SHAREWARE & FREEWARE    ESSENTIAL UTILITIES
Motherboard Monitor Motherboard Monitor tracks CPU and system temperature plus fan speed and can pop up or transmit an alert if the CPU starts to overheat or a fan fails. Very useful if you build your own PC; absolutely essential if you overclock. Monitor supports a vast range of motherboards and sensors, so do refer to the guide to choosing correct sensors on the Motherboard Monitor home page. It does take a little getting used to but is by far the best of its kind and infinitely more versatile than the monitor that ships with VIA motherboards.

WCPUID WCPUID might seem a waste of time since it only claims to report the CPU clock speed but the current version 3.0, which is available on the author's website, will report everything you ever wanted to know (and more) about your CPU and its chipset. If you're overclocking, or need to confirm the exact version of your motherboard chipset before installing drivers, or you're buying a PC and want to run a quick check to see what's actually inside the box, WCPUID is your friend and, unlike most similar utilities, it fits on a floppy disk.

BIOS The eponymous BIOS program displays information about your BIOS, including BIOS extensions and beep codes; lets you find BIOS passwords (Award and AMI) and discover Award BIOS universal passwords. In addition, this DOS-based command-line utility can switch the first and second-level caches on or off, and turn off your PC (requires APM 1.2 or later). It can also save your BIOS settings to disk and restore them, though this feature seems to be unreliable. A Windows shell version of the program, Win Bios, is also available.

Sisoft Sandra Sandra is a system analysis and troubleshooting utility. It packs in a huge range of modules, covering everything from CPU and BIOS analysis to OpenGL and DirectX. In every case, Sandra reports valuable performance data, reveals what features are or are not supported, and even offers tips on tweaks you can make to improve the system. The tests are demanding, and there is a burn-in feature that runs them continuously for deliberately stressing a new or suspect system. Sandra is the overclocker's friend, providing evidence for improvements gained, and is ideal for any system builder who wants to check and optimise performance.

Ad Aware Adware is software financed by banner adverts embedded in the application: periodically, these adverts are replaced by a new set when you connect to the Internet. Its critics call it 'spyware', claiming that such products transmit details of the user's browsing habits back to base surreptitiously, and in some cases this information gathering continues after the original Adware host has been uninstalled. You can make up your own mind on the pros and cons, but Lavasoft's Ad Aware scans your Registry and hard drives for known spyware and lets you remove it safely.

Zonealarm Zonealarm improves the security of Internet-connected Windows PCs. It closes some of the more glaring holes in Windows security, Net Bios for instance, which many Windows users don't even know about. It also serves as a deterrent to people who try to break into your PC from the Internet and, most usefully, stops software, such as Trojans, that you may inadvertently have installed, making outgoing calls from your computer. ZoneAlarm supports modem, ISDN, cable and DSL connections. It works with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000 and XP, and there's a paid-for version, Zonealarm Pro, that you'll need if you use your PC as a gateway.

Tweak UI A truly essential utility for Windows; this installs itself as an extra icon in the Control Panel. From there, it lets you customise 'unreachable' parts of the interface, and a lot more besides. You can hide Desktop icons, Control Panel items, and disk drives from prying eyes; change menu speeds and animation; change the appearance of shortcuts; and clear history lists such as Recent Documents. Tweak UI also has a 'Repair' feature that will rebuild damaged icons, reinstate the standard file associations and restore the special properties of folders such as Fonts and Temporary Internet Files.

RegCleaner Regcleaner prunes the Windows Registry with a twist, seeking out the parts other Registry cleaners like Microsoft Regclean don't reach. Regcleaner displays a list of all the programs referenced in the Registry and allows you to delete their Registry entries. Sounds simple but is enormously useful if you frequently install shareware utilities and games demos. These don't always uninstall cleanly and have been known to leave detritus in the Registry that gradually builds up like limescale in a kettle, slowing down Registry access. This is an essential tool for all Windows users. It is very easy to use but needs to be employed with utmost care.

