You know the drill, [M]Lemmings…
I want to share TypingMasterPro cuz it is the program that helped me learn to type 2x over (QWERTY than DVORAK)
Off you go!
I will forever recommend VoidTools’ Everything ever since someone first introduced it to me some few years ago.
It indexes your entire filesystem and allows you to search for files by name (and by content for text files!) and even allowing RegEx searching for file names, and filters for certain file types and the like.
I’ve tried this a bunch of times but I don’t really get it tbh.
What sorts of things do you search for?
Everything I need is in an organised structure.
If your shit is organized you probably don’t need to search it. I can see this being useful for finding specific files on an unorganized file system
A lot of the time I need to go digging around in some of my old files from backups to find something (that I remember the file name of, but not the path), so it helps there.
It also helps when I need to find the path of something quickly, as I can just find it by name and use the “Copy as Path” context menu option directly from the results window.
… definitely helps as well when I can’t seem to keep my files organised for too long and they get super cluttered quickly, skill issue on my part there.
Everything is a godsend, I install it on every Windows machine I use. But it always makes me wonder why Microsoft doesn’t integrate such search features in their own OS.
I don’t know who down voted you, because Everything is really really good.
Quick as a nimble, it instantly finds anything on your drives.
My dear colleague bashed my ears for more than a year about this VoidTools soft before I begrudgingly installed it, lo and behold it’s seriously one of the best tools I have ever stumbled upon.
At one point the software stopped working on my computer at work. I couldn’t believe how many times I used it throughout the day without realizing it. My only issue is that it can’t search network shares properly.
I have a “scan network drives” at lunch, not perfect but you can at least search for things!
How is it different than switching to Enhanced search in Windows settings?
It uses an index that really works and doesn’t take ages.
It’s what search should have been if the windows indexer was written correctly
Definitely PowerToys, there’s some great utilities in there like a Spotlight-esque search/launch bar or a tool to rename multiple files at once.
EarTrumpet is great, too, being basically an enhanced version of the standard audio mixer that lets you change audio devices quickly.
My favourite Windows-only app is probably Foobar2000, though, it’s an endlessly customisable music player with hundreds of plug-ins for nearly every conceivable use case. It takes a while to set up but once you do there’s nothing better.
Deadbeef is getting there, but yeah it is still missing features: https://imgur.com/rBeurjO.png
Power toys.
Made by Microsoft… For Microsoft Windows… To give you Microsoft Windows on crack.
TerraCopy and FreeCommander. Fuck Windows Explorer.
- Autohotkey
- Powertoys
- winget, choco and that other one
- Faststone
- advanced Renamer
- croc
- shareX
- one photo viewer (sadly only on window store)
- everything
I wouldn’t consider them hidden gems for the tech savvy community, but for the general community pretty much is.
Ninite may fit here, to
What’s oneshot? Besides being difficult to search for.
Foobar2000, it is the only windows app that I miss.
Deadbeef is close but it is missing several features, it can’t even encode using more than 1 cpu core lol.
For video, virtualdub2 and avisynth. Avisynth let’s you handle video as if it were a variable in a program. This lets you do things impossible with a regular video editor.
Ooh AviSynth looks really neat, I am definitely going to play around with that. Thanks for the heads up.
TreeSize has saved me a lot of bytes over the years. Performant and visually slick. I would prefer a FOSS utility, though. Apparently, reading other comments here, there isn’t an actively maintained one that isn’t garbage. Oh well.
Procmon has gotten me out of a couple binds. Task Manager can only do so much for you. I’ve always been dubious of people who deify Task Manager as some ultimate authority of the OS that kicks ass and takes no prisoners, as I’ve run into several problems it couldn’t solve for me. Procmon feels like the real version of that mythic Task Manager. The main thing it can do which Task Manager (to my knowledge) cannot do that I’ve needed several times is detect which running processes have a lock on a given file, so I can kill them.
KeePassXC is KeePass2, but not sinfully ugly. It’s FOSS and equally functional as the program it aims to supplant, but it’s also multiplatform (so I can use it on Linux without Mono!) and it looks like it actually has a design philosophy developed by someone who knows a thing or two about UX design. Also, it lets you auto bulk download favicons for all of your key entries. With KeePass2 I had to do that manually one by one. I was happy to do it then thinking the program was worth it, but now that I know there’s a better way I feel like an idiot for putting up with it for as long as I did.
Also, just a short rant: I am so glad Windows finally has a native OpenSSH implementation that ships with the OS. Because that means good fucking riddance to PuTTY and WinSPC. I appreciate them having been there to be our secure and stable options for SSH and FTP/SFTP clients on Windows over the years. But now that I can finally do those things in the terminal with standard cross-platform tools, I no longer have to use their ugly, clumsy GUIs, their stupid .ppk key format, or WinSCP’s cryptic command line args ever again, and I couldn’t be happier.
I’ve needed several times is detect which running processes have a lock on a given file,
I used to use procman but there is a power toy for that now. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/file-locksmith
Not sure if it can really be considered hidden, but many people don’t seem to know about TreeSize. It’s an incredibly useful tool to find out what takes up space on your drives.
WinDirStat is a great alternative, and it’s FOSS.
Also gives you a nice view illustrating the folder and file sizes
Unfortunately, WinDirStat is essentially abandoned… The latest version 1.1.2 was released in 2005. Wiztree is my favourite alternative, but it’s not open-source.
WinDirStat is good, but it’s really slow compared to its alternatives.
It also hasn’t been updated in nearly 20 years (last release was in 2005) so I doubt it’s going to get faster any time soon :(
I’m personally a fan of WizTree
I have used spacesniffer for the longest time, but looking through these to try out later.
Filtering with red color for stuff I know I want to exclude helps.
I recently found out about PeaZip, it’s a Foss compression tool that can compress and uncompress a wide variety of compression formats. For some formats, like 7z, it also has some pretty advanced options to help maximize compression ratios, if you know what you are doing of course.
Just has to be available for Windows in order to be topical
Ok, I’ve edited my comment to reflect that.
FancyWM
If I absolutely have to use windows it works pretty well in letting me keep my workflow from Linux along with some hotkeys for cycling virtual desktops
MobaXTerm.
Makes dealing with lots of servers, be them Linux or Windows, much easier.
Honourable mention to Right PDF reader for helping me with previous study too. It’s had a name change but it includes enough features in its free version that makes it very good for reading and marking up longwinded academic studies.
the Ditto clipboard manager
It lets me keep track of all my clipboard history without having to use microsoft’s
only thing is I have to remember to go back and delete a password after I copy it, but luckily bitwarden can autofill most of the time
Not sure if a hidden gem or not, but WingetUI is pretty handy. You can manage software in winget, scoop, chocolatey, pip, npm and .net with a graphics interface.
I didn’t know that it could do pip, or npm, so it’s a hidden gem for me, thanks :)
