
Cscope only really supports C, so it is not recommended for C++ projects.
 * download win32 cscope - see  for more information
 * see  for configuration information (don't set cstag if you wan't to use ctags also)
 * check this tutorial

Artistic Style
C++ formatting tool
 * http://astyle.sourceforge.net/
 * use the command  (version 1.20 required)

Mediawiki
If you want Mediawiki highlighting, use Wikipedia.vim. If used with the ViewSourceWith Firefox extension, the file type will not be autodetected. This addition to  detects probable Mediawiki files: if did_filetype	" filetype already set..    finish		" ..don't do these checks endif " search the top 1000 lines for a section ('== section ==') if search('^\s*=\+\s*\p\+\s*=\+\s*$', 'c', 1000)    setfiletype Wikipedia endif

Configuration
Essential configuration - edit %ProgramFiles%\vim\_gvimrc set expandtab set shiftwidth=4 set textwidth=79 set nobackup au GUIEnter * simalt ~x set fileencodings=ucs-bom,utf-8,latin1 Also, for *NIX-like tools, create a new environment variable editor=gvim -f

Utilities

 * AllChars - compose keys on Windows!
 * Synergy (share keyboard and mouse between n computers)
 * Alcohol 52% - CD & DVD emulation
 * InfraRecorder (burn/make ISO files)
 * Iso Recorder
 * AVG Free Edition
 * CDBurner XP Pro
 * WinRAR
 * JoyToKey
 * NirSoft Volumouse - Control the sound volume with a wheel mouse
 * NirSoft nircmd - control volume and other stuff from command-line
 * dsclock - transparent stay-on-top clock with a plethora of features
 * WinSplit Revolution - control window sizes using numpad
 * Vitrite - control window transparency with ctrl+shift+[number] (caution: may cause insanity if overused ;)
 * Zoomit - screen magnifier
 * Taskbar Magic - hides taskbar completely

Viewing

 * XnView
 * CDisplay Sequential Image Viewer for comics
 * Foxit Reader for PDFs (if you must use Adobe Reader, you can disable plugins by moving plug_ins directory to plug_ins-disabled and creating a new empty plug_ins directory)

MPlayer
fs=yes brightness=-10 slang=da,en font=c:/windows/fonts/arial.ttf subfont-text-scale=3 If MPlayer is too hardcore, use 'VLC Media Player'
 * Download MPlayer Windows GUI here (or alternatively, use the Gianluigi Tiesi build
 * Also download 'Binary Codec Packages' and install in $PROGRAMFILES$\mplayer\codecs
 * Add settings to $PROGRAMFILES$\mplayer\mplayer\config, e.g.

Database

 * HeidiSQL