RegMon Regmon uniquely offers realtime monitoring of the Windows Registry. It's especially useful for fixing Windows applications that won't install or run properly unless the user logs on as administrator. Typically afflicting older applications that are not fully Windows 2000-compliant, they refuse to run under standard user logins because they are denied access to Registry keys reserved for administrator access. Because the keys are only accessed when the application runs, Regmon's realtime monitoring of the Registry is often the only way to identify the keys that need to be given user rights so that everyone can run the application.

Win 9x/Me

NT/2K/XP

XP 64bit
Xteq X-Setup X-Setup is Tweak UI on steroids. Running in two modes, X-Setup lets you easily change hundreds of hidden settings ? not only for Windows, but also for a multitude of popular programs and games. The program's secret is its plug-in modularity, which provides an Explorer-like tree display so that you can navigate to the settings you want to change. In Wizard mode, you can pick a topic of interest from the menu and X-Setup runs the appropriate wizard to help you change the settings in a step-by-step process. You can even change the colours of the 'Blue Screen of Death'. It is also a great system tune-up tool and it can help to speed up and optimise any Windows 32bit-based PC. In addition, because software and hardware change so quickly, X-Setup can be updated with new plug-ins to keep it up to date.




Winzip Winzip allows you to create your own Zip archives, or simply open other people's. Large archives can be split into manageable portions, to fit onto separate floppies, CDs or overcome file limitations on some email systems. Zip archives can be password-protected for security, while nice integration with Windows sees Zip options offered throughout Explorer. Installing Winzip should be compulsory.

Acrobat Reader 5 The Acrobat format has taken off to such an extent that it's hard not to come across PDF files on your daily browse around the web. To view them, you'll need a copy of the free Acrobat reader, which also integrates itself into your browser. This allows you to download and view one page at a time if required, although impatient readers will prefer to download the whole PDF file and flick at their own speed.

Real-one Player There can be few that haven't heard of Realplayer, and while the latest Real-one version is happy to handle audio and video files from your disk, it's happiest streaming exclusive content from the Internet. While much of this remains free (such as many international radio stations), Real Networks is clearly focusing on selling subscription-based access to streaming video clips and services. To watch these movies, you'll need the Real-one Superpass, which will cost you $9.95 per month.

Internet Explorer 6 The latest version 6 already comes with Windows XP, but also runs on Windows 98 onwards. Improved privacy controls help you keep track of cookies on a site-by-site basis if necessary, thereby ensuring your information and preferences are kept private. A new image toolbar appears when your mouse hovers over a picture, allowing you to instantly save, print or email it, along with the facility to scale the image to fit in the Window.

Winamp While most of today's players are fighting for all your media, be it video, audio, streaming or otherwise, Winamp has stuck firmly to core values: namely managing and playing audio alone. It's a great-looking audio player, with a graphic equaliser, spectrum analyser and number of plug-in visualisations which can keep you amused for hours. Which brings us to the playlists, which really could end up playing music for hours or days if desired.

WCPUID This compact utility displays information about your system, concentrating on processor and bus speeds. It's become the standard to check exactly what CPU you're running, whether it's being pushed a little too hard by an unscrupulous supplier, or simply to prove how far you've overclocked your chip. Delve beyond the main page though and you'll find plenty of detailed information on your main chipset, memory, cache, graphics chipset, motherboard and extended instruction that are sets supported by your CPU.

XOSL multi-boot Setting up multiple operating systems on a single PC can be far from straightforward, especially when three or more OS's are involved. Enter the Extended Operating System Loader, or XOSL for short. XOSL lets you easily set up different operating systems on a single PC, and control them with a graphical interface. XOSL also makes it easy to password protect an OS, or hide one from prying eyes entirely. You will need to set up a separate partition for each operating system though, and keep both the manual and your wits about you.

Systeminfo Systeminfo provides basic information about the internals of your PC, including the type of processor, total memory, disk configuration, network data and OS version. It's not a patch on WCPUID for precision processor clock and bus speeds, but contains a wider range of system information and works well as a complementary utility. Very handy for discovering what's inside your PC and see how it's running without having to get your hands dirty.

