Everybody has their own set of favorite tools, but often one is searching for even better ones. I made this overview not to tell you what to use, but what my personal favorites are. I invite you to share your experiences so that we may 'define' a required set of tools to make your system more stable and performing even better. I have divided the tools into several categories, so you may find useful ones rather easily. It is in no way complete, there are many more tools available, but these are my favorites.
Hardware Monitoring
CPU-Z: http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php for monitoring clockspeed and memory timings
PSU Calculator Pro: http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp for showing PSU requirements, including the ageing of PSU's
HWMonitor: http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php for monitoring voltages, fan speed and temperatures
Speedfan: http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php for monitoring voltages, fan speed and temperatures
Both HWMonitor and Speedfan are advised, because they show some different measurements, especially on the voltages. Both suppliers have been informed on the discrepancy between their programs and hopefully will act on them
Disk Optimization
Perfect Disk 10: http://www.perfectdisk.com/ for disk defragging
Diskeeper: http://www.diskeeper.com/diskeeper/home/diskeeper.aspx for disk defragging
Tweaking & Cleaning
CCleaner: http://www.ccleaner.com/ for cleaning up temp files, cookies, registry and managing startup programs
1Click PC Fix: http://www.ccleaner.com/ for serious registry cleaning
PerfectSpeed PC Optimizer: http://www.perfectdisk.com/products/home-perfectspeed/learn-more for managing registry clean up, defragging and finding duplicates
SysInternals: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx for optimizing or debugging purposes on-the-fly, most notably with Process Eplorer, Process Monitor and Autoruns, but also a lot of other usefull utilities are included.
TweakNow PowerPack: http://www.tweaknow.com/powerPack.html for registry tweaking and general maintenance
Screen capture
SnagIt: http://www.techsmith.com/screen-capture.asp for screen captures
Benchmarking & Testing
Cinebench R10: http://www.maxon.net/index.php?id=162&L=0 for measuring video performance
HDTach: http://www.maxon.net/index.php?id=162&L=0 for measuring disk performance
PassMark: http://www.passmark.com/products/pt.htm for measuring overall performance
PPBM4: http://ppbm4.com/ for measuring Premiere Pro CS4 performance
File Management
Beyond Compare: http://www.scootersoftware.com/ for file management, copying and finding duplicates
Treesize Professional: http://www.jam-software.com/treesize/ for disk space management
Total Commander: http://www.ghisler.com/ for generic file management
Capture
Scenalyzer: http://www.scenalyzer.com/main.html for capturing SD material
HDVSplit: http://strony.aster.pl/paviko/hdvsplit.htm for capturing HDV material
CD & DVD Tools
Easy CD-DA Extractor: http://www.poikosoft.com/ for audio ripping, conversion and disk creation
PowerDVD: http://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdvd/overview_en_US.html for playing DVD and BRD's
Nero: http://www.nero.com/enu/nero9-introduction.html for duplicating disks on multiple burners simultaneously
Install tools
nLite: http://www.nliteos.com/ for creating slipstreamed installation disks for XP
vLite: http://www.vlite.net/ for creating slipstreamed installation disks for Vista
Video tools
GSpot: http://www.headbands.com/gspot/ for identifying the codec in use
Media Info: http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en for identifying the codec in use
Lagarith: http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html a visually lossless codec
HuffYuv: http://neuron2.net/www.math.berkeley.edu/benrg/huffyuv.html another visually lossless codec
Bitrate calculator: http://dvd-hq.info/bitrate_calculator.php?PHPSESSID=6501b6b2b31f4c4a29 5bc8c2ba1e6f57#Calculator
I hope we can extend on this list with your suggestions, so in the end we may have a good list of tools that people can consult when they are looking for specific utilities. It is not my initial intention to include specific tools like ripping software, plug-ins to PR and the like, but only the more generic tools. Hence no mention of MainConcept, Morgan and the like.
