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Power replacements for built-in Windows utilities
lifehacker.com — Power users need power utilities, and Windows' default system programs barely get the job done. Over time third-party developers have stepped and build superior replacements to programs like Notepad, Paint, Windows Explorer and the Command Prompt. Get the simple jobs done smarter, faster and more efficiently with these free utitlites
mklopez- 1462 diggs
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- wageslaven, on 10/10/2007, -10/+43Yes, MS could write every application 99% of users need on their Desktop. Why dont they? Respect for the health of the application developer ecosystem.
NOT writing all these apps leaves space for independant apps to emerge.
Its a Good Thing(TM).- BLyn, on 10/10/2007, -2/+36That and Grandma doesn't need notepad++ to write her code.
- saleem, on 10/10/2007, -1/+21agreed. dont put down MS for not writing these powerful applications. if they *DID*, then people would complain about over-kill or slow or bulky or useless applications
- MusicalGenius, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3It's MS, people only complain cause they are big and have more money and Bill Gates doesn't share it with people who want to be rich...
If Apple was the big giant, Digg would be more MS fan boys and less Apple... these are the birds and bees of people hating companies.
- MusicalGenius, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3It's MS, people only complain cause they are big and have more money and Bill Gates doesn't share it with people who want to be rich...
- potp, on 10/10/2007, -0/+10Finally someone gets it. and MSPaint is fine too. my only complain is the crapiness of it when it comes to jpeg compression of images.
- subliminalurge, on 10/10/2007, -2/+10"That and Grandma doesn't need notepad++ to write her code."
Nope, my grandma does all of her development in Visual Studio .NET.
*****' old people.- MusicalGenius, on 10/10/2007, -4/+2You will be old someday...? what a moron. You have no respect AND your stupid... man you really are lost.
- karel747, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Yeah...That was called a joke. Did you only read the last line or something?
- MusicalGenius, on 10/10/2007, -4/+2You will be old someday...? what a moron. You have no respect AND your stupid... man you really are lost.
- saleem, on 10/10/2007, -1/+21agreed. dont put down MS for not writing these powerful applications. if they *DID*, then people would complain about over-kill or slow or bulky or useless applications
- SteveMax, on 10/10/2007, -2/+12However, some of those (example: file copying) aren't just "leaving space to the developer ecosystem", they are just plain broken. A bit of effort to make it not frustrating would be nice.
- Denson, on 10/10/2007, -11/+1That's a ***** excuse.
- Mallus, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Actually, that's a perfectly good reason, when you consider that MS has been forced to REMOVE features in the past, due to fears that they were stifling competition by putting bundling too much functionality with the operating system.
- Mallus, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Actually, that's a perfectly good reason, when you consider that MS has been forced to REMOVE features in the past, due to fears that they were stifling competition by putting bundling too much functionality with the operating system.
- OBKenobi, on 10/10/2007, -5/+7Ok, smarty pants, then why does MS not provide options to remove some of these low-budget knockoffs? Does MS think everyone is so stupid that they would delete these utilities by accident?
No, as everyone knows, MS uses its OS monopoly to infringe upon other markets. IE, WMP, Outlook, Search, Defender, etc.- Gir53457, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3It's actually quite easy. Add/remove programs > Remove windows Components> Uncheck boxes and hit OK.
- redxii, on 10/10/2007, -2/+12If they wrote a better text editor, they'd be accused of using their position to put other text editors out of business.
- ggko, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2So they have two kludgey editors instead?
Oo a tangent... Is there some reason they have two separate editors, Notepad and Wordpad? Why not absorb the former into the latter? Not trying to make some fanboy comparison, but something like TextEdit on OSX. It's functional enough to be useful, (and pretty much all any non "power user" needs,) but not so feature packed that there isn't room for other editors out there. But the feature relevant to this sub-discussion, it has plain-text and rich-text modes. - GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5They should at least make notepad respect standards and use line feed for a new line character instead of the current stupid mess.
- pavpanchekha, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Hasn't IE taught you anything?
