9 free tools that make Windows much better
Windows is packed to the rafters with features, many of them greatand others, just meh. Luckily,there are free alternatives that are more powerful, more efficient, and take only minutes to install. Read on, and well show you 9 built-in features of Windows that arent up to snuff, and the free software you can use to replace them.
The search functionality in Windows 8 is fast and well-integrated with the new Start Screen. Still, the Start Screen search isnt perfect: It cant find files that arent executables or documents. If you want to search through every file on your system, you have to use the excruciatingly slow File Explorer search. Or, you can use Everything.
You type and Everything finds what you're looking for, narrowing down the results letter by letter like a faster, local Google Instant Search.
Everything is an indexed search utility that lets you search through every single file on your system, practically instantly. Just type a file name, and before youre done youll see what youre looking for. Yes, it really is that fast. For even faster access, pin it to your toolbar.
Its ironic that one of the simplest things you do in Windows can be one of the most frustrating. File transfers have gotten better in recent versions of Windows, but they can still take a long time, and faulty transfers are a great way to ruin your afternoon (especially if your afternoon consists of shuffling numerous files around).
Teracopy makes shuffling large batches of files an absolute breeze.
Particularly in Windows 7 or earlier, you should immediately update your system with TeraCopy, a free utility that speeds up file moves substantially and protects you from failed transfersit'll skip over a file that generates an error, rather than sending the entire transfer grinding to a halt. It also allows you to pause and resume transfers at any time, and even better, it integrates directly with Windows Explorer, so once its installed you can just drag and drop files like usual but with the full benefits TeraCopy provides.
In Windows 8 you can take a screenshot by pressing Win-PrtScn, but to take a whole bunch at once, you should get a dedicated screenshot app.
Greenshot gives you granular, customizable controls for quick and "just-right" screenshot taking.
There are more contenders than you'd expect, but we recommend Greenshot. It lets you bind hotkeys to all sorts of screenshot commands (capture the whole screen, just a window, and just a region, for instance), and specify what will happen with those screenshots. You can automatically open a Save As dialogue, open the screenshots in a lightweight image editor, or save them directly to your hard drive using a naming scheme of your choice.
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9 free tools that make Windows much better