I recently re-paved my Vista Laptop. Something we all have to do on occasion, especially if you happen to be a developer. It always leaves me with mixed feelings.

Dread of actually having to spend the better part of a whole day getting the base system back, and another 1 -2 days to get my environment, tools, and settings the way I like them.

This is followed by that “New Computer” feel, when the system is freshly installed, it starts faster, actually shuts down, and in general is more responsive and clean feeling.

As part of the process I usually take the time to re-evaluate the tools and utilities I load. And this time was like most, I ended up not installing some old favorites in favor of new finds, or better solutions, or free as opposed to cost based, or sometimes the other way around.

A very partial list of some of the tools I installed and what they replaced and why follows. I usually start with Scott Hanselman’s (Year) Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows as my starting point and reference. If you have not seen this before you owe it to yourself to have a look. Scott updates it yearly and he puts a great deal of thought into the contents.

My own much abbreviated version follows.

Notepad Replacement

I have used and loved TextPad for years, but recently I have switched to Notepad++ which is free, and supports all the features of Textpad and then some. Syntax highlighting, Regular Expression Search/Replace etc.

CD/DVD Burning

I used Nero for many years but recently replaced it with a free alternative called InfraRecorder which offers pretty much all the features I need, as well as being a lot lighter on disk space, works well with Vista and did I mention it’s free?

Screen Shot Image Capture

Again I switched from a commercial to an open source product. (Do you sense a trend here?) A long time SnagIt user, I finally found an acceptable alternative called MWSnap. Although nowhere near as feature rich as SnagIt, for what I need it works just fine, and again, very light on disk space and memory and works well with Vista.

Disk and File Encryption

I have used and loved PGP for many years but I finally gave up on the program because of restrictive licensing and painful install issues. I have switched to, wait for it, a free open source product called TrueCrypt!

Blogging Software

Ok, don’t faint, this time I replaced a free utility, Windows Live Writer, with a commercial one, BlogJet. I have used BlogJet in the past but WLW just seemed to be better for awhile. Now however WLW crashes when I try to run it on Vista and nothing I have been able to do will fix it, so back to BlogJet.

Thats it for now, of course there are lots more tools and utilities that I use but they are covered in much better detail in Scott’s list.

Cheers,

Robert Porter