MS doesn't give a ***** about standards. I'm a web developer by trade. IE kills by work spirit 40 hours a week.
- ggko, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2So they have two kludgey editors instead?
- shakin, on 10/10/2007, -3/+7No, the reason why Microsoft doesn't include better programs isn't because they are encouraging small developers or because they're afraid of a lawsuit, it's because including those programs won't make them more money. Nobody is going to decide not to buy Windows because they want a better text editor.
During Browser Wars I Microsoft decided that having the number 1 web browser was important to their long-term strategy so they built a really good one (IE 4). Then they stopped improving it because having a better browser wasn't going to make them any more money now that they had little competition and it was obvious that the browser wasn't going to replace the OS anytime soon.- ConceptJunkie, on 10/10/2007, -4/+3But Microsoft utilities have always sucked, going back to the days of DOS, long before any anti-trust lawsuits were gleaming in an attorney general's eye. I think it just because they don't care enough to write decent utilities.
- Verugan, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1How can you say that when it's the same company that brought you memmaker.exe...
- SanTe, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5...and DoubleSpace. Or did you never get to experience the ecstasy of seeing your partition corrupted beyond repair for no reason?
- Verugan, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1How can you say that when it's the same company that brought you memmaker.exe...
- ConceptJunkie, on 10/10/2007, -4/+3But Microsoft utilities have always sucked, going back to the days of DOS, long before any anti-trust lawsuits were gleaming in an attorney general's eye. I think it just because they don't care enough to write decent utilities.
- adolfojp, on 10/10/2007, -3/+7Not only that. Whenever they bundle apps they get sued for abusing their monopoly.
- PatrickBrown, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3A good example of why the model will eventually fail. There are only so many improvements you can make before encroaching on other software companies' territory.
Too bad they do not have a distributed model and different pricing scheme like some other operating systems ;)
- PatrickBrown, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3A good example of why the model will eventually fail. There are only so many improvements you can make before encroaching on other software companies' territory.
- BLyn, on 10/10/2007, -2/+36That and Grandma doesn't need notepad++ to write her code.
- CrazyRedHatter, on 10/10/2007, -14/+7I'm very rapidly replacing just about everything on windows with something someone besides Microsoft wrote.
- halleyscomet, on 10/10/2007, -8/+24So, did you pick Red Hat, Debian or ReactOS?
- kranberry, on 10/10/2007, -3/+3Ubuntu, of course.
- arcooke, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11Well judging by his name.......
- g33kfu, on 10/10/2007, -6/+2Ubuntu or OS X?
- pcpimpster, on 10/10/2007, -4/+1Good for you, but why are you running Windows still if your trying to replace everything made by M$ on it? Pick a side skippy quit dancing in the middle if your going to make comments like that. There must be a reason its still useful to you.
- CrazyRedHatter, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0Familiarity. I'm transitioning to Linux, just not ready to make the leap yet. I'm trying out a couple of distributions before I settle on one. Guess I should have added "everything on windows INCLUDING windows...."
- halleyscomet, on 10/10/2007, -8/+24So, did you pick Red Hat, Debian or ReactOS?
- ZephyrNinety, on 10/10/2007, -19/+5Linux.
And no, I don't hate Windows. Linux really is much neater though. Try it. - BLyn, on 10/10/2007, -7/+4No Vim?
- Meep3D, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11It's replacements for Windows apps, not DOS apps.
- tardpicard, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5Burrrrnn!, no vim luv huh? I'd have to agree. Dont' get me wrong, vim is super efficient if you're good with it, but it's a little too cryptic for my taste.
- MrSelfDestruct, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Nope
- Meep3D, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11It's replacements for Windows apps, not DOS apps.
- over9, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Thanks a lot. Never knew of the alt-tab replacement.
- chris4404, on 10/10/2007, -1/+13Where is Total Commander?
- OBKenobi, on 10/10/2007, -4/+2It's too powerful for anyone who doesn't already know what it is.
