Scott Hanselman's 2. Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows. Everyone collects utilities, and most folks have a list of a few that they feel are indispensable. Many/most are free some aren't. Those that aren't free are very likely worth your 3. Here are most of the contents of my C: \UTILS folder. These are all well loved and used.

It can be classified as a home theater PC (HTPC) with some limits. The Mac Mini does not include an integrated TV tuner card and cannot be upgraded to install one. So a while back I was playing around with Linux and needed a bootable install disc. I decided to make one of my spare USB thumb drives into one. The latest PC gaming hardware news, plus expert, trustworthy and unbiased buying guides. Here’s an idea: if you want your monitor to wake up when you walk, use a smart home sensor like the D-Link motion sensor that can connect to services like IFTTT and.

Kodi (formerly XBMC) is a free and open-source media player software application developed by the XBMC Foundation, a non-profit technology consortium. If you’re not familiar with IFTTT, the service allows you to create recipes that make it so if one things happens, another will as well. For instance, you can set.

Scott Hanselman on Programming, The Web, Open Source.NET, The Cloud and More.

Things on this list are here because I dig them. No one paid money to be on this list and no money is accepted to be on this list. Personal Plug: Discover more cool tools and programming tips on my weekly Podcast Hanselminutes, or my other show with Rob Conery called This Developer's Life.

This is the Updated for 2. Version of my 2. 00. List, and currently subsumes all my other lists.

Link to http: //hanselman. Hanselman Ultimate Tools List. Feel free to get involved here in the comments, post corrections, or suggestions for future submissions.

I very likely made mistakes, and probably forgot a few utilities that I use often. New Entries to the 2. Ultimate Tools are in Green. There are dozens of additions and many updated and corrected entries and fixed links. I started doing this list for EIGHT YEARS AGO which is like 6.

I've also removed some older stuff that no long matters in 2. Japanese Translation: Yasushi Aoki has translated the 2.

Tools List to Japanese! You can find it here http: //www. NOTE: Please don't reproduce this in its entirety, I'd rather you link to http: //hanselman. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but posts like this take a lot of work on my part and I'd appreciate that work staying where it is and linked to, rather than being copy/pasted around the 'net. If you're reading this content and you're not at http: //hanselman.

URL? The Big Ten Life and Work- Changing Utilities. Joe. Bins was actually written by the same author as Fences, below, so you know it's awesome. It's actually ridiculously awesome.

For example, I've got four browsers pinned to my Windows 7 Taskbar, which is kind of silly. Now, with bins, I can make a, *ahem*, . Then I make can choose a default program for the bin when I just click, or hover to get my others.

All this functionality for $4. Pay. Pal. Bins almost makes Windows 7 feel like Windows 7. I realize that some folks like a clean desktop but if you'd like to get those pixels working for you then I think you gotta put some icons on your desk. When they get out of hand, put a fence around them. One of the best parts about Fences is that it's pretty smart about changing resolutions. Some people don't like a lot of icons because they fear the inevitable . With Fences, this is not a problem.

All your icons stay in their little boxes. They'll even rearrange magically if you change icon sizes. Fences is truly a fantastic application and one that should be built in. The author of Fences and Bin is a programming god amongst men and I salute you, sir. The next taco is on me. You use the Window Key along with the Number Pad to move windows around.

Rather than spending time moving your windows with a mouse, you use the positions of the numbers on the number pad to move them. It's Aero Snap taken to the next level. Rather than just left and right, there's nine positions per monitor that your windows can go, but because the positions correspond to the number pad you already know there's virtually no learning curve. Window. Pad is brilliant and deserves to be in your Startup Folder. There's even Remote Assistance built into Windows. There's Team. Viewer, there's Cross.

Loop, and on and on. However, when I just want to share my screen and give a URL to a bunch of people who can view it without anything other than Flash, I use Join. Great for Mom and great for me. It's a tiny, amazingly fast free open- source utility for Windows.

