Windows your way

Windows comes with a variety of bundled utilities. Traditionally these have been fairly limited in their abilities to leave room for commercial packages offering more features. However, there are now many utilities that do a better job than the bundled ones and which are free for you to download. Just look for the names of the various Windows bundled programs on the buttons at the left and click on them to find our suggested improvements.

When you are installing Windows, think carefully about the bundled utilities. If you are going to install an Office suite, do you really need WordPad? If you are going to install a utility suite, do you need System Tools - Defrag, Scandisk etc.? Some of the bundled utilities can be omitted during the installation process, or can be removed by going into Control Panel and choosing Add/Remove Programs. In that dialogue box you will find the option to add or remove Windows components. Start your configuring from there.

If you are using Windows 98, 98SE, or ME, download a copy of 98lite from LitePC Technologies, and if you are using XP or 2000 download XPlite or 2000lite, as appropriate. These programs will allow you to remove the original bundled utilities. There are free versions, but you may need to buy the full version to remove some utilities.

http://www.litepc.com/download.html

You may also need some "tweaking" utilities - see Customise Windows for some suggestions.