Some of my Favorite programs to have to Test, Benchmark, Problem solve are below. Aida Extreme great program to monitor your computer giving you CPU, HD, Graphics, Fan and memory utilizations, temperatures, Fan RPM’s Its pretty nice when your working in your pc you can see how the CPU speed jumps up into turbo mode or your memory speed increases if you have things Overclocked its a must have.
Passmarks Performance test really good and cheep easy speed test program good for testing your laptop against your Desktop and many Online test can be accessed to see how your rates against others in your category. If you find a machine exactly like yours and it test much faster then you have a problem..!
HiJack This is great program to see all and what is running that you don’t know about or see a must have especially when you think you have Virus or Worm.
FutureMark’s 3DMark for testing your 400 Dollar video card you just bought and want to see it stressed beyond the limits. Or how good you might think your onboard Intel or AMD graphics is or isn’t ?
Power ISO I use this program like crazy I hate getting a DVD or CD to do something or reinstall a program. So I make ISO images of the DVD and keep on a second hard drive when I need it I mount the image. If you lose a DVD or cd you can create a exact copy of the missing media in a HeartBeat..! Below is how they explain what PowerISO is I just say must have and its cheep.
PowerISO is a powerful CD / DVD / BD image file processing tool, which allows you to open, extract, burn, create, edit, compress, encrypt, split and convert ISO files, and mount ISO files with internal virtual drive. It can process almost all CD / DVD / BD image files including ISO and BIN files. PowerISO provides an all-in-one solution. You can do every thing with your ISO files and disc image files.
Steam this is the only way to get a game for your computer. Never have to worry about the Key or the DVD you buy download and play. You can play on multiple PC’s you can only login one PC at a time. but you can download and install on PC in your living room have same game on your Tablet or PC in bedroom log in and play. For tablet its great no DVD needed you buy a new computer just download the client and re-download your games. They have some the best sales ever and plenty of games for 10 bucks or less..!
Games for Windows Client this is different then the Windows 8 Store. This client is like Steam pick a game download it install and play.
These are my Favorites and must haves besides the normal ones like Acrobat, Java, Chrome, Itunes if you use etc. By the way I think the Windows music service is much better and if you have windows phone it will synch between your phone and PC. Any music you ripped to your PC will be checked and made available by the Cloud for any device you have Windows on.
Brian Jay Harris's Blog 