The Most Useful Set of Free Programs EVER

[@samsoulee]

This Nir guy is actually my hero .

[@megatech1966]

Yes. He’s great

[@JuniorzGTX]

Yes

[@riceballsenthusiast5899]

This person got me with that ps3 to ps4 trick back then though

[@ITILII]

Samy is My Hero :-)

[@AtrixRBX]

@@riceballsenthusiast5899 rip

[@user-cx2bk6pm2f]

ThioJoe knows what's good.. he's right, this Nirsoft stuff is super amazing. His stuff for fixing context menus and file type names is almost impossible to do otherwise.

[@QuinceTart10]

I think, that BatteryInfo is pretty cool, because if you are on an old laptop, and want to know, when the battery will die (I mean like force shutdown the computer) and other stuff about the bat tree, you just open it and maybe enable logging, which is useful, when you want to know, when your tree for bats died.

[@eIucidate]

At first I thought "bat tree" was a typo, then you hit me with "tree for bats" 😂😂😂 Well played

[@QuinceTart10]

@@eIucidate DankPods reference BTW.

[@DrTucker]

Special folders view! That's the one! I used it a while ago but lost it due a hdd crash and couldn't remember it's name (pathetic, I know) Thanks a lot man!

[@davidwiley4953]

It you deal with large numbers of files, I suggest the Bulk Rename Utility.

[@iamvinku]

Mark Russinovich (Sysinternals) and Nir Sofer (NirSoft) have done more for Windows than literally any other dev out there

[@ROCKVIDEOMONTHLY]

I was just about to add comment mentioning sysinternals! Haha I’m still amazed at the number of things he found a way to hook into and utilize EDIT: I wasn’t to end of video yet when I posted, didn’t realize he mentioned sysinternals too lol

[@absoleet]

M$ felt the same way and bought Sysinternals so Mark I think still works for M$ today.

[@hisham_hm]

@@absoleet Mark is the CTO of Microsoft's cloud product now!

[@umaroon6803]

Out where?

[@CaltaTomas]

What about Dave Plummer (Task manager)? Can you imagine living without task manager?

[@HamedEmine]

You forgot Volumouse from Nirsoft, you have absolutely no idea how much handy it is to control the volume pretty much instantly with the mouse hovering over the taskbar (or anything you set) and scrolling. It can also be used to control the screen brightness and other audio parameters like your mic volume for example. It's just neat!

[@andymouse]

Yeah this sounds epic !...cheers.

[@anon_y_mousse]

Neat, I just checked and that's built-in to my system. I bound the keys for that to Win+Up and Win+Down and now I have one more easy method. I'm using Slackware Linux with KDE, by the way.

[@HamedEmine]

@@anon_y_mousse I was looking for an alternative to Volumouse on Linux Mint but I couldn't find any, and someone mentioned that it was built-in but I couldn't find it so I gave up. All I wanted was to control the volume with the mouse without having to touch the keyboard ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@HamedEmine]

@@andymouse Glad that helped! Cheers!

[@srpenguinbr]

@@anon_y_mousse It's great, every OS should have this feature and custom keyboard shortcuts. I use email+shift or email+shift+alt to control volume

[@fonkbadonk5370]

I also like WinDirStat which gives a really useful visual representation of your data storage. Great for finding big files or folders that hog your SSD!

[@nurax]

I use WinDirStat too! :) I've heard that other programs, like WizTree, are faster for local storage using NTFS tho. Just as a sidenote.

[@re.liable]

@@nurax WizTree is faster for me on either HDD or SSD

[@nurax]

@@re.liable Thanks for confirming that!

[@emaaaaax]

oh he made it? i used it for years i had no idea lol

[@jimmysoncookland5446]

Spacesniffer is my go to for this. So good.

[@muneeblone2740]

Me: isn't a Power user Also me: downloads every power tool I'm never going to use

[@jendorei]

As long as you’re interested and research what they actually do, this already makes you enough of a power user.

[@GYTCommnts]

Yeahhhh! Recognition for NirSoft! Awesome! This great developer and Mark Russinovich's SysInternals Suite have some of the best Power Tools for Windows ever! (Process Explorer, for ex., should be embedded in Windows already). Thank you for bringing this! 💪

[@Reddotzebra]

I'm currently adding this whole suite to a rescue USB that I previously made thanks to your video on Ventoy and Hiro's rescue CD. So now it's basically going to be the ultimate all-in-one software toolkit.

[@mokisan]

What was his previous video? I am thinking of making one rescue usb too. But I am quite novice in these things. I am confused as to what folder and files I should put.

[@cannedbeverage7687]

RunAsDate is useful, as on rare occasions some poorly made programs break after a certain date. Most notably, two years ago GTA 4 Complete Edition broke and RunAsDate was the only convenient way to play the game before it got patched.

