[Vuluts]

Let's open this thread as it helps those individuals to know what a  MUST essentials to be installed for a FRESH format PC / Laptop.


MUST

• Microsoft Visual C++ (Version may be differ based on the requirements of the software)
  
• Microsoft .NET Framework (Version may be differ based on the requirements of the software)
  
• DirectX
  
• Java JRE
  
• Java JDK
  
• Updated drivers
  

NEEDED

• Browsers (Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and etc.)
  
• Microsoft Office / Open Office
  
• Extractor (7zip / Winzip and etc.)
  

These two essentials are a MUST to be installed on a FRESH format PC / Laptop it is because this are a pre-requisite essentials to run a software without getting any errors.

Comment down below your suggestions and if possible indicate why this essentials is a MUST, so I include it on the main topic so it can easily locate.

[tiwil]

I agreed with both of yours, but I also remembered to install:
1. Browser, other than Microsoft Edge, usually Google Chrome
2. DirectX, nah this one is a must to install.
3. Driver software?

That's what I should install on every fresh Windows installation, for Linux, no need to install three of them lol.

[rudra]

i dont know about must install. cause you can get by without any of the above or mine. On the other hand, drivers are like part of os and not utility softwares. so i would like to keep them out of this list.
now if you are interested in my list of softwares i install on my own computer after a fresh install/reinstall, those would be,
comodo firewall and mawarebytes av for on demand scan [after disabling windows update, firewall and defender],
ungoogled chromium with ublock origin [after i remove default browser like edge or whatever] ,
klite mega kodec pack, daum pot player,
vlc, python3, java latest (i do openjdk 11 now),
notepad++, some good hex viewer editor,
audacity, gimp, inkscape, virtualbox, wireshark, fiddler, etc.

i also do have a folder with nginx (with proper conf to share drives i want to), portable winscp, putty etc that i copy over to the system immediately after installation.

edit. i dont condon piracy. i dont install qbittorrent.

[xdude]

The first thing I install after a refresh OS installation is Comodo Security Suite. I guess thats what everyone should do before visiting any sites. I usually download and keep most important installers such as Comodo, Firefox, Chrome etc, before starting the installation. That way no need to browse before installing virus guard. I guess drivers don't count here ? xD

I think rest of the stuff is just user preference rather than mandatory. Other software which I installed right after are,

01. FileZilla,Bitvise SSH Client.
02. Adobe Photoshop
03. Adobe Dreamweaver
04. VNC Player
05. qBittorrent

[tryp4vps]

Great sharing.

Well, here is my list for the MUST essentials to be installed for a fresh formatted PC/Laptop (for Windows):

- Firefox Portable
- Git,
- DirectX,
- notepad++,
- Microsoft Office,
- Microsoft Visual C++ (the Redistributables only, not the whole software),
- Microsoft .NET Framework,
- 7z,
- Java jre,
- Java jdk,
- Putty,
- WinSCP.

[deanhills]

With my last reformat of my desktop computer hard disk and reinstallation of Windows 7 Professional in 2016, Windows 7 prompted me for installing a few softwares including Microsoft .NET Framework and a few others. Like Windows is quite helpful in prompting what is needed to make software work. I just did what it asked me to do, except when it got to automatic updates. About a year after the reformatting of my hard disk the updates started to screw up some of my tools including the security tools and my VPN. I suspect that some of the updates are also for Windows 10 and since they get bundled together, one doesn't know what one is getting and it's creating a problem for my Windows 7. Easiest for me was just to completely turn the updates off.

My first priority loading software is an anti-virus software - I have Kaspersky, but since Kaspersky has got too big causing my system to slow down, I'm with Microsoft Security Essentials and the free version of Malwarebytes. With my next installation I'm going to try xdude's recommendation for the Comodo Security Suite. I load both Firefox and Chrome browsers. Firefox is for main browser and chrome backup browser. I also need to load IE for Microsoft. I also load FileZilla and GIMP. Then of course Microsoft Office. I use Notepad quite a bit and Notepad++ occasionally. Last but not the least my Pure VPN - which I don't recommend, but since I signed up for 3 years, I'm using it for when I have to use PayPal. When I upgrade my hardware in a couple or so years, I'll probably upgrade to Windows 10 or whatever Windows is the one my new hardware has been designed for. I hope I'll still have a snip tool as I use that a lot.

[xdude]

I do have MS Office too but these days I'm more and more turning towards Google Docs and Google Sheets. I found it comes handy for most of my MS office related things. Plus it auto saves in Google Drive and I can access it to anytime anywhere at long as im connected to internet. Plus I can share docs to anyone I want fast and also work on a sheet or doc as team too easily. Along with Google Input tools you can use your local languages too for Documents. That's another tool I have started using and liking very much. But for printing Google Docs which you wrote in local languages using something like input tools Google Chrome works lot better than Firefox.

[rudra]

but google is banking on usability and convenience to get to all your docs man. it is a fact that people value convenience over efficiency or security. so basically you are openly sharing your docs with google. :p

also i dunno why that guy above mentioned both java jre and jdk. jdk has jre components in it too.

[xdude]

You need to use them smarting. All bit companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft do data mining. So you need to know what to share or what to store in cloud. But most of our documents don't have data or secrets worth enough to worry about it. After all I get to use to for free for my stuff so if they can salvage something out of it is fine with me. Someone has to pay for those servers too. We can't expect them to offer all those for free out of generosity. lol

[deanhills]

@xdude @rudra - discussion re privacy and what to watch out for.

I find Microsoft Office isn't that much different these days - particularly after my last installation.  One has to use one's e-mail address to validate Microsoft and now it shows on every single doc I create in the doc info. I can go in with a lot of trouble and remove it, but it's irritating the life out of me. So in effect Microsoft Office could turn out even worse than Google docs.  Like those corporations are just so into one's personal stuff these days. 

Can every one tell me how to turn Microsoft Office off so it doesn't use my e-mail address to add that info to all of my docs, and still operates as it should? 

Someone has to pay for those servers too. We can't expect them to offer all those for free out of generosity. lol

@xdude ..... if you check the share prices of Google and Microsoft their generosity just moves into one direction. We think we have free services, but if one really checks it out, not really. And because they are so super big, they seem to be able to call the shots, except for super savvy high tech guys like @rudra and @"Hidden Refuge" and others who have studied Windows to death and try to minimize their exposure by controlling it as much as they can instead of passively using it. I'm sure they know how to set themselves up for the very minimum exposure from a privacy point of view. I wish they could provide us with a step by step typical Windows installation a la @rudra and @"Hidden Refuge" - how they set it up, and what they load. What they avoid. That would make my day.