Which utilities have you installed in your music PC.

[Kalamata Kid]

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)

Why? I'm concerned about my bandmate being able to hit his Ocatapad and hear the drums come out of my PC in reasonable time. In 20 years that has never involved worrying about DPC latency.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Would it be best to ignore LatencyMon when it states "One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running on your system appear to be executing for too long. One problem may be related to Power management. Disable CPU throttling settings in control Panel and BIOS setup. "

[whyterabbyt]

Does anyone use Fences?
https://www.stardock.com/products/fences/
$10 not bad.
A good alternative or whatever other method that
accomplishes to easily find the favorite apps and files.

Oh, yes, I forgot that, (and TeraCopy, which someone else mentioned). I was also using Bins, but it stopped working.

[BONES]

Would it be best to ignore LatencyMon when it states "One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running on your system appear to be executing for too long. One problem may be related to Power management. Disable CPU throttling settings in control Panel and BIOS setup. "

If you are not having any problems with making music, then of course it's safe to ignore those messages. Those things are a bit like anti-virus packages - once you install them they want to impress you with their usefulness so they'll find problems that either aren't problems at all or are irrelevant. The only time I'd even think about installing something like LatencyMon was when I was actually having a problem and, even then, it would have to be a pretty serious problem. As soon as I'd solved th eproblem, I'd be uninstalling LatencyMon.

[funky lime]

Win7 here.

f.lux, because I thoroughly enjoy my eyeballs and my sleep.

Q-Dir, for daily file management.
XYplorer Free, for more intensive file management.

Launchy, so I can easily launch programs without mouse

OBS Studio, if I feel like doing some screencasting, which is rare

Revo, because many uninstallers don't actually remove all the files they installed

AdwCleaner, because one time it actually helped with a browser issue I was having

Bome Midi Translator, pretty much 100% essential to my setup/workflow

Notepad++, mostly because I use Reaper, or for some very light coding/scripting/XML editing

Dexpot, because I only have one monitor and I do tons of multitasking

ImDisk, for mounting virtual drives

RamDisk, so I can record to RAM before committing a keeper take to my SSD, saves write cycles. Probably doesn't matter in the long run.

PhraseExpress Free, for work because I often have to type the same things repeatedly, and also frequently mis-type certain things.

ScreenToGif, because sometimes a simple GIF is way easier for explaining something

AquaSnap, because for work I often have several windows I need on screen at the same time.

CustomizerGod, to change how Windows looks

Freac, for converting audio files

Bleachbit, for quickly cleaning all browser caches, temporary files, etc

Unlocker, for deleting those stubborn files that claim to still be in use even though they shouldn't be.

7zip and WinRAR, because once in a blue moon I'll find an archive that one can't extract but the other can

[Kalamata Kid]

Don't run Java, Flash, and any other of that security nightmare vector; HTML5 has been here for a while now.

Just noticed in the Windows Pro 10 64 bit Control Panel Flash Player (32bit)
Any suggestions what to do?

[yellowmix]

Don't run Java, Flash, and any other of that security nightmare vector; HTML5 has been here for a while now.

Just noticed in the Windows Pro 10 64 bit Control Panel Flash Player (32bit)
Any suggestions what to do?

System Settings > (you can search for it) "Add or Remove Programs", filter for "Flash", uninstall "Adobe Flash Player". If a site requires it, it's frankly outdated. Adobe says they are outright killing it by 2020: https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/25/1602 ... pport-2020

[mladi]

WinRAR

Someone actually still uses WinRAR in this day and age?

It has many users. Best for Win.

[Kalamata Kid]

Don't run Java, Flash, and any other of that security nightmare vector; HTML5 has been here for a while now.

Just noticed in the Windows Pro 10 64 bit Control Panel Flash Player (32bit)
Any suggestions what to do?

System Settings > (you can search for it) "Add or Remove Programs", filter for "Flash", uninstall "Adobe Flash Player". If a site requires it, it's frankly outdated. Adobe says they are outright killing it by 2020: https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/25/1602 ... pport-2020

Thanks for the input.
I had checked Apps and Features and Revo but Flash or Adobe flash was not on the list so that I can un-inslall.

I click on Flash Player and I get the "flash Player Settings MAnager" window.

[yellowmix]

Does it say what version it is? Sounds like an old version that may have come along for the ride if you upgraded to Windows 10 from an earlier version. If so, try Adobe's uninstaller utility: https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb ... ndows.html

[Kozmyk]

There are loads od optimisation tips on the web and YouTube especially.
I found this one quite useful when I was looking to change a PC from General to DAW use.
I used quite a lot, not 100%, of the suggestions on here.

[chk071]

With all due respects to him... i think you can explain that with 1000 words less, and in 1/4 of the time.

If reading is your thing (hehehe), there's also articles in the knowledge bases of the major DAW's for this:

https://helpcenter.steinberg.de/hc/en-u ... s-for-DAWs

https://support.presonus.com/hc/en-us/s ... ital-Audio

[satYatunes]

A bit expensive at $40 or so.
Do they have sales?

Not that I'm aware of.

re.PSD: Using the "Imagine" plugin enables PSD preview: https://www.ghisler.com/plugins.htm

SageThumbs is another option to display thumbnails of many type of files including PSD. I have been using it for a few years now.
http://www.cherubicsoft.com/en/projects/sagethumbs

[Kalamata Kid]

Does it say what version it is? Sounds like an old version that may have come along for the ride if you upgraded to Windows 10 from an earlier version. If so, try Adobe's uninstaller utility: https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb ... ndows.html

Still have not found the version number.

https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb ... ndows.html
These instructions are NOT applicable to Flash Player included with Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer on Windows 8 and later or with Google Chrome on all supported operating systems. Please visit the Flash Player Help page for instructions on enabling (or disabling) Flash Player in various browsers.

I suspect this Flash is part of the Edge install which happened automatically with the Windows 10 install. In my case this is a fresh W10 install.

Opened Edge and Preferences>advanced and turned off "use Adobe Flash player" and turned off Cortana. But I suppose best to un-install Flash Player. How?

[yellowmix]

Okay, then I don't know. I uninstalled Edge ages ago. I don't have any Flash on my system at all. I suppose it's good Microsoft is updating it with Windows to at least alleviate the security issues.

[AsPeeXXXVIII]

Well, here's what I have:

Acrobat Reader
CCleaner
IZArc
OpenOffice
O&O ShutUp 10
RAMMap