You’ve got the box home, you’ve taken the shrink wrap off, and you’ve installed Windows 7 on your computer. Of course, you saved all of your data to DVDs or an external disk and did a clean install – you’re a smart guy/lady – and now you’ve got a clean new Windows desktop staring you in the face, full of promise and possibility.
Here are a few things you can install (for free!) to make your Windows 7 experience complete.
Windows Live Essentials
We’ve already covered how to download and install these, and done in-depth looks at Mail, Photo Gallery, and Writer - these Microsoft-developed programs add a lot of functionality to a new Windows 7 install.
Microsoft Security Essentials
Windows 7 is the latest and greatest, but Windows being Windows, you’re not going to venture out into the Wild Blue Yonder that is the Internet without some protection. The Microsoft-developed Microsoft Security Essentials is basic but functional antivirus that will keep you covered at no extra cost to you.
A new Web browser
Internet Explorer is okay for some people, and Microsoft has done a decent job with Internet Explorer 8. That being said, it leaves a lot to be desired – the default settings make it consume a lot of valuable screen space, and it’s just not as fast as the competition.
Everyone has his or her favorite Web browser – Mozilla Firefox is a popular and full-featured alternative with a lot of community-developed and useful add-ons, and anyone looking for a fast and clean interface might find a friend in Google’s Chrome.
An IM client
Windows Live Essentials comes with Windows Live Messenger, but what if you use AIM or Google Talk or Yahoo Messenger to keep in touch with your friends and family? What if you use a combination of all of the above?
For you, I might recommend Pidgin, an open-source chat client that can connect to all of the above simultaneously if you’d like it to. Its one major shortcoming is that it does not yet support video chat, but it is lightweight and completely ad-free.
An audio editor
Windows Live Movie Maker has you covered for making video, but what about audio? You don’t want to be stuck trying to make anything professional-sounding in Sound Recorder.
Audacity has you covered here. It’s a free audio recorder with lots of different effects, and you one-man bands out there can even use it as a multitrack audio recorder. It’s great for aspiring musicians, students who want to record lecturers, or Web 2.0 moguls who need to record and edit podcasts.
It can export audio into several different open-source formats, and you can download the Lame MP3 plugin (per directions at the site) and you can even export into the popular MP3 format!
