Windows Live Mail (Microsoft's Free Email Program)

Having Windows Live Mail in this list is a little bit of a double edge sword for me. Currently the Operating System I use the most is Windows Vista. And Windows Vista includes a email program called Windows Mail which is not a good program at all.

And yes,the name of the email program included with Windows Vista is “Windows Mail”. And the name of the good email program is “Windows Live Mail”. Very similar dontcha think? To avoid confusion, I will refer to email program included with Windows Vista, as “the Vista Email program”.

The Vista Email program is garbage. It does not allow you to add Hotmail accounts. Hotmail is a Microsoft's Free web-based email (and Windows XP, included a email program, Outlook Express, which did allow Hotmail accounts). It makes no sense that Microsoft would bundle a email program that does not support their own products.

Windows Live Mail, is everything that the Vista Email Program is not. It allows Hotmail accounts to be added and it is a very friendly, easy to use email client.

Windows Live Mail is a free program that can be downloaded and installed on both Windows XP and Windows Vista. Windows Live Mail is a must if you have Windows Vista and even for Windows XP since it is a large improvement over Outlook Express, which is the default email program bundled with Windows XP. (Click Here to read the Windows Live Mail article posted on our sister site, FixMyVista.com)

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Thunderbird (Email)

Thunderbird is a great email program made by the same company that makes Firefox. Thunderbird along with the Webmail extension integrates web site based email accounts in to Mozllia Thunderbird, this allows Thunderbird to download and to send emails using web. This means that it supports all the popular email clients, like: Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, MSN Mail, MailDotCom, Gmail, Lycos, and AOL Mail.

One of the best reasons to use Thunderbird is being able to customize it using the huge assortment of extensions and theme. There is a downside to Thunderbird, and that is that it does have a different interface and can take awhile to get used to and this might be a deal breaker for some.

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Fox It (PDF Reader)

Per Foxit's website...

Welcome to use Foxit Reader, your right choice to view and print PDF documents.

Foxit Reader 2.0 is a free PDF document viewer and printer. It launches very quickly (in about one second) and requires no installation -- you just need to run the executable files.

For regular PDF users, Foxit Reader is the absolute choice.

Foxit Reader 2.0 provides the significant features to empower PDF document user with Interactive form filler, multi-language UI support, on-demand download of add-ons, self upgrade, JavaScript support, improved printing speed, multi-languages UI, streamlined UI and much more.

Click Here to read the Fox It PDF Reader article posted on our sister site, FixMyVista.com

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EULAlyzer

EULAlyzer can analyze license agreements in seconds, and provide a detailed listing of potentially interesting words and phrases. Discover if the software you're about to install displays pop-up ads, transmits personally identifiable information, uses unique identifiers to track you, or much much more.

Plus with EULAlyzer you can save your license agreements. This program is awesome, it lets you know in seconds if the program you are about to install is shady. With EULAlyzer, whenever you install a program, you can be sure it is a sound program and best of all its freeware.

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Virtual PC 2007 (Microsoft's Free VM Program)

Use Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 to run multiple operating systems at the same time on the same physical computer. Switch between virtual machines with the click of a button. Use virtual machines to run legacy applications, provide support, train users, safely test software, and enhance quality assurance.

How it works is, you install Virtual PC onto your system. After installed, you launch Virtual PC, and it opens a interface where you can add Virtual machines. You can add a virtual machine and then install an operating system onto it (note: installing a OS onto the virtual machine is done the same way, so you will need the disks and license key and it takes the same amount of time to install)

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Belarc Advisor (System Utility: PC System Info Tool)

Use Belarc Advisor whenever you need to know something about your computer (e.g. If you needed to update your drivers but did not know what company made your motherboard). Belarc even pulls out information like license keys for programs (Office, Windows etc.).

Per Belarc's Website...

The Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, missing Microsoft hotfixes, anti-virus status, CIS (Center for Internet Security) benchmarks, and displays the results in your Web browser. All of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent to any web server.

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VLC (Media Player)

Per VLC's Website. . .

VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. VLC does support skins, which can be downloaded from VLC's website for free.

What makes VLC so great is its wide range of compatibility with OS's other than Windows (currently supports: Windows, Mac, Linux, Set Top Box, VLC for Familiar Linux).

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