- taoufix, on 10/10/2007, -18/+3"Power users" should not use Windows
- Miniman, on 10/10/2007, -0/+19You have never worked in an office before.
- pcpimpster, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Miniman you nailed it right on the head.
Scouring the internet for a working driver version for your four year old device doesnt make you a power user.- GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1All my devices work out of the box with every system I use, bar Windows.
- xxdesmus, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Hi, I'm name is reality...clearly we've never met
- Phasmorphage, on 10/10/2007, -5/+2I'll definitely bookmark and use these on my XP partition
But who the hell needs tabs in notepad?- ThePict, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Old school coders tend to have a lot of text files open at a time. Tabbed interface makes it easier to find the document you want.
- squaat, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Old school? Really??? What do new age devs only have 1 file open at a time? Damn I must be seriously old school then :)
- strictnein, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Notepad++ rocks. And why should having tabs in a text editor be any more or any less useful than having tabs in a browser? Both enable increased productivity.
- captjc, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Once you really start using tabs, you will wonder how you lived without them
- javaroast, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6I remember when they said who the hell needs tabs in a browser ;) I have Ultraedit and couldn't live without it. Notetab++ is nice as well and the price is right
- GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Vim rules all.
- psykiv, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Wtf. I love notetab.
- Gir53457, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2It's basically for programmers and not a real notepad replacement. Most people who work on computers already have some version of MS Word, even Mac users often use MS programs. The only reason I have to use notepad is to read the NFO file from a torrent or make a quick batch file.
- ThePict, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Old school coders tend to have a lot of text files open at a time. Tabbed interface makes it easier to find the document you want.
- themattreid, on 10/10/2007, -9/+2Power users need MS Paint and Notepad? Give me a Gimp or Emacs. Kthnx.
- jtb4, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7You sir, ARE a gimp.
- mstoneburner, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Gimp seriously sucks ass, bigtime. I'd really like to spend ten minutes alone in a dark alley with the moron who decided not to use standard interface widgets when designing that magnificent piece of *****.
- javaroast, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1While I'm sure he might enjoy the *erm* favors you would perform in the dark alley, the rest of us don't really want to hear about it.
- javaroast, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Ack
- theholycow, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Syn
- pcpimpster, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Nice list. Notepad++ is more of dev environment then a comparison to Notepad though. But i guess if you are still coding in notepad...
- Darcy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Editpad lite http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.html, makes a good notepad replacement.
- sadilak, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1EditPlus is pretty good too.
- MikeCerm, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Metapad is my top choice for a Notepad replacement. It's everything that I want in a Notepad replacement, but without anything extra. I feed like Editpad goes a little too far, including too many features, and loses the simplicity that's at the heart of Notepad. Editpad is more of a Wordpad replacement. http://www.liquidninja.com/metapad/
- KungFuJesus, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1SciTE is a great notepad replacement
- JohnnyXmas, on 10/10/2007, -6/+4Launchy FTW. Its not Quicksilver, but its the best you're going to get on Windows.
- pineappleclock, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6What about charmap.exe? Last time I searched there were no good replacements for the standard windows character map
- allyant, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2TeraCopy looks nice, much better than the crappy windows file transfer .
- psykiv, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Really, the only bad thing (imo) about the windows file transfer is if there is one error, it stops the process. wtf is wrong with continuing the process, then listing out the errors to me in a log file or something, seriously?
- madhaha, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Thank god for xxcopy
- tobiasly, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1The only bad thing? How about how it takes *minutes* to "prepare to copy" before huge copy operations? How about how the "time remaining" doesn't get more accurate as the copy process goes on, but always just uses the current transfer rate? How about how it stops the copy process and asks you to confirm that you want to copy a read-only file, or a system file, or an executable, or a hidden file, or a hidden system executable, or...
- psykiv, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Really, the only bad thing (imo) about the windows file transfer is if there is one error, it stops the process. wtf is wrong with continuing the process, then listing out the errors to me in a log file or something, seriously?
