KVR Audio

Kalamata Kid · Post by **Kalamata Kid** » Mon Feb 25, 2019 7:33 am

What is your list of utilities and such in your music Windows 10 PC.
Free or paid versions.

This is what will end up being installed in my new Music PC:
Foxit or other PDF reader
Vipre anti-virus
Revo
Glary
Ccleaner
Belarc
Team Viewer
Smart defrag
Latencymon
CPUid
MiniTool Partition
Autoruns
TreeSize Free
AOMEI backup CD
Everest alternative.

Pictus had recommended Process Hacker https://processhacker.sourceforge.io/
Looks good and will likely try it.

List of utilities I am looking at:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=165661

Did I forget any?
Comments and advice is welcome.

do_androids_dream · Post by **do_androids_dream** » Mon Feb 25, 2019 8:53 am

With W10 you really don't need antivirus - the built in one is perfectly adequate. Drop Ccleaner imo - registry cleaners are wholly unnecessary and just foster a paranoia that registries need 'cleaning'. They do more harm than good overall. I wouldn't bother with a 3rd party defrag either - the MS one is absolutely fine. I set my to automatically defrag in the background when I first got my W10 laptop almost 2 years ago and I've never even noticed it doing its thing (and I've no reason to check it as the laptop is working as fast as the day I bought it). You can read PDF's fine in Windows Edge (Foxit is full of ads these days - it's practically malware..). Absolutely no need for Revo either.

I would add 7zip and Irfanview. Pale Moon is a good alternative to the bloated and pro censorship Firefox (uses the same engine).

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:07 am

What's the difference between a "music Windows 10 PC" and an ordinary Windows 10 PC? Music is hardly taxing on any modern hardware. It isn't even close to the most taxing thing I do on mine, which is why I didn't waste money on more than a Core i5 CPU. The only things I install on a new PC, not directly related to the work I do on it, are 7zip and Zune.

Delta Sign · Post by **Delta Sign** » Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:12 am

Yeah, what do_androids_dream said. All those "keep your computer clean" utilities have become practically useless, and even malware in many cases, since Win8.

The only "utilities" I can think of that I have on my PC are indeed 7zip, Irfanview, Media Player Classic, Foobar2000 and XMPlay. I also run Malwarebytes every once in a while just for the sake of it, but it never finds anything.
It would be nice if Microsoft would come up with better Media players in the future. I'm usually trying to avoid having too much useless stuff on my PC, so it would be nice to have "native" players.

People like to shit on Microsoft and Windows a lot, but they actually did a great job improving Windows over the years in many areas, if you ask me.

e@rs · Post by **e@rs** » Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:42 am

WinRAR; OpenOffice; Bulk Rename Utility; SumatraPDF; VLC; foobar2000 and IrfanView. It's an offline machine, so no antivirus program.

Vortifex · Post by **Vortifex** » Mon Feb 25, 2019 11:53 am

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Mon Feb 25, 2019 12:59 pm

tdl - to do lists
dia - diagrams
usbdeview - usb device viewer
usb tree viewer - similar
unlocker - stops 'file in use' sillies
process monitor - says on tin
link shell extension - junction point maker, handiest thing evar
textpad - text editor
midiox
winzip
winamp

PTV · Post by **PTV** » Mon Feb 25, 2019 2:15 pm

Acronis True Image WD Edition
Bandizip
CCleaner Portable (only use the file cleaner, not the registry) + Speccy Portable
Autoruns + Process Explorer
Free File Sync Portable
Irfan View
Sumatra PDF
Foobar2000 (portable installation) + VLC
xplorer2 lite
Notepad++

and many more small portable utilities

harryupbabble · Post by **harryupbabble** » Mon Feb 25, 2019 4:02 pm

Ccleaner - A while ago, I got rid of new-at-the-time version and settled for an older, less intrusive version. I mainly use it for getting rid of junk files.

TreeSize Free - I mainly use it for sorting folders by size. Windows 7 can't sort folders by size?

7-zip - I use/used it a lot to unzip downloaded VST plugin freebies. Super-useful.

Media Player Classic - Great for playing most video files.

GOM Player - Sometimes Media Player Classic can't play some video files but GOM Player can.

K-Lite Codec Pack - I think my media players needs this.

Foobar2000 - This is great for playlist. There is this plugin for it that deletes the song from the playlist once it has finished playing it. And so I never hear the same song twice per playlist.

Bulk Rename Utility - Why would anyone use other rename utilities? I think this one does pretty much any renaming job?

SumatraPDF - I prefer it to the Adobe one. It feels less of a CPU hog? It loads faster too?

Unlocker - It does happen, files get locked and Unlocker always unlocked them, in my case at least.

Winamp - Great for music visualization. Trivial info: AOL paid Justin Frankel, the developer of REAPER, about 80 million dollars for Winamp and other software... about 20 years ago.

TextPad - About 7 years ago, maybe in 2012, for two months, in the summer, I used this a lot for scrabble study. It lets you use custom dictionaries. I used the American official tournament scrabble dictionary. I don't study anymore, no time. No time, thanks to my other "hobby" which is the search for a satisfactory music-making method.

ASIO4ALL - What else is there?

Anti-Twin - I have amassed huge amount of midi data for my current music-making method. I still am sporadically amassing huge amount of midi data. Anti-Twin is extremely useful for detecting and deleting midi file duplicates.

Deep Purple · Post by **Deep Purple** » Mon Feb 25, 2019 4:09 pm

do_androids_dream wrote: Mon Feb 25, 2019 8:53 am With W10 you really don't need antivirus - the built in one is perfectly adequate. Drop Ccleaner imo - registry cleaners are wholly unnecessary and just foster a paranoia that registries need 'cleaning'. They do more harm than good overall. I wouldn't bother with a 3rd party defrag either - the MS one is absolutely fine. I set my to automatically defrag in the background when I first got my W10 laptop almost 2 years ago and I've never even noticed it doing its thing (and I've no reason to check it as the laptop is working as fast as the day I bought it). You can read PDF's fine in Windows Edge (Foxit is full of ads these days - it's practically malware..). Absolutely no need for Revo either.

Agreed, some of those are snake oil or just clutter.

AsPeeXXXVIII · Post by **AsPeeXXXVIII** » Mon Feb 25, 2019 4:24 pm

e@rs wrote: Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:42 am WinRAR

Someone actually still uses WinRAR in this day and age?

e@rs · Post by **e@rs** » Mon Feb 25, 2019 7:53 pm

^Yeah. Why do you find it strange, they invented something way better in the meantime? I don't use it to compress, just as container.

Deep Purple · Post by **Deep Purple** » Mon Feb 25, 2019 8:35 pm

@OP: why specifically Windows 10?

Kalamata Kid · Post by **Kalamata Kid** » Mon Feb 25, 2019 8:59 pm

I am very impressed with the suggestions for Windows 10 Utilities.
This will help make my music computer better.

Per Bones above
What's the difference between a "music Windows 10 PC" and an ordinary Windows 10 PC?
When I say Music PC I mean music creation PC.
In a music PC I am concerned about DPC latency. (whatever that means)
I have several PC's and I treat my music PC more carefully.
Rarely online.
Turn off antivirus when working on music creation.
Optimize Windows for music creation.

Per Deep Purple
why specifically Windows 10?
I and many or maybe even most have Windows 10.
Ok by me if anyone wants to go off topic.

acYm · Post by **acYm** » Mon Feb 25, 2019 11:36 pm

(Win7)
corsair link
windirstat
procexp64
7zip
eset nod32
ccleaner
link shell extension
autohotkey

Which utilities have you installed in your music PC.