Hate a cluttered desktop? Try out Fences by Stardock, the makers of the wonderful Windows Blinds desktop skinning app. What Fences does is, it lets you group icons into a box called fences, so you can have various icons grouped together for Work, Mail, movies, music, shortcuts, games, misc etc. When double-clicked on an empty area on the desktop, all the Fences with icons in them disappear, when double-clicked, they reappear again.
Fences is versatile enough to be easily resizable and moveable, as you see fit, and has centralized control. It lets you appreciate the wallpaper sans the clutter.
Check out the Youtube video on how it works
Windows Optimum
There are a dime a dozen Windows optimizing utilities out there, so what's so different about Windows Optimum? Well nothing really, it's just got a purple window!
On a serious note, Windows Optimum is made by the same folks who've brought the useful USB Firewall utility. It gives you more control over Windows and all the underlying myriad processes and services.
With this application you can stop any type of program or service in your system, remove keys or values from applications in the registry or other parameters. You can also delete keys and values in the registry, even if access is not permitted, and even if you're not the administrator, without much technical knowledge of the computer.
The really cool part is that you can remove any file in your computer, even if the file is in use. If the file deletion is not possible, the file is deleted from the system even if Windows Optimum is not running. Hurray NO "Access denied" or "Another application is using the file" errors.
Of course this program is not for novices and isn't recommended for them either. The program gives more control over the operating system than is necessary for an average user. But it can be of great help to an admin who needs to troubleshoot or just make the system leaner.
MetatOgger
MetatOgger is a free program for tagging and renaming audio files. You get obvious tagging options such as mass renaming of files as per set parameters, getting tags from filenames, advanced script options, etc.
There is a unique feature called "acoustic fingerprinting" that identifies missing info in your audio files by actually listening to audio and comparing it to the digital fingerprint with the humongous Musicbrainz community database online. MetatOgger queries this database and instantly populates missing audio tags, input cover art, lyrics, and the works.
Even though it's got a lot going, it isn't as user friendly as it could have been. It is slow, the cover art isn't as efficient, and there is no context menu entry for quick searches and edits.
MetatOggler definitively needs dotNET 3.5sp1 installed
Media info
A nifty little app that I've been using for a while now. If you've ever felt the lack of info Windows Properties provides regarding an audio or video file, then you'll love Media Info. Media Info does exactly what it says; it simply supplies detailed technical and tag information about a video or audio file.
Being a freeware app, the software is free of charge and is to free access source code under GPL or LGPL licence. The application has amazing support for myriads of formats and is up-to-date on the latest compression formats available.
LockHunter
Ever felt frustrated by Windows telling you that some other program is currently using the file you are trying to rename, move, etc., and therefore it cannot be modified. And yet Windows fails to inform you what that process is and how you can stop it.
Well, with LockHunter you don't need to bother about the technicality of these messages. Just right-click the file in question, click on the intuitive "What is locking this file?" and hit Unlock or delete the file from the disk without Windows bothering you with stupid messages.
The freeware app is one of the few that easily integrates in All Windows versions including the spanking new Windows 7 supporting both 32bit and 64bit versions.
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