- rgiskard01, on 10/10/2007, -8/+0the best replacement: www.linuxmint.com
:) - nirav72, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Good list. Another good utility for task scheduling is BuildIt. http://www.coderanger.com/products/buildit/
- carl25, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2i don't want any of those, only ones i like that i got myself are net meter (monthly download limit) and rainlendar (calendar + notes)
- mercano, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5I use metapad ( http://www.liquidninja.com/metapad/ ) in place of notepad (went as far as replacing notepad.exe with it). Its basically notepad with extra features, such as Unix line endings, but retains the simple interface and lightweight code of its predicessor.
For a Cygwin terminals, take a look at rxvt. Again, not as fully featured as the option presented in TFA, but it does what is supposed to do, and is far better option to housing your bash prompts in DOS boxes. You'll find it listed in the "Shells" section of the package list in the Cygwin installer. Once installed, delete the last line of cygwin.bat with:
set SHELL=/usr/bin/bash
rxvt --loginShell
You don't need to start X11 or anything. Google will point eveyones' different opinion on what you should put in ~/.Xdefaults to customize the appearance of the window just right, but IMHO,
rxvt.font: Lucida Console-14
rxvt.reverseVideo: true
rxvt.scrollBar: true
rxvt.scrollBar_right: true
rxvt.cursorColor: green- MrSelfDestruct, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0Oh, the Linux ease of use. Tempting.
- MoonZ, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Already using several in this list, although I have SuperCopier instead of TeraCopy. I'd also add Taskbar Shuffle (re-arrange taskbar buttons and systray icons)
- fusama, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1I have yet to find a text editor I like as much as kate. Of course, there isn't a windows port of it, as much as I wish there was.
- tempusrob, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Pretty sure you can run Kate on Win32 under Cygwin, but don't quote me on that.
- PunkHop, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3I've been looking for a nice GUI to replace Windows Explorer - anything to make my already-fast compy even faster.
What app do you rock, my diggas?- debu, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1xplorer2 is so good http://zabkat.com/... some others say total commander, but it's doesn't feel right to me.
Here are the reasons:
dual panes with tabs
Helps to create batch files to run your programs;
* One address bar handles both directory browsing, run commands, and DOS commands;
* Good internal text editors and previewers (hex, RTF, graphics...);
* Sorting by filetype is done alphanumerically, not by the bizarre Windows naming scheme;
* Lets you save different "layouts" (postition of toolbars, panes, etc).
Every part of its GUI provides rapid access to a huge number of functions. I have enhanced them even further using freeware utilities mentioned in the user manual. That means complete control at my fingertips.
I can use x2 like a console (I keep it on always; and launch the other programs from it after selecting the correct file(s) from x2). The larger your collection of files is, the more the advantage you get from x2.
Easy navigation, especially now with the entire folder structure available through the paths in the title bars.
3. Great searching, fast and easy.
4. Scrap panes and the ability to flatten multiple folders.
5. Lots of other smaller stuff (color coding, filtering, etc.).
* Keyboard shortcuts for bookmarks. My current working network folder is Ctrl+0.
* Creating quick filters by putting *filter* in the address line.
* Ctrl-U to switch panes from side to side
* Ctrl-K to go to My Documents
* Ctrl-D to get folder stats.
* F4 to instantly open a file in a text editor.
- debu, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1xplorer2 is so good http://zabkat.com/... some others say total commander, but it's doesn't feel right to me.
- flarn2006, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Ctrl+X to your heart's content? Ctrl+X is for Cut. Undo is Ctrl+Z.
- mrsobvious, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Personnaly I like WinConsole (winconsole.co3soft.net) for a terminal and the file manager that comes with 7-zip (www.7-zip.org).
- yingjai, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4stuff like notepad and paint are perfect the way they are. minimalistic. i dont understand why people need notepad replacement. might as well go all out and use ms word or adobe photoshop.
- Guspaz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I need a notepad replacement not because I need more features, but because it's buggy. Here are just some of the problems with it:
1) It can't handle different carriage return formats, forcing you to use wordpad for many text files.
