VIDEO: The Must Have Essential Apps For Installing a Fresh Copy of Windows

Whether you’re doing a clean install of a fresh copy of Windows or installing programs on a brand-new PC this guide will help you figure out the software you should install first. First, some notes! I’m a big nerd. My very first computer was a Commodore 64 when I was way too young to have one. I played Donald Duck’s Playground on it a lot, I had a ton of games on floppy disc and I taught myself BASIC programming. Then I had a Compaq Presario all-in-one that ran Windows for Workgroups and I’ve been using PCs ever since then.

Why am I telling you this? Because I needed you to know who I was before I started telling you my list and I’ve done this many, many times. Finally, Windows has a lot of built-in programs that could serve the purposes you see in this video but I find these to work better and be more versatile. So on with the list! Web Browser At Work: Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox The at home and at work distinction is important. Sometimes your company will have preconfigured setups with extensions they want you to have that they manage.

It’s more likely that they’ll be fine supporting one of these two browsers in addition to Edge. Check with your IT department. We know Windows has Edge installed and it’s a great browser (way better tahn in past years) but if you want more flexibility then go with Google Chrome. It’s customizable. There are tons of extensions. It easily integrates with Google’s other features and it’s multi-platform. However, it can be a resource hog. If you want more privacy and security then go with Mozilla Firefox but it’s performance isn’t quite as good as Chrome’s.

There are many choices here and many spinoffs that run on Chromium or Mozilla’s Gecko engine like Vivaldi, Waterfox, Duck Duck Go’s browser, etc. but some of them make sacrifices in functionality that you may not want to deal with for a work computer or are quite complex. So what about at home? Web Browser At Home: Brave Brave’s ad blocking is phenomenal. It’s fast and doesn’t use much CPU power. There’s also tons of protection to help protect you from malware, phishing attacks and other not so cool things on the internet.

It also has this kinda’ interesting Rewards system which I just turn off and don’t pay any mind to. We’ll see what happens with the Arc browser comes out for Windows. This recommendation may change. Media Player: VLC Player So, do you want to watch a video? Try VLC player from VideoLan. It’s free and open source. It’s also cross-platform. I’m pretty sure I even used it on a VR headset once, that’s how cross-platform it is. It pretty much will play anything from a video file to a webcam stream.

It also can play CDs, if you still use those, and music files. Finally, it’s skinnable so you can customize it. This is probably the easiest choice I made when it came to putting something on this list. AntiVirus: BitDefender Worried about system security? Try BitDefender. It’s not that other software programs don’t have great malware protection and other threat protection it’s that BitDefender is user-friendly and also lightweight and fast. Music: Spotify You can play music with VLC but it’s time to just straight up say, get Spotify.

The app has some quirks I don’t like but their library of music, podcast and audiobooks will keep you going during and after your workday. I have a massive collection of MP3s from the past few decades but all of those artists are on Spotify. I don’t really need to waste storage space storing those MP3s anymore. Also don’t forget that the free version will act like a radio so even if you don’t pay there’s still music there for you to listen to. Screen Capture: Greenshot Need to take a screen shot?

It’s free. It’s open source. It’s small. It’s fast. It’s easy to use. It has built in keyboard short cuts that can capture your screen or region but you can also set you own. You can even annotate the screen shots. That’s what makes this one super cool. Finally, you can tell it where you want to save them all the time or you can specify a directory where you want all screen shots to be stored. Screen Recording: OBS Studio You can use OBS to stream video to a streaming site.

You can use OBS to record your desktop. You can use OBS to record yourself. It’s extremely versatile. It looks a bit intimidating but it’s super easy once you understand the interface. What I really love about OBS is that I can mix and match my sources. So I can use my webcam footage or DSLR camera footage and use the audio from my audio interface and not one of my other microphones. Productivity: Todoist Need to get a jump on things you need to do during your day, your week, your month, your, year then check out Todoist!

As a simplified task management tool, list app, and planner, Todoist can help lean teams stay on track by breaking down projects into tasks and subtasks for more granularity. With the ability to prioritize, set reminders, and filter tasks, you can remain organized without feeling overwhelmed. Space Management: WinDirStat This is my favorite little secret for clearing space on your computer. It’s a tiny, lightweight program that gives you a visual representation of what’s on your computer and how much space it takes up.

You just click and run. It shows you what’s taking up the most space. You can send it to the Recycle Bin, delete it permanently or go straight to the directory to see what’s happening there. Note Taking: Notepad++ and Notable Notepad++ is a great replacement for Notepad. As a former programmer I also love the line numbers so I can reference things. Notable is what I take my notes in for work. There’s a free version. It gets as complicated as you need it to be.

Notable gives you more flexibility, has AI built in, some built in functions to help you format things better and can go everywhere you want since things are stored in the cloud. Between these two you’re covered. Storage: DropBox and Google Drive I use DropBox for permanent file storage or rather documents that I want to stick around that are important personally. That’s the keyword here. Google Drive on the other hand is part of a whole ecosystem of cloud applications that can work all together.

Screen Reading: F.Lux Windows does have this as a built in feature to protect your eyes but F.Lux is free and more versatile. I pretty much set it and forget it. I only notice it when it sends me a message that I’m waking up at 7:00 AM. There are many other software packages you can install in your fresh new version of Windows and I hope we’ve given you a few ideas of things you might want to go ahead and try. For more software packages that you might want to check out feel free to head on over to our website at TechnologyAdvice.com.

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