My Favorite Programs for Windows

2023-07-01

Essentials

• Sumatra PDF - A fast and snappy PDF reader which opens absolutely instantly and handles everything you can throw at it. As an added bonus, if you are working on Latex documents, it supports live reloading the changed pages (and does not prevent Latex writing to the PDF document while you have it open in Sumatra). The only reason you may still need another PDF reader is the lack of support for filling in forms and highlighting PDF contents. It is also completely free. Available at sumatrapdfreader.org.

• ShareX - The easiest way to record a short video clip from your screen when only a screenshot doesn't cut it. Free and open-source. Available at getsharex.com.

• 7-zip - There's no need for downloading WinRAR anymore. This is a fast, open-source and free archival program which supports Zip files, RAR files, and their own custom format, 7z. It can be found at 7-zip.org.

• WinDirStat - When your disk is full and you need to figure out what is taking the most space, this tool helps out a lot. Available at windirstat.net.

Development

• MSYS2 - My choice for having the GCC compiler, vim, git, and other Unix-like tools available in the Windows terminal. If anything you expect from Linux is missing, it can be easily installed with the included the Pacman package manager. It is available for free at msys2.org.

Honorable Mentions

• Ninite - A tool that lets you install most of the software I've mentioned in a single go. It is also free at ninite.com.

• Chocolatey - Installs a command-line utility called choco which manages and install programs over the terminal. It can be found at chocolatey.org.

Chocolatey Script

To install these tools with Chocolatey you can run these commands from an administrator command terminal:

choco install 7zip -y
choco install altsnap -y
choco install chromium -y
choco install python3 -y
choco install sumatrapdf -y
choco install vscode -y
choco install windirstat -y