Quick Media Converter is a free universal Video and Audio converter and much more , designed to be as simple to use as it may get,Quick Media Converter supports a myriad of formats and codecs : Check Here

Rainbow Folders allows you to change the color of any folder.

Rainmeter is a Windows customization application. Empower your desktop with an expandable library of useful tools – handy notes and application launchers, weather and feeds from the web, system status and more. Then, rearrange and modify them to suit your personal style.

A program that monitors ReadyBoost peaks, cache size, graph, read and write speed.

Real Temp is a temperature monitoring program designed for all Intel single Core, Dual Core, Quad Core and Core i7 processors.

Recuva (pronounced "recover") is a utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!

RegScanner is a small utility that allows you to scan the Registry, find the desired Registry values that match to the specified search criteria, and display them in one list. After finding the Registry values, you can easily jump to the right value in RegEdit, simply by double-clicking the desired Registry item. You can also export the found Registry values into a .reg file that can be used in RegEdit.

Rescue Kit professionally fixes boot problems as well as retrieves your data when your system fails to boot. It even rescues deleted partitions.

WARNING: This program will work in the 64-bit Vista, but it will not recognize any installed 64-bit programs. It will only help you uninstall 32-bit programs.

Revo Uninstaller helps you to uninstall software and remove unwanted programs installed on your computer even if you have problems uninstalling and cannot uninstall them from the Vista Programs and Features control panel applet.

RivaTuner is a complete powerful tweaking environment, providing you everything you may need to tune NVIDIA GPU based display adapters. The widest driver-level Direct3D / OpenGL and system tuning options, flexible profiling system allowing to make custom settings on per-application basis, both driver-level and low-level hardware access modes, unique diagnostic and realtime hardware monitoring features and exclusive power user oriented tools like built-in registry editor and patch script engine make RivaTuner's feature set absolutely unmatched.
RivaTuner supports all NVIDIA display adapters starting from Riva TNT family up to the latest GeForce 7 series and widest range of NVIDIA drivers starting from the oldest Detonator 2.08 up to the newest ForceWare drivers family.

RocketDock is a smoothly animated, alpha blended application launcher dock station for your desktop. It provides a nice clean interface to drop shortcuts on for easy access and organization. With each item completely customizable there is no end to what you can add and launch from the dock. Now with added Taskbar support your minimized windows can appear as icons on the dock.

From the makers of Spyboy Search & Destroy, RunAlyzer is a autostart & configuration manager that allows you to view and edit all the spots where Windows Vista looks for programs or services to start. It's a combination of a standard configuration manager and an advanced tool to locate and remove places where hijackers, spyware, and other malware hide.

Samurize is an advanced system monitoring and desktop enhancement engine for Windows. IT professionals, overclockers, gamers and desktop modders alike can use Samurize for system information, weather reports, news headlines and much much more.

The Secunia PSI is a free security tool designed with the sole purpose of helping you secure your computer against vulnerabilities in programs by checking your PC for insecure programs exposing you to security threats.

7stacks lets Windows 7 (and Vista and XP) users have "stacks" of icons in their Taskbar (in 7) or QuickLaunch Toolbar (in Vista and XP). By using stacks, users can reduce icon clutter, and combine a group of related icons into a single icon

NOTE: After installing, use compatibility mode to set this program to run as administrator. You will then need to go into Tools and the Options menu to select the file associations you want 7-Zip to be able to use.

A Zip utility program used to open 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS files. Fully customizable for which file type you want associated to 7-Zip.

NOTE: Previous Version tutorial: How to Restore Previous Versions of a File and Folder in Vista
ShadowExplorer is an alternative program for all editions of Vista for the Previous Versions feature that is only available for the Vista

Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise editions. If you do not have one of these versions, then this is a great alternative.

NOTE: Be sure to right click this program and click Run as administrator. Be sure to also download the 32 bit or 64 bit version for your version of Vista.

This is an excellent tool to view and manage all installed shell extensions. If available, it displays the description, as well as version details, company information, location, file name and more. You can optionally disable or enable any item. This can be very useful to disable an extension that you do not need or that has been left behind in your right click context menu from a previous software install.