IR Assistant IR Assistant allows you to create macros to emulate mouse actions, keyboard presses and launch programs exactly the way you want. These macros can be executed by joysticks, infra-red remote controls or even (with the right hardware) GSM text messages from a mobile phone. The IR side of things works with a wide range of infra-red modules, and it can even learn commands from many popular domestic remote controls. So before long, your Sony TV remote control could be launching macros on your PC to activate your MP3 collection.

Quick Cleanup Whether its crisps, part of a sandwich or a doughnut, there can be few PC users who haven't managed to drop a piece of rogue food into their keyboard at some time or another. If you're too busy to shut down your system for cleaning, before restarting and reopening all your applications and documents again, this utility disables your keyboard and mouse temporarily so you can shake and wipe to your hearts content, without your PC being any wiser to it.



AVG 6.0 Anti-virus Running anti-virus software is absolutely essential in this day and age, but peace of mind doesn't necessarily have to involve handing over your credit card details. AVG is an anti-virus package that's absolutely free of charge. It features all the things you'd expect from a commercial anti-virus package, such as updates to recognise the latest nasties, and a scheduler to perform scans at convenient times.

Stuffit Expander 7 While Winzip will take care of virtually every type of compressed archive that's sent to a Windows user, there are times when you could receive a format that it can't handle. Most commonly, a Macintosh user could transport a number of files to you in the HQX format, in which case you're stuck. Unless you've got a copy of Stuffit Expander of course! Aladdin Systems has thankfully produced free versions of Stuffit Expander for Windows, Linux and Solaris platforms, along with MacOS.

PowerToys Powertoys is a collection of utilities and tools produced by Microsoft developers after Windows itself has been released to manufacturing. At the time of writing, there were 10 Powertoys available for Windows XP, including a graphing calculator, a self-executing slideshow generator, a webcam controller, and even an Alt-Tab replacement which showed a preview icon of the actual document being worked on - great when you're running, say, multiple sessions of an Office application. .

FreshUI At first glance the FreshUI utility appears to offer similar facilities to Microsoft's own TweakUI, but it goes several steps further, offering a number of (mostly on or off) settings to modify aspects of the desktop user interface from the start menu to the task tray, but additionally includes sections on network, power management, shutdown and startup, along with a couple to modify how Windows talks to various hardware devices. .

DirectX 8.1 While not exactly a utility in the same sense as most of the others in this feature, DirectX remains an essential download none-the-less. DirectX is a suite of APIs (Application Program Interfaces), which basically allow software to communicate with your multimedia hardware, from 3D graphics and audio to joysticks and mice. Indeed most multimedia devices demand the latest version to be installed for compatibility. The latest version 8.1 works with Windows 98 upwards and is included as standard with Windows XP.

Folderinfo Folderinfo delivers detailed reports about the contents of any folder on your PC. More than just simply right-clicking a folder and requesting its Properties, Folderinfo returns a wealth of data including file name, size, date and allocated space. Cleverly it'll also tell you immediately what's new in the folder, which is handy for comparing and managing files. Folderinfo can also output a report in HTML or direct for printing, detailing the precise contents of a folder and any sub-folders within.

Wordweb If you've ever felt the Dictionary or Thesaurus in popular Office applications doesn't go far enough, consider installing a copy of Wordweb instead. This little utility sits patiently in your SystemTray, waiting for you to enter a word. It'll then offer a definition, along with synonyms and even types of, or parts of, the word you've entered. Wordweb is also a dab hand at solving anagrams and filling in the blanks, but this feature is sadly not available in the free version.

Openoffice Sun Microsystem's Staroffice was, until very recently, a free download. With the launch of Staroffice 6, Sun has changed its policy: the full office application suite would now charged at (a still very reasonable) £50, while a new completely free version called Openoffice would be made available via the website. You get a fully-featured word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation graphics program which are all compatible with Microsoft Office, along with an HTML editor, maths and a drawing package.

