Useful and free Windows applications

g4u - Harddisk Image Cloning for PCs
Notes: Open-source. Can copy partition/disk, make image of a partition/disk, gzip the image, and copy to FTP. However, it can only copy the image to FTP but cannot copy the compressed image to another local disk. To reduce the compressed image size you will need to "zero-out" the data on your partition. One way to do this is with sdelete.

ISO Recorder
Notes: This is a free software to burn burn CD & DVD images (*.iso only) to disk. Currently it only can burn DVD images in Vista. It has both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. It integrates into the Windows shell so in order to use it you simply right click on a *.iso file and the "burn to dvd" command will appear in the context-menu.

InfraRecorder
Notes: Open-source. ISO and BIN/CUE. After using this for awhile I cannot burn image any more. Strange... 8/13/09 I've had too much problem with this program so I have to say it is a piece of crap... well, before they can fix all the bugs.

ImgBurn
8/13/09: Finally discovered a free optical disc burner that works! This little app is very powerful. I've been using it to burn disc images and it works! It can burn images, audio, and video. I've not tried all features but it looks like a free alternative to the popular Nero software. Supported formats:
Disc image: BIN, CUE, DI, DVD, GI, IMG, ISO, MDS, NRG and PDI (some I've never seen).
Audio: AAC, APE, FLAC, M4A, MP3, MP4, MPC, OGG, PCM, WAV, WMA and WV.

AnyToIso
8/13/09: Coverts many disc image formats to ISO. This is a very handy free tool if you have a program that only knows ISO format disc images (such as to create a virtual CD-ROM in VirtualBox). The ads says that it can "convert BIN, MDF, UIF, PDI, CDI, NRG, B5I, IMG, DEB, DMG CD/DVD-ROM images to ISO". It has version for Windows and Mac.
VisualSVN
Notes: A free Subversion server for windows. More Subversion servers for various platform can be found here: subversion.tigris.org

USBDLM - USB Drive Letter Manager for Windows
Notes: Free software. Haven't tried it but could be handy if want to make letters for USB drives fixed.
UltraVNC
Notes: Remotely access the desktop of your Windows PC. No linux support. More sophisticated than the free edition of RealVNC, which has versions for both Windows and linux. UltraVNC allows you to create a *.vnc file which stored all connection settings (optionally can include password) for a pc so you can open the remote screen with one mouse click.

CutePDF
Notes: Free alternative to Adobe's PDF Writer (formerly called Distiller). It also installs Ghostscript by automatically download. CutePDF creates a fake printer. Anything prints to it will be saved as PDF. A dialog box shows and user can decide where to save the file.

Audacity
Open source audio file editor. I was looking for WAV to MP3 converter when I bumped into this one. In order to encode MP3 this program asks you to download a free encoder: lame_enc.dll. It was easy to download. Conversion is the only feature that I have tried. If you have a bunch of files to convert then I suggest you to find a batch convert program. In Audacity you can only do one file at a time. See more free audio programs here.

winLAME
Open source software for converting a batch of files into MP3. This is a good front-end for LAME MP3 Encoder. Check out the LAME MP3 Encoder page for more free programs that uses it. winLAME works great! Open source is truly wonderful!

TeraCopy
If you want to copy or move a batch of files then this is right for you. TeraCopy replaces the Windows copy program (you can see the normal Windows file copy window is replaced by TeraCopy's more feature-rich window when you copy files in Windows Explorer). With TeraCopy you can start a batch copy job, go to sleep, and wake up to see a report with what was successfully copied and what was not. Failure of a single file will not stop the whole batch process. This works in XP/Vista/Win7.

CrossLoop
This little app saved my day so many times but I never can remember its name. This app allows you to give access of your desktop to a remove user, or to do the opposite, access your friend's desktop in order to solve PC problems. Great app to get a warm "thank you" from your friends.

InkscapeAn Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. This program was not hard to use, and it was very powerful. I used it to make special effects for website banners.



Other powerful free software that everyone should know:

Foxit PDF Reader
TortoiseSVN
Prism
Notepad++
Gimp
GrabIt
Daemon Tools Lite
Filezilla
Iso Magic
Dev-CPP
Skype
WinDirStat
Mp3tag
ExifCleaner
CrossLoop