When a friend or colleague has a bogged-down system (be it by viruses, badware or general oldness), I often ask if they're willing to Backup their Documents/Music and reformat. This means installing applications over again, but the improvements are always substantial.

Updates

• March 20, 2010 - Dress up article with some screenshots / images.
• March 17, 2010 - Added Sumatra PDF, a free, open source PDF viewer.

A note

The install wizards on these programs may bait you into downloading Yahoo! or Ask.com software. If the Terms of Service/Privacy policy in the install wizard says "I agree to xxx and to Installing Yahoo!/Ask.com", Don't check it. Just click next/Install. If you accidentally do, go to Add/Remove apps and uninstall, you don't want them.

Here are some of the apps I download after a fresh OEM install:

Grab all your essentials in one sitting: Ninite

Type (License): Freeware (Proprietary)

Website: http://ninite.com/

This program is a deliverance from the almighty himself. Check the boxes for the programs you want to install and it will create a batch installer. You need internet access to do this. It includes everything from Java and Flash to Dropbox, to VLC, to steam, Open Office, Abiword, Skype, etc.

I could end this post right here, but I'll go on.

Tweaking: TuneUp Utilities 2006-2010

Type (License): $49.00 / Demo (proprietary)

Website: http://www.tune-up.com/products/tuneup-utilities/

The king of all system control apps. Has full features for performance tweaking, removing junk files, optimizing network settings and even theming. The 2010 version even has a turbo mode that removes system services to make your computer zip. It has so many features I can't fit them.

Privacy / Performance: CCleaner

Alternative to: TuneUp Utilities

Type (License): Freeware (proprietary)

Website: http://www.ccleaner.com

This is a free registry/cache/junk file cleaner.

Tip: Make sure you go into settings and choose to "Secure delete". Choose the DoD 3-pass clean.

Tip 2: Consider checking the box to erase "Free space" too. Not all the time because it's time-consuming.

Privacy: Eraser

Type (License): Freeware (Open Source)

Site: http://eraser.heidi.ie/

Description: Delete means delete. Microsoft considers hard drive encryption to be a feature you pay for and its filesystems are extremely insecure (FAT32 has no security, anyone can view anything, NTFS has little). Microsoft is very deceptive that Windows doesn't notify you that you're not really permanently deleting your files until you overwrite them.

Read more about eraser at Stanford's SLAC: http://www.stanford.edu/services/encryption/desktop/windows/securedelete.html

Tip: Make sure to erase any free space on your hard drive as well.

Tip 2: You can also right click your Recycle bin and securely erase your bin.

Privacy: Truecrypt

Alternative to: Microsoft Bitlocker

Type (License): Freeware (Open Source)

Site: http://truecrypt.org

Even though you'll never need it. You never know when you'll get blindsided. You could lose your laptop, have it stolen, etc. Even having one layer of weak encryption will throw off thieves and give you great peace of mind.

Lite, Effective Antivirus: NOD32

Type (License): $40/yr Subscription (Proprietary)

Website: https://www.eset.de

ASM-based virus scanner. Very low memory footprint. Fast.

It also works great when using Windows 7 as a guest (a la VirtualBox)

Free Antivirus Alternatives

AVG Free

Type (License): Free (Proprietary)

Website: http://free.avg.com/de-en/homepage

ClamAV

Type (License): Free (Open Source)

Website: http://clamwin.com

Micro$oft Security Essentials

Type (License): Free (Proprietary)

Website: http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

Audiophiles: Foobar

Type (License): Freeware (License)

Website: http://www.foobar2000.org/

Simple, playlist-based music player with a low memory footprint.

Torrenting: µtorrent

Website: http://www.utorrent.com

Type (License): Freeware (Proprietary)

Torrent client with tons of features, oddly small size and low-memory footprint. Very stable.

Office Essentials: Open Office

Alternative to: Microsoft Office

Website: http://www.openoffice.org

Type (License): Freeware (License here)

Get all your essentials with OpenOffice. Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint are too pricy.

PDF Viewer: Sumata

Alternative to: Adobe Reader

Website: http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/index.html

Type (License): Freeware (Open source)

This is a very lite, stable PDF viewing solution.

Gaming: Steam

Alternative to: Greedy retailers like Best Buy and Gamestop

Type (License): Freeware (Proprietary)

DRM gaming. But steam takes the pain out of it. No limits on redownloading the software you purchase. Stable. Time-tested. (You can grab this with Ninite too.)

You have to pay for the games, of course. However the long-term benefits of using Steam make it worth it. It saves you from scratched CD's and managing all your cd-keys.

Steam store also offers generous software bundles of related games (Civilization, Valve, etc) and can save you tons of money.

Virtualization / Guest OS: Virtualbox

Alternative to: VMWare Workstation, VirtualPC

Type (License):  Freeware (License details here)

Website: http://www.virtualbox.org

If you want to try out Linux or keep a sandbox'd operating system to do programming on, VirtualBox is will accept Windows, Linux and *BSD as guest OS's. It'll run on Linux too.