Most of the programs, which will be described and listed in this article, have existed for several generations of Windows. They are still popular, despite all the changes that have taken place in Windows, because they offer features that aren’t included in the operating system, work slightly better than built-in tools, or optimize performance.
None of these tools is “anti-malware”. They don’t change the Windows interface. These aren’t general applications (such as image editors, office tools, or web browsers). No. These are all niche tools with the sole purpose of making Windows better and more user-friendly. All are free or offer a free version.
CCleaner
CCleaner can quickly clear your browser history (when on a shared computer, you certainly don’t want other people to know that you watched explicit images or videos, gambled at casino sites by the link, etc.), cache, cookies, logs, temporary user passwords, and other background files that Windows and web browsers installed on your system have accumulated over time but aren’t required to run.
This can potentially regain a lot of storage space. It’s also good that CCleaner allows you to uninstall most Microsoft programs that come with Windows 10 and 11 that no operating system allows you to remove, such as Cortana and OneDrive.
DiskGenius Partition Wizard and the MiniTool tool
DiskGeniusName and the MiniTool Partition Wizard both help you create, duplicate, remove, share, resize, and merge HDD or SSD partitions on your PC. You may want to partition a large disk on your network, for example, to separate shared files from Windows.
Other utilities in these collections can, among other things, try to recover damaged or lost partitions, move your Windows system, and replicate all drive contents to another HDD. These two utilities are so similar that choosing between them comes down to choosing the one that has the interface you find most appealing.
We prefer DiskGenius to the other one because it can help migrating the computer’s main disk, which contains Windows, to a drive significantly tinier by automatically resizing it. Other disk management software frequently charge for this useful feature.
Typing the Word “All” After Installing the Everything Tool
After installing this tool, you can instantly find the files on your Windows computer. Start typing the file name letters in the “All” search box and watch the results decrease. The more letters you type, the shorter the list of results until Everything finds only the file you’re looking for.
Query output is displayed as file previews, and Everything generates thumbnails of your files in this preview mode just as quickly.
IObit Unlock and LockHunter
In Windows File Explorer, you may come across a file or folder that appears to be ‘locked’. You can’t delete it, change its name, or transfer it for some inexplicable reason. Because they are still linked to the program you used to access them, this can happen to images, files/documents, or videos.
Windows go wrong when ‘letting it go’ for some reason. IObit Unlock and Lock Hunter are both capable of resolving this issue. And each one will unlock that file or folder, allowing you to remove or modify it as you gout used to.
Keyfinder
Suppose you want to uninstall a licensed program from your current Windows computer and install it on another instead. Or you may need to format the main drive of your computer, which will require you to reinstall the licensed program afterward. Before uninstalling or formatting your drive, use the Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder to locate the license key for your program you lost somewhere.
The tool will scan your Windows computer for all licensed programs installed on it, generating a handy list with the license key of each program. You can then save all your license keys as a text file that you can access at any time. This handy utility can recover keys for more than 300 licensed programs.
Recuva
This program may be your best option for recovering a file that was mistakenly deleted and is no longer in the Windows Recycle Bin. Recuva will scan the storage in which the removed item was initially saved and present a rundown of lost files it finds. Every document in this ranking will be assigned a color that indicates how probable it is to be restored to its former form (the color that shows that deleted file is most likely to be recovered is green).
Recuva’s search tool will also sort the deleted files it finds. For example, if you’re looking for a document, you can search for deleted files for specific words that contain it.
Sandboxie
Windows 10 and 11 have built-in features that help prevent malicious software or programs from performing malicious activity on your computer. Sandboxie by Corn can lay out a more direct solution if you need to be extra cautious, such as when installing or executing an unsuitable program.
Sandboxie sets up a so-called “sandbox”, a tool separate from the rest of your data and program, to run that suspicious program. Sandboxie keeps all harmful operations contained in the sandbox if the software tries to run malware or your web browser downloads something terrible. This way, malware will not interfere with your computer’s normal operations by deleting, locking, or overwriting files.
Sandboxie also puts a handy shortcut on your desktop, which you can click at any time to launch your default browser in a protected environment.
Seer
The Seer tool copies a feature that Mac users love on macOS, Quick Look, and Windows. When you click on the file name and press the space bar at the same time, Seer loads the file preview.
It appears as a drifting image on the Windows desktop of it’s an image. If it’s a text file, PDF, or RTF, Seer opens the file in a simple preview app. You can also view compressed files (such as ZIP) by viewing their list of files. Seer can playback multimedia content, albeit the quality is inferior to that of a media player. You can also install add-ons to make this program capable of viewing a variety of file kinds, including documents created Microsoft Office.
Speccy
Once you launch Speccy, it examines your computer completely and categorizes your hardware into motherboard, storage, RAM, CPU, and other groups.
To examine the technical specifics of this component, select a category. Speccy, for example, will inform you about BIOS version number, motherboard chipset, and how many expansion slots it has under “Motherboard”. It will print all these detailed specifications or save them to a text file.
Wi-Fi Password Detection Tool
Finding Wi-Fi network passwords stored on your Windows 10 or 11 computer is a complicated process that involves reviewing the operating system’s network settings. Magic Jelly Bean’s WiFi Password Detector is the best type of utility because its name describes exactly what it does.
Just run it and it will display, all at once, the Wi-Fi networks you connected to your computer and their passwords if any. It also shows authentication and security encryption methods for each Wi-Fi network.
