Software 2

For both kinds of file-mangers, i.e. for nicely GUI-designed, and "text-mode" ones (most of them coded for 32-bit environment, but some are also 16-bit environment based), see the "links1.html" page for links to their main-sites. It is interesting to see the "file-management solutions" used in them, for example, I especially recommend a 32-bit file-manager called Fwin32. Next is of course much more important and non-stop used Ghisler's Total Commander file-manager: http://www.ghisler.com, for which I can say without any doubt that it is the most useful programs from all, and I simply couldn't live without it. I also use it's built-in FTP client for uploading 7 variants of my homesite. It implements a totally cool feature to upload files with "lists", i.e. no establishing separate connections to each host, all I need to do is just click on one button and choose which list to upload. Here is a good website with quite a few useful configuration tips: http://digdug.cx/total, and two sites with various plugins/addons here: http://www.totalcmd.net and here: http://clubtotal.free.fr. Anyway, I will list some of its main features, however, for details check the File Manager of your choice thread thread here:  http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/99609816/m/756004786631.

1. drive combobox, drive buttonbar, etc.
2. menus for apps' execution (or folder opening)
3. menus with "directory hotlist" (or "Hotlist facility", i.e. pairs of pre-set dirs)
4. in-built commandline, which supports also in-built commands (like cd, del, xcopy, etc.)
5. folder/directory tabs (also another tab for used dirs)
6. virtual folders (i.e., CLSID Folders, labeled as \\Control Panel\, \\Recycled\, \\Desktop\, and not their "HD-representatives" D:\Recycled\, D:\Documents and Settings\User_Name\Desktop\, etc.)
7. button bar with:
   -- a. most used folders
   -- b. most used apps (it's preety handy having the button for cmd.exe sitting above, so it's really easy to execute it from any dir in no-time - as current/working dir - also very useful in "cooperation" with commandline from 4)
8. the "compare files by content" tool
9. the "multi-rename" tool
10. the "synchronize dirs" tool
11. the "compare files by content" tool
12. advanced search (the most powerful, I've ever seen)
13. hex/binary viewer (called Lister)
14. supports regular expressions
15. supports many plugins
16. built-in FTP client with "Lists upload" feature
17. cable connection through parallel port
18. in-built commandline, which supports also in-built commands (like cd, del, xcopy, etc.)
19. all settings are stored in two .ini files (one for general config, and one for FTP config), therefore keeping the registry clean
20. hot-keys or keyboard-shortcuts for copy/move file-operations (beside many many others); see here for a complete list of them: /hotkeys.txt (damn the Explorer and its mouse-selection -> right-click -> copy -> right-click -> paste)
21. in-built packers (ZIP, ARJ, LHA, RAR, UC2, ACE, TAR, WCX), viewer, external viewer option, etc.
22. two panes (it's a NC clone, right??)

MY SYSTEM NON-SETUP PROGRAMS

As far as making the registry as compact as possible, and registry hives and system files defragmented to minimal number of fragments (contiguous), there are two FREE and "non-setup" programs that do this job perfectly, ehm, actually they somehow complement one another. One programs is called Ntregopt from Larshederer homepage: http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de, http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/index.htm which optimizes the registry hives, i.e. it recreates each registry hive "from scratch", so therefore you need to run it just before rebooting; I got used to clean the registry with Reg1Aid, Ad-aware, SpyBot or CCleaner before executing Ntregopt and the registry optimization, for registry-files to be as small as posible before processing them. for the registry to be as small as posible before optimizing it. And while your are at the Larshederer's site, also check the Erunt program. It's a programs used to backup the registry, while I especially like its sub-program Autoback contained in the same .zip archive as Ntregopt and Erunt; for a more detailed description of both programs see the page "events1.html", the 14.3.2005 entry. Erunt and Autoback are commandline programs and both are very handy to backup the registry on/after boots (I do it with a batch file so that there's no interaction at all), i.e. I've put the shortcut to that batch file into %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\ directory so that it backups registry nomather with which account one logs-on. The other one is called Pagedfrg from Sysinternals site: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/PageDefrag.mspx, but this one doesn't optimize the structure of registry hives, it's in fact capable of defragmenting them. Additionally, it also defragments the pagefile and services' logfiles (three files with .evt extension), and also it is run after booting, i.e. just before the "pre-logon" screen after chkdsk finishes checking the disk (of course if it was set to do so), so it is run in a manner, that if I re-structured my registry hives with Ntregopt before rebooting computer, they are defragmented when still being "fresh" on the next boot.

Further, for an "on-demand" defragmentation, I use the Contig commandline program: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/Contig.html from Sysinternals website (see the page "cmdline.html" for more details), which first analyzes the current file/folder fragmentation and then allows user to defragment a single file (it's first programs that I've seen to offer that), or defragment multiple files; of course, it is also directory recursive. It can also make "pre-contiguous" empty files with fixed/choosen size (with unlimited lenght), i.e. so that the files are defragmented before used for the first time and before containing any data/before being written to. Defragmentation is the process of moving portions of files around on a disk to defragment files, i.e. this means basically moving the file clusters on a disk to make them contiguous. Did you know that defragmenting ~500 MB of Temporary Internet Files, "index.dat" files and various other junk files is a waste of time and you should clean up your hard-disk (i.e. remove/delete the mentioned files) before attempting to perform a disk defragmentation?? Anyway, the fragmentation occurs like this: when a file is written to a disk, the file cannot be written in contiguous clusters. Non-contiguous clusters therefore slow down the process of reading and writing a file. The further apart on a disk the noncontiguous clusters are (and to the more fragments these files are splitted), the worse the issue, because of the time it takes to move the read/write head of a hard drive (this is called "seeking"), however, most of the I/O hard-disk access is random and not sequential. So for example, if first the block 1 and then block 20 are read, it doesn't matter if the file is sequential, i.e. the hard-disk will have to seek anyway. And most I/O is of that nature with major exception being large data files like huge mp3s, movies etc.

