Techiy

Tried: CCleaner, Comodo System Cleaner. Yes, everyone knows unused files and registry entries are increasing as you use Windows for a longer time. In fact, CCleaner is actually Crap Cleaner. There are many system cleaners/optimizers around in the net; the reason I chose these two softwares is they are almost fool-proof. It means you can just follow the instructions and clean the system without causing system errors. CCleaner removes unwanted files and registry entries in Windows system in a safe way. I have been using CCleaner for quite a while now and it is not causing me any problem.

Cannot delete files in Windows because some programs are using it? Don't even know which process is locking it? Fear not, for the Unlocker is here. Unlocker is a good example of my definition of good freewares. After you have installed it, it gives you an extra option after you right click on the file you wish to delete/move/rename. You can view all the processes that are locking your files now, choose to kill all the process and do what you intended to in the first place. This is the homepage for it. Update: Looks like the new version of Unlocker setup file (I am using the 64-bit version) is detected as a malware. Although the main site mentioned that it is a false positive, I am still not convinced. Use at your own risk. Edited 27 Mar 2011.

I first found this light and useful software because I had a problem with Office 2007 icons (those with extensions of xlsx, docx, pptx, etc.) Instead of showing the original and prettier icons, they shows a blank document icon with a small corresponding office symbol in it. I tried many methods and finally figured it out that I needed to dissociates those filetypes and Windows will replace the wrong icon itself. The catch is, there is no explicit (GUI, at least) way of doing dissociation of filetypes, unlike in Windows XP. (What is wrong with Windows?!) This program is mainly for Vista/Win7 because it can be easily done in XP. You can download it here .   Edited 21 Sep 2010.

I do not want to change my whole Windows environment to Chinese because some symbols would be substituted  as weird characters (often as uncommon Chinese characters). Most new applications can display Chinese characters well because they are using Unicode. For those that don't, I would use Applocale to open the applications in their local language environment. In fact, this program allows your application to run in local environment of different language, more than you can think of.