SIW is an advanced System Information for Windows tool that gathers detailed information about your system properties and settings and displays it in an extremely comprehensible manner. The system information is divided into a few major categories:

• Software: Operating System, Installed Software and Hotfixes, Processes, Services, Users, Open Files, System Uptime, Installed Codecs, Software Licenses (Product Keys / Serial Numbers / CD Key), Secrets (Password Recovery).
• Hardware: Motherboard, Sensors, BIOS, CPU, chipset, PCI/AGP, USB and ISA/PnP Devices, Memory, Video Card, Monitor, Disk Drives, CD/DVD Devices, SCSI Devices, S.M.A.R.T., Ports, Printers.
• Network: Network Cards, Network Shares, currently active Network Connections, Open Ports.
• Tools: Eureka! (Reveal lost passwords hidden behind asterisks), MAC Address Changer, Monitor Test, Shutdown / Restart.
• Real-time monitors: CPU, Memory, Page File usage and Network Traffic.

A good hard disk defragmenter by Iobit.

NOTE: You will see it listed towards the bottom.

Small utility for programmers to snap up selected source code or text to a file via hotkey. There are 2 save methods. A save to a new file, and an append to the snap file(add snippet.) In addition, you will have the possibility to customize the hotkeys according to your preferences.

SpaceSniffer is a portable disk scanning tool application that lets you understand how folders and files are structured on your disks. By using a Treemap visualization layout, you have immediate perception of where big folders and files are placed on your devices.

Windows operating system have dozens of special shell folders that are used for storing application settings and files, storing Internet files, saving temporary files, storing shortcuts to other files, and so on. This utility displays the list of all special shell folders in your system, and allows you to easily jump to the right folder simply by double-clicking the folder item. You can also save the list of all folder paths into text/html/xml file.

SpeedFan is a freeware program that monitors voltages, fan speeds and temperatures in computers with hardware monitor chips. SpeedFan can even access S.M.A.R.T. info for those hard disks that support this feature and show hard disk temperatures too, if supported. SpeedFan supports SCSI disks too. SpeedFan can even change the FSB on some hardware.

NOTE: Select your language and click on Download in the upper right corner. Spybot S&D takes a bit to open after you click on the shortcut.

This is a great spyware protection program. You can use this program along with Windows Defender and other anti-spyware/adware programs for added protection.

SpywareBlaster, by Javacool Software, helps prevent the installation of spyware and other potentially unwanted software.

This is another great spyware and adware removal program. It comes with an optional free Web Security Guard web browser toolbar to help protect your computer while you browse the web.

Allows you to create a toolbar that displays the shortcuts inside as stacked icons when you open the toolbar.

Start++ is an enhancement that adds new functionality to the Windows Vista start menu and command line.

NOTE: Be sure to download the correct 32 bit or 64 bit version for your version of Vista.

The StExBar adds a new toolbar in Windows Explorer that provides many useful commands for your everyday use like Rename, New Folder, Console, Show system files, etc. You can also add as many custom commands as you like to.

Stickies is a sticky note application to post notes on your desktop. Features include:

• Once on screen, stickies will remain where placed until closed, even through reboots
• Stickies appearance can be customised; fonts, colours and buttons may be changed, and styles saved. Stickies can be resized.
• Stickies can snap to each other and to the sides of the screen to keep them neatly lined up
• Stickies can be attached to a web site, document or folder so they only show when it's on screen
• Stickies can be transferred from one machine to another either over a TCP/IP network connection, or by using an SMTP mail server or MAPI client:
  • Hierarchical friends list, which may be automatically transferred from other friends
  • Play a sound file on receive
  • Signature for transmitted or emailed stickies
  • Favourite friends, and custom lists can be made
• Stickies can be hidden for a certain period, until a specified date and time, or to wake every day, week or month, to act as reminders.
• Stickies can have alarms set to ensure you notice them at a point you choose
• Stickies can be transferred to and from your Palm or PPC PDA.
• International language and RTL text support
• Stickies works with Windows Vista
• Stickies is small and simple, it writes to a single text file, and does not alter the registry
• AD network administrators can use Group Policy to control settings
• API to allow integration with other applications

STDU Viewer is a document viewer for multiple file formats. The goal of this software is to replace the multiple document viewers with a single simple application. STDU Viewer supports TXT, TIFF, PDF, DjVu, Comic Book Archive (CBR or CBZ), XPS documents format.

