In the last 3 months, I have had to rebuild 3 separate PC’s, from scratch, i.e. re-format the hard drive, re-install OS, and put all applications back on again. All of them have been development rigs, my home desktop, my personal laptop, and work development machine.
Each time I did this, I had to think about what applications I wanted to install, and what configuration changes I have to make to each application once installed. What was missing is a comprehensive list of what to install, and what to configure, so this is where this blog post is going to come in.
It will serve as a reference to me when I need to re-install again. My aim is to keep it up to date with any “new” applications I add to my systems. The order in which the applications appear in their groups is typically the order in which I install them.
**NOTE: **Most Applications are freely available on the Internet, however, some are licensed directly to me, either through an MSDN Subscription, or applications which I have personally bought, so please ensure you have the necessary licenses to use any of the below applications.
Operating System
- Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit Edition
- Run Microsoft Update (multiple times) to ensure latest updates
- This typically includes Windows Live Essentials
Security Applications
See related blog post.
Browsers (mainly used for debugging applications)
- Chrome (default browser)
- FireBug Lite
- Set up search engine
- Internet Explorer 9
- FireFox 4
- FireBug
- Opera
Applications
Office 2010
- Outlook Connector for Hotmail – and set up connection of hotmail account
- Outlook Connector for LinkedIn
- Outlook Connector for Facebook
- Outlook Connector for Windows Live Messenger
- Connect to Exchange account for gep13.co.uk
Virtual Clone Drive
Jing (I used to use PrtScr, but an tending more towards Jing just now, haven’t yet bought the Pro Version, but I am thinking about it)
7-zip
LogMeIn
Zune
iTunes
FileZilla
VLC
Paint.Net
WinMerge
kDiff
TextPad
Skype
UltraMon
AutoRuns
ProcessExplorer
ProcessMonitor
CDBurnerXP
WinDirStat
Windows XP Mode and Virtual PC
FoxIt – Acrobat Reader is just too slow
CutePDF Writer
Amazon Kindle App
LastPass
XMarks
ShellRunAs
Windows Live Essentials
FeedDemon
VMWare Player
VMWare Converter
FreeFileSync
DropBox
Image Resizer For Windows
Lync
Development Applications
- Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate (Custom Install)
- Web Platform Installer 3.0
- ASP.Net MVC 3
- SQL Server Express 2008 R2
- Microsoft SQL Server Compact 4.0
- IIS 7 Recommended Configuration
- IIS 7.5 Express
- Web Deployment Tool 2.0
- Web Farm Framework
- URL Rewrite 2.0
- Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio 2010
- Visual Studio 2010 SP1
- Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 SP1 Tools for SQL Server Compact Edition
- Microsoft WebMatrix
- ASP.Net MVC 3 Language Packs
- ASP.Net Web Pages
- ASP.Net Web Pages Language Packs
- Microsoft SQL Server Compact 4.0 Tools
- SQL Server 2008 R2 Management Studio Express
- Windows PowerShell 2.0
- Silverlight 4 Toolkit April 2010 Release
- Web Deployment Tool 1.1
- Expression Studio 4
- StyleCop
- Team Foundation Server Basic (only on my desktop machine)
- Fiddler
- Windows Phone Developer Tools
- Microsoft SharedView
- NUnit
- Putty
- MSBuild Community Tasks
Social Networking
- MetroTwit (default application)
Video Streaming
Post Installation Configurations
- Setup WinMerge and kDiff in Visual Studio
- Turn on Visual Studio Line Numbers
- Set up Windows Explorer
- Set up Microsoft OneNote to talk to SkyDrive
- Configure Virtual Clone Drive to remember last mounted iso across reboots
- Do another Microsoft Update to ensure everything is up to date
- Run full virus and spyware scan
- Run full defrag using Auslogics
- Set up backup to Synology Server
Is there anything obviously missing from the above? I would be very interested to find out what other applications people are using, especially from a development stand point.
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