And there is also another "on-demand" defragmentation commandline programs that I use called Dirms: http://www.dirms.com/home/docs/dirms1.asp available on the DIRMS - Do It Right MicroSoft website: http://www.dirms.com, which is also an "on-demand" type of defragmentation program; it first performs a free space evaluation, then defragment and/or optionally move the files to the front of the drive (optionally according to the file-modification dates), and additionally it can also compact them, i.e. minimize the space between the files. However, for an "on-the-fly defragmentation" of common files (I mean files that are not locked by the system during runtime), I use the Buzzsaw program: http://www.dirms.com/home/docs/buzzsaw.asp (from the same site/author as Dirms; btw. both programs just make use of common Win32 APIs and there is no way for them to corrupt your hard-disk, i.e. the defrag API would simply not allow this to happen), which is a defragmentation programs that runs at the idle priority (it's a lowest priority available), so that one can continue with other work without Buzzsaw using valuable CPU time. Buzzsaw watches the drive/drives for any modified files (the drive must be NTFS-formatted), and it also monitors the hard-disk usage level. It waits 60 seconds before attempting to defragment a newly fragmented file (before any defragmentation begins), and additionally, the version 2.0 decreases I/O issues by only defragmenting when the disk is greater than 95% idle, i.e. it doesn't defragment the file/files till the hard-disk usage is less than 5% for some time. But although I use the "on-the-fly" defragmentation programs mentioned in the above paragraph, I do other defragmenting with the the two "on-demand" defragmentation programs. I usually perform this with the "Run" dialog-box (I have templates of commands pre-prepared, or just use the history drop-down box), from my Total Commander: http://www.ghisler.com file-manager's in-built command-line, or with the use of batch files. All the three possible ways are very quick and easy to perform, compare to defragmenting the whole drive/partition with the Windows defrag. Yet I need to decide/discover which one is actually the fasters/easiest to execute. Also note that I was used to running Buzzsaw over night (for it to defragment my hard-disk's D:\ drive), but lately I rather shut it down since it would only defragment Prime95 program's files, which are only the backups of the results generated every two hours and not "actively used" as in for instance in the FAH's case. And maybe a bit related, that's one of the reasons why I also exit MouseTracker application (I certainly don't use my mouse when I am sleeping), since it "generates" CPU spikes (up to 0.50% of CPU) every 10 seconds or so, however, it's it true that I leave all the other 0.00% of CPU consuming programs running, at least if they are at 0.00% when computer is not actively used by me. Of course, this all applies when I am going to sleep or out for a long time, i.e. obviously I don't exit programs just like that all the time.

And now I can say than in all that time I have tried so many applications, and so I've already chosen the most reliable/stable ones. And it was like some kind of "process of developing my minimalistic approach" (during that still-going-on period of getting my computing knowledge and skills), for example, there was this "all-in-one" system utility System Mechanic from Iolo: http://www.iolo.com, http://www.iolo.com/sm, http://www.iolo.com/sm/6/index.cfm; a 2-3 MB in lenght program, which I've used for such system-maintaining jobs/tasks for quite some time. I've especially used its "shredder" function (to overwrite files, they call it "Incinerator"), and Cookies and Temporary files deletion feature. And guess what??!

I fully replaced it with only 60 kB in-lengh SDelete: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/SDelete.html commandline application from Sysinternals: http://www.sysinternals.com which is actually much more powerful than System Mechanic's "Incinerator" feature.

I rather got used to write batch files to do the very same job, or before that, I've sucessfully replaced it with more efficient and smaller application, and above all - now one huge, and "deeply-integrated" application is less on my system, and after all also 3 megs of disk-space are freed.

And there are many, many similar cases. Another example was the Boot Switcher application: http://www.angelfire.com/wizard2/hkeylocal/boot.htm, http://www.angelfire.com/wizard2/hkeylocal/boot2.htm, http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Boot-Manager-Disk/Boot-Switcher.shtml from Pantaray software Systems, and I used it to set boot from my Windows 98/SE to Windows XP and reverse. I mean, if you have two Windows OSs installed, on booting, this "List of operating systems" is displayed for number of seconds, choosen in Control Panel's System applet (see below), and this application enabled this feature, to not display this list, but to boot directly to pre-choosen OS (I actually see now, this also can be set under Control Panel's System applet). But the "problem" is/was, it was the kind of software, that was needed to run all the time (i.e., running as process, being a so-called "resident" application), and again, guess what happened?? I discovered lately this 9 kB in-lenght Rebooter application: http://dana.ucc.nau.edu/~tsr22/apps/#rebooter from bCheck's homesite: http://dana.ucc.nau.edu/~tsr22/apps, and replaced the Boot Switcher application with it. Because if I compare the Rebooter to Boot Switcher in general; Rebooter is a "non-setup" programs and again, much less disk-space consuming. And additionally, it doesn't need to run as a resident at all. And so again, one resident-running (and being resident completely unnecessarily), more or less "deeply-integrated" application less on my system and 1 MB of disk-space freed.

But it is somehow too much time-consuming to go to this Control Panel applet each time when you want to set/change the boot-options. So with Rebooter programs you just execute it (when you need to set boot options), click on the specific OS to which you want to boot to next time.