Subtitle Workshop is the most complete, efficient and convenient freeware subtitle editing tool. It supports all the subtitle formats you need and has all the features you would want from a subtitle editing program.

Sumatra PDF is a slim, free, open-source PDF viewer for Windows.

This is another great spyware protection program. You can use this program along with Windows Defender and other anti-spyware/adware programs for added protection.

SuperCopier replaces Windows explorer file copy and adds many features:

• Transfer resuming
• Copy speed control
• No bugs if You copy more than 2GB at once
• Copy speed computation
• Better copy progress display
• A little faster
• Copy list editable while copying
• Error log
• Copy list saving/loading
• etc.....

Supersonic Download Accelerator is a simple and reliable download manager with excellent features like, segmented downloads for acceleration, simultaneous downloads and many others. Supersonic increase your download speed by finding multiple sources and allows you to preview downloads. For download you can even use links stored in you clipboard, moreover, both protocols HTTP and FTP are supported.

A Messenger add-on that adds more emoticons, winks, audibles, sound FX, Display Pictures, and Nudges. It can also add a optional IE7 browser toolbar that allows you to add favorite icons and emoticons to any web based application including web based email such as Hotmail, Yahoo mail, Gmail, Web Forums, Blogs and more.

ESET SysInspector is a diagnostic tool for Windows systems. It peers into your operating system and captures details such as running processes, registry content, startup items and network connections. Once a snapshot of the system is made, ESET SysInspector applies heuristics to assign a risk level for each object logged. Its intuitive graphical user interface enables the user to easily slice through the large volume of data using a slider to select objects of a particular color coded risk level for closer examination.

TeamViewer establishes connections to any PC or server all around the world within just a few seconds. You can remote control your partner's PC as if you were sitting right in front of it.

TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed, providing the user a lot of features:

• Copy files faster. TeraCopy uses dynamically adjusted buffers to reduce seek times. Asynchronous copy speeds up file transfer between two physical hard drives.
• Pause and resume file transfers. Pause copy process at any time to free up system resources and continue with a single click.
• Error recovery. In case of copy error, TeraCopy will try several times and in the worse case just skips the file, not terminating the entire transfer.
• Interactive file list. TeraCopy shows failed file transfers and lets you fix the problem and recopy only problem files.
• Shell integration. TeraCopy can completely replace Explorer copy and move functions, allowing you work with files as usual.
• Full Unicode support.
• Windows 7 x64 support.

This program by SoftMaker lets you open, view, and print documents from Microsoft Word, TextMaker, OpenOffice.org, OpenDocument, as well as other common office file formats. See link for supported file types.

TheSage's English Dictionary and Thesaurus is a professional software package that integrates a complete dictionary and multifaceted thesaurus of the English language into a single and powerful language reference system. TheSage can look up words directly from almost any program (IE, Word, Firefox, Outlook, Thunderbird,... ) and is 100% portable.

The Windows Vista Flip 3D Activator is a tiny utility for Windows Vista and Windows 7 that greatly enhances the Flip 3D feature by allowing you to control it with your mouse. It allows you to choose one or more corners ("Hotspots") of your desktop, any mouse button, or both, to activate Windows Flip 3D. Once activated, you can use the mouse to select a window.

NOTE: You will need to have the "Windows Aero" color scheme running. Click on the image to download the ZIP file, and be sure to extract the correct 32 bit or 64 bit version from the ZIP download.

Ave's Thumbnail Sizer allows the user to change the size of Vista's Window thumbnails that show when one hovers over the taskbar button with the mouse pointer for the opened window.

Mozilla Thunderbird is an alternative email client program other than Windows Mail.

Traders of lossless compressed audio files (e.g. ape, flac, mkw, or shn files) have to handle a lot of different applications to decode, encode, create/verify checksums, fix sector boundary errors, or create torrent files. Moreover most of the tools used are command-line programs requiring a deeper knowledge of how to use various parameters. Trader's Little Helper bundles the most important features of those applications in one single easy-to-use frontend.

NOTE: For a direct download, see: http://www.favessoft.com/TraySetup.zip

Tray was written by one of our very own members MilesAhead. It is a program that give you a shortcut to allow you to open and close your DVD or optical drive tray.

PC Tools ThreatFire is a signature based anti-spyware program that alerts you to what it thinks is acting suspicious. It includes a rootkit scanner and much much more.

