Recently I had to freshly install Windows 10 and I opened my “software” folder and started installing stuff, which brought me to thinking:
After fresh Windows instal, what are the programs you instal first?
Browser: Firefox
Image viewer: IrfanView
Video player: MPC Home Cinema
Steam, because Steam
My motherboard software for fan control
To be fair, that is all I need basically…
How about you, and why you use one software instead of another?
https://chocolatey.org/install
choco install firefox googlechrome vscode nodejs python3 git 7zip obs-studio powershell-core adobe-creative-cloud mobaxterm steam -y
Enable Developer Mode
Install WSL Debian
Install Nvidia GeForce Experience
Install Premiere and Audition
Browser: Firefox (ofc) + Lastpass and Sync
7zip
Nvidia Drivers
Steam
Logitech Software
Razer Software (Crap, but what do you do…)
VLC
Streamlink
Varying clients (Origin, Epic…)
And then some more specfic things for me
Reaper (DAW)
Audio Drivers for Interfaces and such
Rig Manager (for my Kemper Amp)
Some USB to Midi and Ipad to Midi Stuff.
So, a whole bunch of stuff really. But since i dual boot Linux and am great in selecting the wrong disk on Installation i’ve streamlined my Installation routine down to about two hours -.- I probably should be more carefull, but i like starting with a fresh install of Windows. I basically do that ever 1-3 months 
First I uninstall everything I can from the fucking bloody mess that is Microsoft’s degenerate bloatware. I also adjust the settings.
Firefox, cause fuck Edge/IE.
7zip
Drivers, the newest ones from the manufacturer’s website, and also MSI Afterburner and hardware monitoring software (HWinfo64, etc).
Steam, GoG Galaxy, Blizzard Launcher. I refuse to install any more launchers, especially when they’re exclusive to one publisher.
VLC, Foobar2000 (the latter I keep backed up on a flash drive/ext. HDD as portable version so I can just copy paste it over and don’t have to set it up again from zero), Calibre.
iCue, for keyboard+mouse (until recently I used the thumb buttons on my mouse a lot, so macros were a must).
Thunderbird, cause emails. I prefer having all my accounts viewable in one place.
Discord, my #1 choice for “no internet connection” alarm.
Deluge, torrent.
I think those are my basics.
After that I add some programs I use less often, like Photoscape, WinDirStat, LibreOffice, etc.
Why do you use MPC? It’s discontinued afaik. Last update is from 2017.
Came here for the Chocolatey goodness.
choco install chocolateygui firefox vlc peazip libreoffice libreoffice-help irfanview irfanviewplugins audacity kindle googlechrome googleearth googledrive adobereader skype dropbox lastpass win32-openssh windirstat wget httrack putty winscp procexp infrarecorder rufus sudo kvrt
No shit. Discord can smell that stuff. It knows my Internet is down before my Modem does
Oh, that is a given… I remove them all…
Firefox
Putty
VirtualBox
Steam
Discord
Notepad++
7-zip
Thunderbird
VLC
foobar2000
Cura
I’m not going to go over all the programs other mentioned so I’ll add only the ones I install:
Not much else really. Those are the programs I really need to have on my PC (along side many other mentioned like Chrome, Notepad++, Winrar and so on).
P.S. Waaait, forgot one big thing I always install: VMware. Amazing, I wouldn’t go back to VirtualBox even with a gun to my head.
First for me is ALWAYS open shell, because screw whatever that windows 10 start menu thing is.
Then I go for shutup10 to help trim some of the fat.
Lastly Equalizer APO and Peace for a nice system wide EQ/DSP. Peace is just a GUI for Equalizer APO and will also install it for you.
notable mentions for me in no particular order:
VLC
Chrome
7-Zip
Discord
Steam
CoreTemp
Chrome
TeamViewer
Discord
Steam / GoG (and all that jazz)
virtualbox
7zip
MSI Afterburner
Coretemp
VLC
Go to ninite.com, the first and last time I use Edge. (except for testing)
Select all of the things I want then let it do it’s thing.
I’m a PIA subscriber so I go grab their VPN tool thingie.
Down some random script from the net linked from some dudes YouTube video. clean out most if not all of the annoying Windows 10 features.
(OK I did read through the script before running it, honest)
rufus
linux iso
etc…
I tried using chocolatey as it’s a neat idea, but ended up hating it in practice due to the retarded way certain program repositories were configured to install, causing issues with missing config files (notepad++?), strangely slow program startups, and needless command prompts having to be open (sumatraPDF?).
There’s also my strong hatred of dumping programs that have nothing to do with each other into one big stupid folder. While unix’s have spent all sorts of effort whitewashing that issue with their package managers, on windows it’s openly ugly. There were also some usability annoyances I don’t specifically recall as well.
Past the initial setup, I don’t really add or remove programs much, so it’s not like it even really saved me time either. It’s been a year or two so I don’t recall the details or if anything has improved, but I’m not keen to go back. The base program is ok, but it’s got a 3rd party quality problem.
I say this, because I’ve never seen anything but glowing opinions of it. I just want to let that one other contrarian out there know he isn’t alone!