It lets you automate everything from keystrokes to mice. Programming for non- programmers. It's a complete automation system for Windows without the frustration of VBScript. This is the Windows equivalent of Apple. Script for Windows. It's got 4. 70. 0 common English Misspellings. It gives you autocorrect everywhere in Windows.

Every program, always. It's just the tip of theiceberg. Paint. NET- The Paint Program that Microsoft forgot, written in .

NET. It's 8. 0% of Photoshop and it's free. It also has nice enhanced Windows 7 features.

Time to get on board. The 7z format is fast becoming the compression format that choosey hardcore users choose. You'll typically get between 2% and 1. ZIP. This app integrates into Windows Explorer nicely and opens basically EVERYTHING you could ever want to open from TARs to ISOs, from RARs to CABs.

Sky. Drive, Cloud. Drive, Drop. Box and others. I keep coming back to Drop.

Box though. It's on every platform I want it on. It works great with large stores (mine is over 6. Ultimately, though, get yourself some cloud storage because when you stuff is just . Proc. Exp is a great Taskman replacement and includes the invaluable . It can also highlight any . NET processes. Auto.

Runs is an amazing aggregated view of any and all things that run at startup on your box. It runs on any version of Windows and lets you see exactly what a process is doing. Indispensable for developing. Windows Live Writer - If you've got a blog (and if not, why not?) then this is THE app. They've also got a great plugin community. It's the second app I install. Rocking Sweet Windows 7 Specific Stuff.

It's time to get off XP and please forget Vista and get Windows 7 on your machine. It's lovely. They both add multiple- taskbar support for Windows (all versions, including Windows 7) that's very compelling.

Unfortunately they each are 9. I'm running trials of both. Ultramon has the very nice . Either way, it's great that someday, and soon, the missing multiple monitor taskbar problem will at least be fixed by a 3rd party. Bins is a great little touch that feels so integrated into Windows 7 that it really should be a part of it. It gives you . Pick the one that makes you happy.

Fences is the same kind of utility. It adds icon fences and organization to your troubled desktop and feels built- in. I like Virtual XP for when I want to run XP apps like IE6 seamlessly along site my Windows 7 apps. For when I don't want to know I'm running a VM. Here are the other VMs for testing older versions of IE.

As soon as Virtual. Box added support for the VHD file format, all my existing VMs suddenly became more useful. Virtual. Box also runs Ubuntu on Windows like a dream. Boot to VHD - Not so much a utility as an amazing feature. I've posted before about my intense love for Booting off a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk). It gives you all the speed of a real machine with all the convenience of a virtualized hard disk.

Power. Shell has a steep learning curve, much like the tango, but oh, my, when you really start dancing.. I also use Power. Shell Prompt Here. It's built into Windows 7, by the way.

Get the free Power. GUI. Disk Cleanup - It's improved, built- in and  much easier to find free space in Windows 7. A (. NET) Developer's Life. A fantastic learning tool for those who are just getting into LINQ or for those who want a code snippet IDE to execute any C# or VB expression. Free and wonderful. There's a whole list of LINQ related tools on Jim Wooley's site as well. It's also nice in that it'll setup PHP and ASP.

NET open source applications easily. Dig into the internals of any . NET assembly from .

NET 1. 0 to . NET 4 and beyond. Check out ILSpy from the folks that brought you Sharp. Develop. THREE WAY TIE: Notepad. Notepad++ (Scite also uses the same codebase) or E- Text.

Editor - The first two are great text editors. Each has first class CR/LF support, ANSI to Unicode switching, whitespace and line ending graphics and Mouse Wheel Zooming. Epic War 4 Hacked All Cards In A Deck here. Here's how to completely replace notepad.

Personally I renamed Notepad. Here's how to have Notepad.

View Source Editor. Here's how to add Notepad. Explorer context menu. E- Text. Editor is new on the block this year, inspired by Text. Mate in the Macintosh. It includes a . It costs, though, but you should absolutely try it's 3. US$3. 5. Is one better than the other?