Windows – Software List

Depending on the task, here is a partial list of software that I consider for a rebuild on Windows.   (*) indicates frequently used items.  The list will change as time goes on and as my preferences change.

Utilities:

• (*) 7-zip (Open Source) – File compression utility.  Don’t need anything else.
• ISO Recorder (Free/Closed Source) – Image existing CD’s and DVD’s.  Copy .iso’s to new disks. It’s surprising that this functionality isn’t built natively into Windows.
• TeraTerm (Open Source) – Terminal program.  Replaces Hyperterminal and Procomm.  Used for SSH and old serial port stuff.

Editors:

• (*) Notepad++ (Open Source) – Excellent text editor with Syntatic highlighting.
• XML Notepad (Open Source) – XML editor and viewer.

Graphics:

• Paint.Net (Open Source) – Paint and photo editing.

System:

• (*) SysInternals (Free/Closed Source) – Excellent set of tools for watching system calls, monitoring processes, walking Active Directory, etc.  Can’t live without Process Explorer and Process Monitor.

Networking:

• (*) Wireshark (Open Source) – Network captures and analysis.

Programming:

• (*) Application Verifier (Free/Closed Source) – Essential for catching exceptions and memory problems.  Run it all the time.
• Pencil Project (Open Source) – Rapid Dialog and Screen Prototyping.
• (*) Doxygen (Open Source) – Auto document generation.
• (*) Jenkins (Open Source) – Web based build machine and build farm server.
• (*) WinMerge (Open Source) – Diff and Merge tool.
• Dependency Walker (Free/Closed Source) – Viewer for executable and .DLL dependencies.
• Redmine (Open Source) – Bug tracking and project maintenance for a small project.
• JIRA (Commercial/Open Source) – Bug tracking and project management.
• WinDbg (Free/Closed Source) – Windows debugger.  The last word in debugging, when Visual Studio can’t hack it.  Its interface is rough, but for driver debugging and 64-bit crash dump analysis, it’s all we’ve got.
• (*) Visual Studio (Commercial) – Absolutely the best IDE on Windows for C/C++.  Debugging is light years ahead of everything else.  Eclipse and others don’t even come close.
• Mercurial (Open Source) – Distributed source control.

Web Clients:

• (*) Thunderbird (Open Source) – E-mail client.  Beats Outlook for junk mail filtering.
• (*) Firefox (Open Source) – Web browser.  The NoScript plugin is highly recommended.

Backups:

• (*) Acronis TrueImage (Commercial) – Can’t live without it.  Have performed full system restores 3 times now and it has saved my bacon each time.

Antivirus:

• (*) Microsoft Security Essentials (Commercial) – Antivirus from Microsoft.  Free for home use.  Way better than Symantec and McAfee.  Avast and AVG are okay in my opinion.

Windows: Internet Explorer fails to print with preview.js errors.

Symptoms:  Attempting to print from Internet Explorer returns the error:

An error has occurred in the script on this page.
Line: 1507  (or whatever)
…
URL: res://ieframe.dll/preview.js

See attached screen shot:

Other symptoms include, missing menu items, or menu items that don’t do anything when selected.

Cause:  Some other application wrote to the wrong location or un-registered .dll’s that it wasn’t supposed to during install or uninstall.  Which application? Who knows.

Fix:  As described in the references below, you’ll have to re-register the IE libraries and components.   But first:

1. Ensure that your printer actually works.  Print a test page from Notepad, or Word or whatever.  Printer not working?  The rest of these steps won’t help you.  Fix your printer.
2. Reset IE to ensure that other add-ons aren’t causing you grief.
   1. Start Internet Explorer
   2. Press the ALT key to bring up the menu.
   3. From the menu select:  Tools -> Internet Options  (this is reachable from the Windows control panel as well)
   4. Tab:  Advanced
   5. Press the button:  Reset…
   6. Press the button: Reset
   7. Restart IE
   8. Attempt to print from IE.  Does printing work now?  If yes, you’re done.  If not, continue.
3. Re-register your IE libraries.  In the references below, you can do it the Microsoft way and make your own script or use the ready made script from iefaq.  I used the ready made script after reviewing it.
   1. From iefaq listed in the references section, download the script that matches your machine type.  I’m running Windows 7 32-bit so I downloaded ie8-rereg.zip.
   2. Start the Windows File Explorer.  Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Windows Explorer
   3. Find the file that you downloaded.  Computer -> Your disk (C:) -> Temp   (or wherever you downloaded the files to.)
   4. Right click on the .zip file you downloaded and select Extract…
   5. Extract the files somewhere reasonable.  Example: c:\temp\ie_fix\
   6. Find the extracted files.  Navigate down the directories until you find the .cmd file.  In my case the file I wanted was ie-rereg.cmd
   7. (Optional) Open the .cmd file in Notepad to see what it’s going to do.  We’re all curious right?
   8. Right click on the .cmd file and select: Run as administrator.  (No, Run as administrator?  Select Open instead… and consider updating your OS one day.)
   9. The command file will run for a moment and then report an error at the end.  Something about failing to update the registry.  Doesn’t matter, that’s a Windows XP fix that is only necessary if you’re running XP.
   10. Reboot your computer.
   11. Start IE and attempt to print.  Fixed?  Worked for me.

References:

• http://support.microsoft.com/gp/pc_ie_advtroubleshooting1000
• http://iefaq.info/index.php?action=artikel&cat=42&id=133&artlang=en