A good portion of these are proprietary software I wish I could quit, but the open source alternatives had/have a variety of failings that prevent them from actually being alternatives for my use and ability. Furthermore I am afraid of change and don’t have much time for that shit anyways so I spend my software days angry and full of loathing.
Fedora Meda Writer is the only fucking USB iso writer that’s easy to use in both linux and windows, and also seems to work every time. Rufus and Etcher always seem to choke one something eventually. It also easily let’s me completely reset a usb stick, without having to fuck around with DD which I frankly don’t understand and don’t think most others really do either, which makes it hazardous. I still need to try out YUMI
Firefox (preferred browser). Plugins: ublock origin, Save Page WE, Dark Reader, OneTab, The Great Suspender, Absolute Enable Right To Click, The Camelizer, ViolentMonkey, (google) View Image. I also use Shadowfox to fix the whole clusterfuck that is dark themes.
Chrome (Required to because job/Okta)
Notepad++ One of those things where I love the art, but hate the artist.
qBittorrent for all my linux isos.
SMPlayer (Using mpv. Also you can easily change the stupid default theme) (RIP MPC-HC ;_; MPC-BE has bugs, VLC can eat shit. On it’s own MPV’s keyboard shortcut based UI is fucking awful who came up with that bullshit.)
Hard Disk Sentinel There’s also a linux version, though I’ve yet to have time to properly try it out.
Python3 Python2 needs to fucking die already.
Youtube-dl (renamed to “yt” for ease of use. I suppose I could set up aliases or something, but to hell with screwing around with that on windows.)
Office365, provided by work
Icaros is a really nice thumbnail format extension for windows.
Irfanview + plugins
JDownloader I fucking hate this poorly designed piece of shit but it’s too useful to ignore.
Locate32 (Not really installed, I just copy it into a “Utilities” folder. Locate32 is no longer developed, but works well (with only occasional and minor graphical bugs when resizing the window). I find it easier to use as a manually run indexer for finding things in my massive data collecting in my NAS. Does a great job with thumbnails and network drives. Most other people probably want “Everything”
sst27 same thing as with locate32, as well as adding it to my path. I only really used tee and have now migrated all my scripts to my OMV/Debian NAS, but anyone who scripts with windows should definitely have a look. Shell Scripting Toolkit (contains TEE) sst27.zip (481.5 KB)
Bit of a OT, but do they have unlimited Data? I’d like to get a VPN but would want to use it often for Youtube and Netflix. The Information is hard to get by. Most Providers only talk about Bandwidth.
On my machine, this is usually what I throw on there:
Media:
VLC Mediaplayer
Musicbee
Irfan View
K-Lite Codec Pack
Flixster Video
Cyberlink PowerDVD 12 (worst programm EVER)
Content Creation:
Sony Vegas 13
Shotcut
Serif Affinity Designer
Serif PagePlus X9 (hope to replace this with Affinity Publisher soon)
Serif PhotoPlus X6 (to be replaced with Affinity Photo)
Audacity
No 23 Recorder
Handbrake
OBS Studio
Krita
Scretchbook
Cannon Photo Stitch
System management:
Process Explorer
Autoruns
MSI Afterburner
Mainboard fan controll (currently ASRock F-Stream)
Ryzen Master
Process Lasso
Windows Firewall Control
DiskInfo
HWinfo
GPU-Z
WinDirStat
Communication:
Telegram
Thunderbird
Discord
Teamspeak
Launchers:
GOG
Steam
League Launcher
Battlenet
Origin (sigh)
Games:
Microsoft Pinball (yes, the XP one)
Starcraft (the old one)
NFSMW
Development:
VSCode (and the 14 pluggins I have there)
Fritzing
Oracle VirtualBox
Julia
Logisim
Netbeans
KiCAD
Notepad++
Misc:
qbittorrent (used to sync data between notebook and desktop)
LibreOffice
A soundcard scope
Geogebra
FireFox
Vivaldi
Chromium
Opera
Radeon RAMDisk
Remotetutilities
Comodo Firewall
Avast
Firefox + ublock origin + noscript + https everywhere
Vlc
Putty
Winscp
Filezilla
KeePass2
Malwarebytes
7-Zip
Acronis True Image
Ccleaner
LibreOffice
Foxit Reader
Wise Registry Cleaner
Wise Disk Cleaner
Veracrypt
Y?
Y again?
^ This is the basis.
In addition, depending on the needs and the machine:
K-Lite Codec Pack
HD Tune Pro
inSSIDer Home
Spotify
ProtonVPN
Tor Browser
Freemake Video Converter
CPU-Z
CrystalDiskInfo
Etcher
Hard Disk Sentinel
HostsMan (not anymore, Pi Hole does the job)
Kingston SSD Manager (Because A400)
ADATA SSD Toolbox (Because SU800)
VirtualBox
PatchCleaner
Windows Installer CleanUp Utility
Norton Power Eraser
AS SSD Benchmark
ATTO Disk Benchmark
CrystalDiskMark
MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition
WinDirStat
Specially for Windows 10 I am testing:
Ashampoo AntiSpy
Spybot Anti-Beacon
O&O ShutUp10
Destroy Windows 10 Spying