Tweaking Toolbox Serious tweakers of the Windows user interface could often be entirely satisfied by Microsoft's own TweakUI utility, but with the launch of the XP version, much of the really cool stuff has gone missing. Fortunately Tweaking Toolbox offers a magnificent array of adjustments including removal of clutter or so-called unremoveable components, setting up advanced restrictions, and ensuring Windows looks and works the way you want it to.

Girder Girder is a Windows automation utility. Commands are stored in a tree-like structure and are triggered by what Girder calls events. It can be a little daunting to setup at first, but fortunately Girder is the darling of many enthusiasts who use their PCs as home entertainment centres, and want to emulate the single key-press control of conventional domestic systems. As such you'll find plenty of web forums offering support and advice on configuring it with a vast array of devices.



Netscape 6.2 Netscape 6.2 is a full online suite consisting of the Navigator web browser, Netscape Mail, Netscape Instant Messenger, Netscape Composer, and Netscape Address Book. All the components are well integrated, as are the alternative mail client, address book and instant messenger from Netscape ally, AOL. Netscape also cites a common look and feel on Windows, Macintosh and Unix platforms as a good reason to upgrade from a "non-Netscape browser".

Opera Opera is a compact alternative to the big two browsers. The non-Java version is just 3.4MB, but in our tests with an ADSL connection under Windows XP, it fully opened web pages at the same speed as Internet Explorer 6. That said, Opera is also good at encryption, supports all the important standards, and offers a built-in facility to suppress all pop-up windows to the background, or not show them at all (most pop-up killers require payment of some kind).

Mozilla The first major release of Mozilla arrived in June of this year and is already acquiring many followers. This open-source web browser is currently available for Windows, MacOS and Linux. As a browser it's certainly very good, although immediately recognisable as born from the Netscape source code. Indeed the Mozilla toolkit is also being used to develop Netscape. Unless you're a developer, or want to be truly unique though, you're probably better off using Netscape or Opera instead.

Eudora 5.1 Eudora is an email program which fits somewhere between Outlook Express and outlook, but offers some additional features such as SSL encryption and authentication, virus warnings on attachments (which can also be dragged straight onto the desktop), along with a Moodwatch facility which can flag words or phrases that could be potentially offensive. There are three versions of Eudora: paid, sponsored and light. The sponsored version has all the features of the commercial product, but displays adverts, while the light version is missing some features, but is advert-free.

Trillian AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ and IRC all have their separate merits, but are incompatible with each other. It'd be fine if all your friends were on one system, but more commonly they're spread amongst them all. While the big players argue it out, allow Trillian to come to the rescue. This single instant messaging client is compatible with all of the above systems, and allows you to see all those available for chatting from a single list.

Google Toolbar Google Toolbar is designed exclusively for Internet Explorer 5 or later and offers you instant access to a variety of Google facilities. First you can use Google from any web page, and also use Google to drill-down within the website you're currently visiting. Further buttons allow you to access Google's image search, Google groups and Google's web directory. There's also a graphical bar representing the page rank.

AIM 4.8 AIM 4.8 goes way beyond just simple instant messaging. Along with the familiar buddy icons, direct file transfer and voice communications, AIM 4.8 offers an email facility. After storing your buddy's email address for the first time, it's a doddle to click on the mail icon and send them a message - great for if they're not currently online at the time. Sadly you can only send messages if you have an AOL, Compuserve or Netscape email address though.

ICQ Launched in 1996, ICQ was arguably the first popular instant messaging program that wasn't limited to an ISP's own subscribers. The concept of sending instant messages to any other ICQ user on the Internet took off quickly with one million users after just seven months. In ICQ, users are still identified by a unique number, which today seems a little old-fashioned. Once you're up and running though it feels like any other instant messaging system, where you can chat, exchange files, check out message boards or join specialist user groups.

Download Accelerator Plus This download manager claims to increase download speeds by up to 300 per cent. DAP performs this trick by locating the most responsive server using a proximity test, and by also splitting the file(s) into several segments and accessing them from multiple sources if necessary. In our tests with an ADSL connection, DAP was only faster in a handful of occasions, but always saved you the trouble of manually selecting the fastest or closest server.

