Some Great Free Programs

[snowdogged]

Find and install missing drivers

 

Driver Pack Solution:

This is probably the best thing out there to quickly find and install missing drivers. It will find all of your missing drivers most of the time. The best thing about this is that all of the drivers are contained within the program and no network connection is required. Just be careful as if you choose to install all drivers at the same time it will by default install a toolbar and change your homepage. You have to manually change this selection. It is also quite a big download at 2.8GB. Also, this is a portable application which means you can run it directly from a usb drive.

 

Driver Pack Solution

 

Device Doctor:

This is another free program that finds drivers for you that is pretty good.

 

This one requires a network connection but is a very small download.

 

Device Doctor

 

 

Programs for protection against malware/viruses.

 

Avast Free Version:

This is my favorite free antivirus program. It has a very good detection rate and it is very light on resources.

 

 

Avast Free Version

 

Spybot Search and Destroy:

This is a pretty good free anti-spyware/adware program that offers realtime protection.

 

Spybot

 

 

Malwarebytes Free version:

This is also quite a good free anti- malware program.

 

Malwarebytes Free

 

SuperAntispyware free:

This is very good. It can sometimes remove stuff that some of the top paid programs are unable to remove.

 

SuperAntispyware

 

Remove Fake Antivirus:

This is pretty good at finding and removing those fake antivirus programs that can pretty much make your windows unusable.

 

Remove Fake Antivirus

 

 

ComboFix:

This might possibly be the best program out there to repair badly infected computers.

 

Combofix

 

 

Programs for maintaining your system and registry:(Caution: make sure you do a backup of your registry before using any program that repairs your registry. sometimes certain programs will not function properly after your registry is modified. This is rare but it does happen.)

 

Ccleaner:

A very good small program for cleaning/fixing your registry and removing junk files.

 

CCleaner

 

Advanced System Care Free:

 

I really like this program. It's a Swiss Army Knife of PC maintenance. Defrags disks, repairs system/registry and so much more.

 

 

Advanced System Care Free

 

 

Windows tweaks and modifications:

 

TweakUI:

With this you make plenty of customizable tweaks in Windows XP. It can come in very handy sometimes.

 

 

TweakUI

 

 

Bootskin:

Easily change your XP boot screen.

 

Bootskin

 

Here is a site that you can download thousands of customized boot screens for Bootskin.

 

 

WinCustomize

Edited April 8, 2011 by snowdogged

[Khan]

Nice..this should be pinned.

Have used ComboFix for an infected machine at work before.

[metallithrax]

Not wanting to hijack the thread, but there is a massive list of freeware here

 

All types of software for many different things.