Free Windows 7 utilities

Free Windows 7 utilitiesWashington  - Windows 7 comes with more handy utilities than any previous version of Windows. Disk imaging, automated backup, and sticky notes are just a few. But no Windows system has ever been complete without a passel of utilities that make life with your PC easier, and Windows 7 is no different.

The fact is, although Windows 7 offers a lot, it's still lacking in some important areas: file zipping, encryption, and antivirus, to name a few. The good news: There are some outstanding free utilities on the market that have been tested with Windows 7. Here are a few.

--- Task switcher

Microsoft has tried to make task switching simpler and more elegant with each new version of Windows. First there was Alt-Tab. Then, in Vista, Flip3D was introduced - activated by pressing Windows Key-Tab.

But the programmers who developed the free Switcher (http://insentient.net) have outdone all of Microsoft's efforts with a utility that takes the guesswork and finger strain out of task switching once and for all. Once installed, Switcher is activated with the key combination of the Windows key and the letter S on the keyboard. Once pressed, you can release the keys.

Switcher takes a snapshot of all running applications and shows them, along with their contents, as different-sized thumbnails on your computer screen.

Switching to a particular application is a simple matter of surveying what you have open and clicking the program you'd like to use.

Switcher gives you a good amount of control over how the thumbnails are displayed, too. And if you have so many applications open that finding the one you want is still a bit of a chore, you can simply start typing the name of an application, at which point you'll realise that there's a Switcher search box in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Type "Word," for instance, and only those instances of Word that are running will be displayed, making it very easy to select the one you're looking for.

--- Encryption

The Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows 7 come with BitLocker for encrypting USB drives and external volumes so that your data is secure as it travels with you. But if you don't use Enterprise or Ultimate, what should you do? One answer is TrueCrypt
(http://www.truecrypt.org), and open-source disk encryption application that works with Windows 7 and previous versions of Windows.

Like BitLocker, TrueCrypt can secure an entire volume, such as an external hard drive or a USB flash drive. But it can also encrypt the partition or drive on which Windows itself is installed, requiring pre-boot authorization in order for Windows to run. Security like that not even BitLocker can offer. Like all open-source software, TrueCrypt come at no charge.

--- Hotkey/macro tool

There's nothing that you can do with a mouse that you can't do twice as fast with the keyboard - or with a keyboard shortcut. Microsoft knows this, which is why it built in more keyboard shortcuts into Windows 7 than in any previous version of the operating system.

But it didn't go far enough. What Windows has always lacked was a built-in, system-wide utility for creating your own keyboard shortcuts - ones that can do everything from launch multiple applications to carry out a lengthy series of keystrokes. That's where Hotkeyz
(http://www.skynergy.com/hotkeyz.html) comes in.

It's currently the best free shortcut creation tool on the market, allowing you assign virtually any combination of keys to tasks large and small. Open the Control Panel by pressing Windows Key-C. Open Word by pressing Windows Key-W. Open a whole set of commonly used applications by pressing a key combination of your choice. All of this and more is possible with the free Hotkezy.

--- Unzipping

Windows 7 comes with a built-in ability to read files compressed using the industry-standard Zip format. Double-click a zipped file, and you'll see its contents as though the files within were in a standard Windows folder.

What Windows 7 lacks, however, is any kind of utility to create Zip archives. That's where the free, open-source 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org) comes in. 7-Zip supports all of the major compression formats in use today, including Zip and Tar. It optionally integrates itself into your Windows Explorer application so that its functions are just a right mouse-click away.

And its compression ratios - the amount that standard files can be squashed down into the smaller format - often exceed those boasted by commercial packages. The best thing you can say about 7Zip is that it does most of what the commercial compression packages do, and it's free.

--- Antivirus

Windows still doesn't ship with antivirus or antispyware, but Microsoft's new Security Essentials (http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials) antivirus application is just a simple download away. It's effective, unobtrusive, and free to an verified user of Windows 7. Unless you're sold on the antivirus solution from a third-party provider, there's little reason not to consider installing Security Essentials right away.

Synchronisation

You have more than one computer, which probably means you have more than one copy of some important files. Which ones are the most recent? That's a question that file synchronization tools were designed to answer. There's no decent synchronization utility built in to Windows 7, but it's easy to augment the operating system with Microsoft's own LiveSync (https://sync. live. com).

Download the free LiveSync on each computer that contains files you wish to keep in sync. Right-click the LiveSync icon in your system tray, choose More, and click the check box labeled "Allow remote access to this computer." LiveSync will work its magic by synchronising files over the Internet.

Then set up the folders you wish to keep in sync by right-clicking the LiveSync icon and selecting Sync Web site. That will take you to a Web site on which you can select the computer you want to sync, as well as the folders. Repeat the process on each computer you wish to keep in sync. (dpa)