Go!Zilla Go!Zilla also claims to accelerate download speeds by employing a mirror-search database and multi-part downloading, where the desired file(s) could end up being accessed from multiple sources. Like DAP, it certainly found the fastest sources and kept track of your files. Downloads can be scheduled, and Zips automatically unzipped ready for installation in a single click. A leech facility can also download all the files which make up a website - handy for beginners in web design.



Imageforge Windows' own Paint program falls just a little short on basic functionality, which is where utilities like Imageforge come in. Imageforge opens and saves in a large number of graphics formats, and offers effects to blur, sharpen, posterise, halftone and engrave. There's also the usual sliders to adjust the hue and saturation, brightness and gamma, along with an auto-contrast tool. It's hardly super-advanced stuff, but enough to make your digital camera pictures or scans look punchier.

Powerstrip 3.20 Today's graphics card drivers offer a wealth of options to change and tweak display settings, but none are a patch on Powerstrip 3.20. Powerstrip offers the best part of 500 controls over your display hardware, including colour correction, advanced timings, precision refresh rates and the creation of unusual custom resolutions. Remarkably this single version happily works with the vast majority of graphics chipsets and cards on the market.

Irfanview Irfanview is a great utility for opening and saving in a vast range of graphics file formats, with a reasonable amount of manipulation features to boot. Effects include blur, emboss, oil paint, edge detection, explosion and pixelise, while the enhance colours option allows you to adjust red, green and blue levels, along with brightness and contrast. Sharpening and resolution adjustments are included too.

Photoplus 5 Serif's Photoplus is a considerably more sophisticated offering. The latest version 8 is a full commercial product, but Serif offers the earlier version 5 for free. Along with the usual image enhancements, Photoplus offers more advanced selection tools, editable text, and a variety of shapes who's appearance can be adjusted with a number of sliders. When it comes to exporting your images, Photoplus offers the invaluable facility of a preview with an expected file size. Image slicing and maps are also offered for web designers.

Mosaic Creator You know those giant images which actually consist of a montage of tiny photos? With Mosaic Creator, you can create your own. It's an eight step process which can be as easy or complex as you like. You start by choosing your main image, followed by the selection of tiny images which will make up the montage. Next you specify the size and shape of the each cell, along with any further enhancements such as blurring and masking. The trial version is restricted by limited file sizes.

DVD Genie Regional coding applies on PCs to both DVD-Rom drives and the player itself, whether hardware or software-based. Fortunately DVD Genie can unlock the vast majority of software DVD players, including PowerDVD, SoftDVD and the one which comes with ATI graphics cards. Depending on your configuration, you may find the actual Rom drive still poses a regional problem, but a quick browse on the website for DVD Genie reveals a list of firmware updates that will unlock many popular DVD drives on the market.

FreeDVD FreeDVD is a utility which does exactly as its title suggests: namely playing DVD movies for free. The interface consists of little more than play, pause and skip buttons and there's none of the advanced audio decoding or region options you'd find on the popular SoftDVD or PowerDVD packages. So there's no frills, but it does play DVD movies for free and the quality looks fine on a PC monitor.

Quicktime player Today's reality of exclusive content licenses means the average PC user has at least two media players in their system, and one of these will almost certainly be Quicktime. Apple has put an enormous effort into ensuring many of the hottest movie trailers, previews and clips are available only in the Quicktime format, which simply means you'll need the Quicktime player if you want to see them.

DivX playa DivX is a video compression technology developed by DivXNetworks, based on the MPEG-4 system. The DivX CODEC (compressor / decompressor) allows you to create your own DivX files, or view them in a suitable media player, such as DivXNetworks' own Playa. The DivX CODEC isn't available separately, but you get it with the Playa. DivX could be used for delivering trailers, but most people are using it to sufficiently compress entire feature films so they can be transported on single CD Roms or over the Internet.

