Every once in a blue moon, someone, usually a family member, asks me to set up their PC. This comes about either after they've just bought a new one, or (my not-so-favourite) inherited someone else's old and unwanted dinosaur. I thought it might be useful to pass along my free "must have" picks that every PC should be running (in my opinion at least).

First and foremost is OpenOffice. It still amazes me why the average user would ever purchase Microsoft Office. I'm sure it's true that for critical (such as business) uses, you might want to spend the money to get all that Microsoft Office has to offer. However, I'm not talking about businesses, I'm talking about average home users. For the vast majority of people who just want to be able to open and edit Word documents, play around with the odd Excel sheet, and open things like slideshow presentations, OpenOffice is a great way to go. You can download the latest version at www.openoffice.org.

Of course another obvious choice for free software is the Firefox web browser. I'm sure most, if not all, PC Update readers are aware of Firefox, so I won't spend much time on this other than to mention that Firefox 3 was recently released. If you've never tried Firefox (and its wonderful "add-ons"), check it out at www.mozilla.com. I'd also like to quickly remind everyone to spread the Firefox word to anyone that may be dipping their toes on the Internet superhighway and are currently using Internet Explorer.

More useful free software includes a dedicated PDF viewer. While it's obvious that Adobe Reader is the popular choice, there are alternatives, and Foxit Reader is at the top of the list. I mostly like Foxit because it's small and very easy on system resources, especially when compared to Adobe Reader. When dealing with older PC's (such as minimum specced XP dinosaurs), the leaner the programs, the better, and I always install Foxit to minimise the impact on system performance. You can find Foxit Reader at www.foxitsoftware.com.

Another must have (and well- known) free program is VLC. For anyone who's unfamiliar with it, VLC is a video player that will usually play your video files when Windows Media Player won't. When setting up PC's for others, I make this the default player to help avoid the inevitable frustration of a missing codec in Windows Media Player. You can get VLC at www.videolan.org/vlc.

Roid rage

This next little gem has saved my PC from premature failure a few times. Well, technically the premature failure would be caused by the release of my furious fist-pounding anger upon it. Let me explain...

When trying to move or delete a file or folder on my PC, occasionally I'm faced with the message (or some variation of) "Cannot delete file: Access is denied. The file is in use by another program or user."

In rare cases, no matter what I try to do, exit from all programs, reset the computer and so on, I just keep getting the same error message over and over when trying to move or delete that particular file/ folder. In the past, when this happened to me, I got very very angry, Incredible Hulk-like angry. However, ever since I found "Unlocker", in moments like these I've now remained cool as a cucumber. You can learn more about this wonderful little Windows Explorer extension at www.ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker.

Next time, I'll continue the must- have list with some intermediate- level (and as always, free) programs that, among other things, will
give you more power than ever over your multimedia files.

Note: Ryan Yewell©  Permission to copy or quote extracts from this article may only be done with the written permission of the author.

Reprinted from the August 2008 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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