I have recently changed to use Windows 7 from Windows XP and found some apps lose its value in Win 7. Then I sorted out some apps that I must use no matter in Win XP or Win 7 and thus they are regarded as the must-have apps in my daily life. Hope they will be also useful for you.
1、Firefox
Firefox is my favorite browser among the browsers I have ever used. Although the speed of Google Chrome is much quicker, I won’t switch to use it since it doesn’t have so many plugins and extensions as Firefox. Why to use Firefox? In a word here, you can browse webpage more efficient with it.
Relevant resources:
· Firefox extensions & add-ons recommended
· Top 10 Firefox greasemonkey script
2、Notepad++
Notepad++ is an application similar to Windows Notepad but it is much more powerful with support for tab, word count, closing tab by double click, line number mark, Macro and batch replacement.
It can identify most programming languages, distinguish different codes in different colors and fold the subfunctions for you to look over the program structure conveniently.
3、Fence
Fence can divide your desktop into different parts and you can allocate icons to different parts. The following is the screenshot of my present desktop:
The two black and semitransparent parts on the upper right are created by Fence.
One main reason for me to use Fence is I want to put the icons on the right (not by manually dragging) and Fence lets me realize it indirectly.
4、ClipX
I like ClipX very much, for Windows clipboard can only store the last copy which is inconvenient, while ClipX is the software allowing you to store the copies of recent many times in the clipboard and the copies won’t vanish after you turn off the computer. ClipX also supports operations with Unicode and shortcut keys. One feature of ClipX I like best is I can see the images in the clipboard list which is very convenient for me to choose the item to use.
5、Process Explorer
This is an enhanced edition of official Process Explorer of Microsoft. Besides providing rich data, it also provides process contents in tree form. The two features of it I like best are:
1) Users can look up the process of a certain window by dragging and dropping the icon of the Process Explorer 
to the window.
2) Different states of processes are distinguished in different colors.
6、7zip
7zip is the best free substitute of commercial software WinRAR for compression or decompression. It not only supports the 7z format of itself but also supports almost all compressing formats including WinRAR’s exclusive format rar.
The icon of 7zip official version is a bit ugly and you can search for its beautifying version to install.
7、Launchy
Launchy is the software for you to open a program quickly by a shortcut key. After installing Launchy, click Alt+Space (or you can customize it as other shortcut keys) to call out it, then input a segment of a program and you can find the program immediately through Launchy, which largely improves the operating efficiency.
Apart from quickly opening the program, Launchy also supports shortcut search. Input the keyword in Launchy and then click Enter and the system will open the browser to search this keyword.
8、NetSetMan
NetSetMan is for rapidly switching the Network Parameters. You can preset the frequently used IP, Gateway and DNS into NetSetMan and when you need to change the parameter, you can choose the designated tab and enable it. If you need to often switch DNS, NetSetMan is good for you.
9、Everything
Everything is a powerful app for file search with not only high indexing speed but also high searching speed. Also it provides support for regular expression. Meanwhile, its index database is very small. With it, you absolutely don’t need to use the self-containing search tool of Windows.
It’s a pity that Everthing only supports NTFS file system and can only search filename but this is enough for general search. If you want more powerful local search you can try Google Desktop. However, the database of Google Desktop for desktop search may surpass 1G at any time, while the maximum database of Everything is only more than 10MB.