TMPG encoder Turning your home movies into DVDs is this year's killer application, and a number of excellent packages are available that look after all the tricky stuff for you. The most intensive part of this process is turning your video clips into the MPEG-2 format required by DVD. TMPG encoder is a standalone utility that can convert standard AVI video files into MPEG-2. Encoding options include a number of variable and constant bit rates, up to an incredibly high quality 8Mbit/s setting.



Cloak If you want to effectively hide information, this technology, known as Stenography, involves the process of encrypting data within bitmapped pictures. Cloak performs this process using Blowfish, Mercury, or 128-bit encryption algorithms, on top of which you can also add a password. Cloak is happy to encrypt any type of file, be it a document, spreadsheet, presentation, or an executable. The free download version of Cloak only gives you ten goes before it asks for a payment of £20.

Ad Aware 5.83 PCs are reporting our movements and preferences or serving targeted advertising without us even being aware of it. The software driving this is known as spyware. Web programmers may assure us that a well-meaning cookie can actually enhance the browsing experience, but if you're unhappy about any of this going on in your system you should install a copy of Ad Aware. This neat utility scans your memory, registry and hard disks for known spyware and advertising systems, and allows you to remove them safely.

A-Lock 6.0 Whether it's sensitive business or sensitive gossip, there are plenty of times when we'd prefer more security in our email. The solution is to encrypt the messages and only allow their intended recipient to decrypt them at the other end. This is where A-Lock comes in. Simply type your message as normal in your email program, then click the A-Lock icon in the task tray in order to encrypt it. If you receive encrypted messages, follow the same process.

Kremlin At its simplest, Kremlin will take a file and encrypt it using one of six algorithms, including RC4, DES, IDEA or Blowfish, with keys up to 160-bits long. This is so secure, the US Government considers it a munition! Encrypting is as easy as right-clicking the file in question and selecting Kremlin Encrypt. The resulting encrypted file has an apt .KGB file extension. Kremlin also offers a secure recycling bin on your desktop, the contents of which are permanently deleted straightaway.

Web Window Killer Pop-ups are the bane of the modern web surfer and, unsurprisingly, there are numerous utilities that claim to eliminate them. The only problem is that you must pay for the vast majority. However, this small unassuming utility that can eliminate annoying pop-ups. The key behind it is a list of so-called hostile entries, that Web Window Killer will subsequently look for and close the instant they try to raise their heads.

Zonealarm A firewall protects your PC from external attacks by blocking access from specific sources or services. Firewalls were traditionally boxes that protected entire networks, but with the advent of always-on Internet connections in homes and small offices, the popularity of software firewalls has risen dramatically. Easily the best-known software firewall is Zonealarm, which is free for personal use. Once activated, Zonealarm waits patiently in the SystemTray for an external request to access your machine, at which point it can simply block it, or ask your permission.

Tiny Personal Firewall 2.0 Tiny Software offers a number of products including the highly capable Personal Firewall 3.0. This is a very powerful firewall that's designed for deployment in medium to large enterprises, and carries a hefty price tag. Fortunately for this feature, Tiny Software also offers the free Personal Firewall 2.0. It's a pretty basic firewall that's designed to protect your machine from external network access.

Devicelock Provided your PC is running Windows NT, 2000 or XP, Devicelock allows the administrator of that system to assign rights on all drives, and even the serial and parallel ports. You can specify full access, no access, prevent ejecting, or combinations of the above, during specific times of the day and week. It's also possible to selectively change these rights depending on who's logged in at the time.

HTML Guard 2.11 Have you ever found a website that bears an uncanny resemblance to your own? It wouldn't be so bad if your site had been used for inspiration, but the reality is that entire batches of HTML code have been nabbed without your permission. HTML Guard allows you to encrypt HTML source code, along with disabling text selection, right-mouse clicks, and even printing from within a browser.

Email remover It's way too easy to email huge files around these days, and there are few things more frustrating than having your email inbox blocked by massive or unsolicited messages. Fortunately Email Remover will quickly download the subject headers and first few lines of your pending messages - you can check them out and delete where necessary, after which you can use your normal email client to access your desired messages.