TreeSize Free tells you where precious space has gone to. TreeSize Free can be started from the context menu of a folder or drive and shows you the size of this folder, including its subfolders. You can expand this folder in Explorer-like style and you will see the size of every subfolder. Scanning is done in a thread, so you can already see results while TreeSize Free is working. The space, which is wasted by the file system, can be displayed and the results can be printed in a report.

TrueCrypt is an open source app which lets you create and mount an encrypted virtual drive. You can store whatever you want in this drive, and it will be completely inaccessible and invisible to anyone who doesn’t have the passphrase.

This is a program designed to tweak and optimize Vista. Only the Basic edition is free, but it includes desktop tweaks, Start Menu tweaks, IE & Firefox tweaks, Hardware tweaks, System info, Virtual Desktops, System folder tweaks, Mouse tweaks, Outlook tweaks, and Shutdown tweaks.

NOTE: Types runs from standalone .exe file and does not install onto your computer.

Types is a lightweight configuration utility for Windows that allows you to edit program associations, icons, context menus and other properties of various file types displayed in the Explorer.

Ultimate Windows Tweaker v 2.0 is a freeware Tweak UI Utility for tweaking and optimizing Windows 7 & Windows Vista, 32-bit & 64-bit. It can simply be downloaded and used as a portable application to customize your Windows to meet your requirements. With judicious tweaking, it can make your system faster, more stable, and more secure with just a few mouse clicks. The tweaker detects whether you have Windows 7 or Windows Vista installed and accordingly offers you the relevant tweaks only.

WARNING: This program does not work with the 64 bit Vista, but I had to add it since it is a very helpful program.

Unlocker is a utility program used to help you delete a file that you get one of these errror messages on:

• Cannot delete file: Access is denied
• There has been a sharing violation.
• The source or destination file may be in use.
• The file is in use by another program or user.
• Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.

This program helps you organizing your dates and tasks and reminds you of upcoming events.

USB Image Tool can create images of USB memory sticks and MP3 players, that are mounted as USB drives. It allows you switch between images with different music styles on your MP3 Player or to make an exact backup image of your USB Stick.

VirtualBox is a general-purpose full virtualization for x86 (32-bit) hardware that allows you to run multiple PC-based operating systems simultaneously. Targeted at server, desktop and embedded use, it is now the only professional-quality virtualization solution that is also Open Source Software.

Virtual CloneDrive works and behaves just like a physical CD/DVD drive, however it exists only virtually. Image files generated with CloneDVD or CloneCD can be mounted onto a virtual drive from your hard-disk or from a network drive and used in the same manner as inserting them into a normal CD/DVD drive.

NOTE: This is only supported on Vista Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate versions, but it will run on Vista Home Premium to.

Virtual PC 2007 is a powerful software virtualization solution that allows you to run multiple PC-based operating systems simultaneously on one workstation, providing a safety net to maintain compatibility with legacy applications while you migrate to a new operating system.

Normally in Windows Vista, the transparency only lasts until you maximize a window. VistaGlazz ensures transparency, even when your windows are maximized. Creative minds on sites like DeviantArt create cursors, icons, wallpapers and themes. After using VistaGlazz you can now use custom styles as well.

NOTE: See this tutorial for the Ultimate edition: How to Change the Display Language in Vista

This tool allows you to change the display language in Vista editions other than (officially supported) Ultimate:
Like the Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium and Business editions.

This program will help save up to 70% of your laptop battery by disabling those nice, but greedy Vista features. Running in the taskbar with private workset of 5.5M and 0% CPU, it will do all of the work for you by enabling and disabling customizable features when the power source changes or battery power fall under a certain percent.

You can use the free version of this program by Sphinx to make using the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security a lot easier to use.

NOTE: Click on the image to download the ZIP file, and be sure to extract the correct 32 bit or 64 bit version from the ZIP download. Read the "readme" file for important instructions.

In Vista, the ability to have custom backgrounds in explorer folders is gone. Ave's Vista Folder Background application makes folder backgrounds possible again.

This tool can help you by displaying information about your Computer Info, UAC Status, Installed Apps, Services, Codecs, Hot Fixes, Event Log, WEI Score, Users, Memory (RAM), Video Card, Drives, CD/DVD Rom, IDE/SATA drives, Network, System Restore, and Running Processes. You can also save this displayed information to a txt file, copy it to the Clipboard, or print it out.

