Must-Have Windows Utilities to Make Life Easier
There are tons of windows utilities over the internet but these are some of the most useful for almost anyone. We have tested all of the software on windows 10 but all of the utilities will work fine on other versions too.
While there are many utilities we have tested and found but most of them we didn’t use and uninstalled reasons being at first glance brand new software looks cool but when you go back to your daily work routine those tools don’t fit very well.
Summary:
- F.lux — Work More, Save Your Eyes
- Ammyadmin
- Wox Launcher
- Quicklook
- Networkx
- Lightshot
- Dropbox
- Remote Mouse
- Everything
- Rainmeter
- Remote Fingerprint Unlock
- SoundWire
- Wo Mic
F.lux — Work More, Save Your Eyes
Right now you must be reading this article on a digital device either on a computer or mobile phone. The actual problem we all use digital device too much in day to day usage that are damaging our eyes.
You can read this Research Report published by Harvard Medical School: Blue light has a dark side to know more about how much it can cause damage to your eyes every single day.
Windows 10 Now have inbuilt Night mode but F.lux is a lot better.
You can turn it on set colour temperature or use recommended colour it will shift colour through the day automatically but in case of inbuilt Windows 10 option is just toggle to turn on/off not automatically adjusting throughout the day accordingly.
Advance Features:
- Adjust Lighting Based on your location
- Disable while using a certain application like some photo editing or while watching something without turning it off.
- Colour Range From 1200K to 9300K
- Quick Options for Effects and Lights to adjust the light
- Color Adjust as per your wake up time defined by You
- Connect to Philips Hue Lights
Ammyadmin
Next time when your friend calls you for some issue with his/her computer you just need this to get the work done.
This 800KB software can do wonders.
You must have used or at least heard of TeamViewer, software for sharing the screen for getting assistance. TeamViewer might have a lot of things and compatibility and support but…
Ammyadmin does one thing sharing in just one click lightweight and faster than anything else.
It’s so lightweight that you don’t need to download a heavy file and install to start sharing.
Just download when you need to start sharing your screen or share your screen for getting assistance from someone else
It’s up to you to grant access for View Only or let other people Control
The best part is that it works on even slower connection considerably quite well and manageable.
Wox Launcher
This one is super helpful if you just set up and use it once or twice.
If you have used any MacBook or used MacOS, there is a feature called spotlight: which lets you search quickly anything inside the computer and perform some extra actions without even taking multiple steps.
Wox Launcher is a spotlight for Windows PC or laptop
What makes more powerful is plugins support, which extends the usage and the customization you can make it look exactly like MacOS spotlight or as per your liking.
Some of the most useful ones you should definitely install are Everything, which can search your entire computer or selected areas of the hard disk, Shell Commands, Weather, Google Search, Calculator on the go.
You will definitely like this, a must try out.
An alternative to Wox Launcher is Ueli
Quicklook
From the day one I discovered this tool or utility, things have become faster while browsing a different kind of files.
Just imagine you have tons of PSD files and you need to check the preview, you will double click and photoshop will open with all layers and view and you need to do it again and again whenever you need to do.
Now imagine this browse your files normally you do and when you need to check the file just click spacebar, get instant preview no matter kind of file is this, even PSD files without even loading up complete Photoshop software.
It’s just so fast!!
Networkx
It’s quite super useful if you are on limited data connection or just want to check your current internet speed which most of us want to do.
Full control about how it looks and what info it will show on the screen.
I’ve been using this for many years, I even don’t know. It just feels so simple and useful.
It’s been quite accurate for me but there is some issue like some traffic can go untracked when it’s going through local LAN traffic likely there is an option for it whether you want to ignore or count LAN traffic.
You can also check application wise data usage, hourly data usage and all days history.
Lightshot
As per their website “The fastest way to take a customizable screenshot”
Before I say anything you would be thinking I have Snipping Tool inbuilt in Windows, it’s fast, simple and works.
Yes, snipping tool is everything you need for a basic screenshot.
When you are taking a screenshot too frequently and share a screenshot with different people that’s where this utility comes in.
You can take a screenshot just like every other screenshot utility by exact size, doodle something and save.
But in Lightshot you can:
- Even after selecting an area for screenshot you can resize it live to adjust and take screenshot more accurate without clicking new which you need to do in Snipping tool
- Share URL of the screenshot uploaded to their server in one click,
- Search similar images on google by selecting an area of the display just you take the screenshot, add text on the image
- Save in JPEG, PNG, BMP with the quality you want
- Activate with any key you want, setup shortcut as per your likings
Screenshot which you are seeing in this post have been taken using Lightshot.
