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
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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
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Virtual Clone Drive
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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
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ShellRunAs
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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.