Frameworkx Vista Shortcut Manager allows you to either remove the shortcut overlay arrow or to customize it to what you want. It will also allow you to add or remove the Shortcut name extension for shortcuts.

NOTE: You can just exit the program using the notification area icon to return to your default Windows 7 Start Menu at anytime. Just run the program again to use the program's Start Menu again.

Vista Start Menu is a very nice replacement for the default Start Menu that came with Vista. It is full of customizable features. See the link for more details about this program.

VistaSwitcher is a task management utility for Windows OS. Once installed, it replaces the default Windows Alt-Tab dialog with a nice box that shows a list of all running tasks with their names and preview snapshots and enables the user to take actions on them using the mouse and keyboard shortcuts. With just one click, you can switch to a task, minimize, maximize, restore the main window or close the process.

Vista Visual Master will help you to customize your Windows Vista easily. With a simple interface it brings you an All-in-One set of classified tools, settings and tweaks. You can change the look of the windows and buttons, change the system icons and hundreds of file icons, reconfigure the boot and logon screen, patch and apply your new themes, and you can customize Windows Vista according to your wishes.

VideoLAN VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network. It doesn't need any external codec or program to work.

A weather monitoring program that sits running minimized to a tray icon in the notification area. Get all your weather needs met here with a built in weather alert alarm feature that you can put your own sound for. Fully customizable.

MP3, Multimedia, and Music Player.

WinAudit is easy to use, no special knowledge is required to use the programm. It is a self-contained single file that needs no installation or configuration. It can be run from a floppy disk or USB stick. It gives you a PC audit and inventory of software, licenses, security configuration, hardware, network settings...

WinDirStat is a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for Microsoft Windows.

NOTE: Contacts will have to be manually imported from within WLM. (Tools, Contacts, File, Import, Address book for current Windows User.) To see the Menu bar, press ALT+M and check "Show all menus".

A replacement for Windows Mail that also supports website based email like Hotmail. It supports Pop3, IMAP, HTTP website (EX: Hotmail) email, and is a lot more stable. Plus, WLM will minimize to a tray bar icon and has a separate Inbox for each email account. WLM will automatically import Windows Mail messages, accounts, and settings into it.

NOTE: See this tutorial: How to See The Product Key in Vista

Windows Product Key Viewer is a free utility that will display the installed Windows Product Key (cd key) and other important Windows system information.

NOTE: See this tutorial: How to Change the Windows Sidebar Theme in Vista

This program will allow you to customize the appearance of Windows Sidebar by changing it's theme to what you want.

Windows SteadyState makes it easy to keep your computers running the way you want them to, no matter who uses them.

NOTE: WinPatrol Plus is not the free one.

WinPatrol is a anti spyware/adware program that uses a heuristic behavioral approach to detecting attacks and violations of your computing environment. Traditional security programs scan your hard drive searching for previously identified threats. WinPatrol takes snapshot of your critical system resources and alerts you to any changes that may occur without your knowledge.

Handy small program, that knows to backup and restore all wireless networks setting from your computer. For some reason, there is no way to do it by using regular Windows Vista tools.
This feature is extremely useful, when you have to reinstall your computer or use the same settings of wireless networks for different machines.

A very thorough junk and temp file cleaner. Has the option to delete to the Recycle Bin for restoring purposes.

WARNING: As with all registry cleaning programs, you should verify the scan results before just simply deleting them.

A very thorough registry cleaner. Can be helpful in finding errors in the registry to fix. Has a backup feature to restore registry changes if needed.

With Microsoft Word Viewer and the Compatibility Pack, you can view, print, and copy Microsoft Word document contents to another program. However, you cannot edit an open document, save a document, or create a new document.

This is a program designed to tweak and optimize Vista. XdN can tweak things like disabling Windows Mail's splash screen, disabling user account control, better save folder views, remove or replace IE7's search box, disable the "send to" option, and much more. Has a installing and stand-alone exe version.

XnView is a program used to view and convert graphic files that is really simple to use. It supports more than 400 different graphics formats.

XRECODE is a parallel audio converter with full Unicode support that can extract audio from video files, convert multiple files in parallel by taking full advantage of multi-core CPU, and much more. This program supports a wide range of file types.