Dropbox
My guess you love using Google Drive and probably have tons of files there.
It’s not about switching to Dropbox because you only get 2GB storage here vs 15GB in Google Drive.
But, here is how you can make use of Dropbox on Windows
Install the desktop application and login/signup.
Open Preference of Dropbox app, under Import Tab, tick the Share Screenshot Using Dropbox
Now just press Print Screen to take a screenshot and save automatically to Dropbox so it’s up in the cloud for access from anywhere.
Otherwise, You would be doing Windows Key+Print Screen and it gets saved in the Pictures folder now you need to locate and upload for sharing.
Also when you save some documents file in the Dropbox folder and edit just like you edit from your local hard drive it will maintain the version for you. So cool isn’t?
More Features:
LAN Sync
Auto Upload specific Folder for backup
Limit Bandwidth if you are on a limited connection
Remote Mouse
It’s like your smartphone touchscreen becomes a touchpad or wireless mouse for your windows pc or laptop.
You can completely use your windows machine from your mobile phone.
Just make sure you are on the same network in LAN, so that things work smoothly.
There are tons of alternative for this out there if you have been using something do let us know.
This one I have tested and works every time completely fine.
Everything
As the name says it will search everything you type inside your selected location.
It works faster than normal windows explorer search bar most of the time for a large folder.
Searching is based on indexing files and that quickly showing what you just typed instantly.
When you have too many projects across different hard disks and local disks and you need to search for specific files, everything becomes quite simple with everything.
Rainmeter
The ultimate utility for making your windows pc look so cool, not just cool functional and useful at the same time.
What you need to do is, download rainmeter and apply different skins to show different desktop widget and utilities.
The best part is you can share your skin as a file to anyone and your friends can have exact same settings easily.
Here is how your windows home screen can look after applying few skins but not limited to just these, It’s up to you what makes your desktop screen more useful for your environment.
https://www.deviantart.com/hiphopium/art/Enmon-760139205
Remote Fingerprint Unlock
Every latest smartphone out there now has fingerprint reader but your PC doesn’t, why not use your smartphones fingerprint reader for your computer to open lock screen without the entereing password.
If You want it then here is an app for this,
Before we begin go ahead and download app on your android and on a windows computer
Google Play Store - Remote Fingerprint Unlock Price: Free+
For computer remote fingerprint unlock for desktop
After that open command prompt using WIN + R input text cmd then press enter then in command prompt enter ipconfig you will something like this (this is only required if the android app does not find the computer in an auto scan)
After that make sure your mobile and computer is on the same network otherwise this setup won’t work,
Go to your lock screen of the computer by pressing WIN + L
now open the android app and add your computer by scanning
or by entering the IP address of the computer
then add user account on that computer with correct user name and password.
If everything you did right then you can go to unlock screen of the app and use your fingerprint to unlock your PC. 😃
SoundWire
Use your mobile phone as a remote speaker for your computer.
You can use it if your laptop’s speaker is not working or speaker of your mobile phone performs better than your old laptop
or maybe you want to play something on PC and use your mobile phone(hook your headphones) to listen to songs while you walk around your house without disturbing anyone else.
You can even use this in a situation when some software only plays content on the desktop but you want to listen it using your phone, you can use SoundWire in that situation,
Reasons are endless why use mobile phones speaker as a remote speaker for your windows laptop, PC, Linux or even raspberry pi.
For PC SoundWire PC
Google Play Store- SoundWire (free) Price: Free
Wo Mic
If you want to use your phone’s microphone as a microphone for your computer to record something.
Wondering why it’s useful?
- Your phone’s microphone would be much better than the default microphone of a laptop
- For Desktop users you don’t need to buy a microphone
- Your smartphone’s microphone will be having extra noise cancellation, ambient noise cancellation
Wo Mic is a simple and small utility that makes it possible for you just download it for pc from here Wo Mic PC
Make sure to download wo mic client for pc and driver both for your system.
Google Play Store- WO Mic Price: Free+
Make sure your access to your microphone is enabled under settings as shown below for Windows 10
These were the best windows utilities I have discovered over the long period of time after using for quite some time.
This post was first published on The Tech Basket under Top 10 Best Windows Utilities You Should Start Using.
Check out our blog for more such interesting and useful articles.