2) It has strange bugs where it moves the cursor without asking you when you do certain things, like save
3) Copying text that has been word wrapped inserts newlines into the copied text
4) Enabling wordwrap and then typing on lines causes problems, as word wrap doesn't update as you type
So, notepad would be fine without any extra features, if it just WORKED properly. All these bugs are STILL present in Vista. If only they'd fix these problems, I'd be fine with it.- Gir53457, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2The only real use yo should have for notepad is making batch files.
- Guspaz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Why? It's great for taking quick notes, or doing things when you don't care about formatting and just want to TYPE something, or view a text file. It's simple, fast, and generally quite effective, except for the previously mentioned bugs.
- Gir53457, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2The only real use yo should have for notepad is making batch files.
- ggko, on 10/10/2007, -0/+25) Ability to (easily) have more than one notepad document open at a time. If I hit ctrl-n, I want to create a new document, not replace the currently open one.
- Guspaz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I think Paint could be a lot more effective while remaining just as minimalistic. I'll agree with you that there's not much point adding tons of new features. Heck, you want that, try Paint.NET, it's free.
However, some simple changes would be welcome. What do people use MSPAINT for most often? Myself, it's for saving screenshots. I hit printscreen (or ALT-printscreen), windows-R (run), mspaint, CTRL-V, CTRL-S. Often I'll also take a look zoomed in.
How could that workflow be improved? How about more control over save formats. A simple JPEG compression quality slider or proper dithering in mspaint would significantly improve the usefulness of that simple task.
How about this; antialiased lines. They don't change the functionality, they're just a simple thing that significantly improves the visual quality of the output. Support for a modern colour picker. I'm sure Windows has a newer one than the Windows 3.1 style one included with Vista's MSPAINT. More undos. mspaint in vista supports multiple undos, more would be nice. How about bilinear filtering on resize operations? That wouldn't change functionality. Or how about improving that spraycan?
There are so many improvements Microsoft could make to MSPAINT without making it any less minimalist. Many of these changes wouldn't even add new functionality, just improve existing ones with zero added complexity.
- Guspaz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I need a notepad replacement not because I need more features, but because it's buggy. Here are just some of the problems with it:
- BlueFalcon7, on 10/10/2007, -2/+0Maybe I'm a little bit of a math nerd, but that power calculator sucks! "Grapher" for the mac is far superior. First of all, it does LaTeX expressions, which make it much easier to edit. Second of all, you can do parametrics, vector fields, scalar fields. Third of all, you can do 3D graphing in Cartesian, cylindrical, and spherical coordinate systems. Fourth, you can do calc applications to functions, like integrals, derivatives (second, third etc,) even f(x-1) kinds of stuff. Fifth, you don't necessarily have to do functions, they can be just equations. Sixth, it just looks better with a nice GUI, and a bunch of nice tools that allow you to integrate, derive and do all of that fancy calc stuff with equasions. Its one thing that Mac has that nobody has made for a PC. Really sad to see in my opinion.
- WonderBoy55, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Can I get a power replacement for Minesweeper or Solitaire?
- TheSeeker11, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2About the only two on that list worth using are 7-Zip and Process Explorer. (Most things from Sysinternals are worth using.)
- madhaha, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1From what I recall, sysinternals tools were bundled into one big package by MS.
- madhaha, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1For those using Vista I highly recommend:
Start++ - http://brandontools.com/ - Hooks into the Vista start search box and lets you use it to launch programs, create playlists, preview images, dial a number from skype and all sorts of fun in addition to Vista's built in search
Sidebar Styler - http://www.stoyanoff.info/blog/code/styler/ - Lets you restyle the Windows sidebar, enables more advanced gadget functionality
Kenny Kerr's Window Clippings - http://www.windowclippings.com/ - Vastly improves screenshots on Vista by stripping out the desktop (normally visible throuh Aero's glass borders) among other features. - supdigga, on 11/19/2007, -0/+1Can't see any comments on this page
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