[@yw1971]

Some older games could also be extended similarly beyond their 'free trial'...

[@-DeScruff]

I'm guessing that was related to Leap year? Because yeah! This year a bunch of software and games all had their own Y2K events all because it was February 29th. Handy to know there is a rando program that can fix such issues.

[@kopeofonrac2084]

My thought was that some games use the real world clock provided by Windows. Maybe if you ran those games on a different RunAsDate, the player could trick the game into going forward or backward in time, to the frustration of the game developers, who wanted the game to run on a real world clock.

[@JohnSmith-ws7fq]

Wow, I never realized all the Nirsoft tools were made by one man. Have sent a donation to his site.

[@thepenguin9]

Procexp from sys internals is a godsend with the process eyedropper where you select a window and it immediately shows you the relevant process. Super handy when you get popups with no apparent source

[@_SJ]

"This one is more for power users..." - And the giant wall suddenly appears

[@ego-lay_atman-bay]

This is why I like windows more than mac

[@ReverendTed]

One of my favorite free tools is one called SpaceMonger, which makes it VERY easy to tell what's taking up space on your drive. There's a newer version, but I still like and use SpaceMonger 1.4.0.

[@cuteswan]

After every one of these videos I end up installing at least one of the things that was covered.

[@roberts_irregular_random_rec]

I run "Wireless Network Watcher" from Nirsoft all the time. It shows all devices connected to my network. It does NOT ONLY show wireless, but ALL devices. Allows me to see if a neighbor or visiting guest is trying to jump onto my network. TIP - modify the USER TEXT for all items that you DO recognize - put some common text at the front (like your initials). This way you can tell at a glance if a device is something new or something you've already recognized as being "OK". (I actually put WIRED - or WIRELESS - in front of each device rather than using my initials - helps me to troubleshoot by quickly identifying how the device is connecting - but the choice is yours.)

[@anon_y_mousse]

This is pretty cool, that guy is single-handedly fixing all the deficiencies in Windows. Most of this functionality can already be done with a basic install of Linux, though not quite as easily or with as much polish, at first. There are of course many tools for these on Linux with polish, but not all in one place like this guy provides. Although, I suppose one could argue that the package management systems provide the "one place", but that's only if you know what you're looking for.

[@E-1337]

thanks again for sifting through the useless info out there and sharing the useful info with us, most people dont find spending hours diving into this kind of stuff nearly as interesting as I do and i'd assume you do aswell. these vids infinitely increase the likelyhood of someone stumbling upon these things by chance :)

[@bailey125]

ControlMyMonitor is an extremely useful one. Since Most NirSoft programs support cmd commands you can create scripts to change the brightness and port source of your monitors at the click of a button (as well as many more settings)

[@MarkusMaal]

Cursors ARE icons, the only differences are a few bytes in the file header (and the file extension of course)

[@neoqueto]

Not .ANI cursors.

[@MarkusMaal]

@@neoqueto yes, I was talking about non-animated cursors

[@anon_y_mousse]

@@neoqueto They're not entirely not icons either. It's a RIFF with icons for each frame of the animation. Also, icons are just fancy bitmaps with transparency masks and done as a list so you can have multiple resolutions in one file.

[@fortnitegamer-ph5jg]

Nir has so many software that he probably sometimes asks himself "Wait, do I have an app for that" while doing something

[@RiversBliss]

_Everything_ search.

[@DanyyyyyJPF]

Everything search.

[@Ahmed--Hany]

Everything search.

[@YTInnovativeSolution]

The NirSoft tools are extremely useful and seemingly simple. I wish I had his knowledge.

[@Gamer-ct6hb]

Why is everyone commenting about AMAZING VIDEO! its been 10 minutes you couldnt have watched the video

[@roxcyn]

They know it will be an excellent video. 👌

[@RandyR]

Thanks for your insight on another video. Been using Norton for years. However, now that I am practically broke, i had to find a great and inexpensive replacement. Now using Guardio. Praying that it is going to work. Things were a lot easier and less stressful before the machine took over. Take care.

[@spakeschannel]

Also another cool guy is henrypp with his MemReduct and Simplewall. Lightweight stuff FTW.

[@FleaMarketSocialist]

*Nirsoft is a working class hero* 👨‍💻

[@ego-lay_atman-bay]

A great use for the start as date program is for starting among us on april 1st without changing your device date.

[@jendorei]

Yeah, I instantly came up with games for time-based events and easter eggs. No idea what Among Us does on April 1st though

[@ego-lay_atman-bay]

@@jendorei before the most recent update, the skeld was flipped. Now, the characters turn into horses.

[@nihorothereal]

Haha, Nirsoft, yes, I remember it from old days :D Now all the questions - like why this functionality is not in the operating system, are solved. They are in my operating system.

[@station5045]

RunAsDate came in ahndy to fix a bug in GTA4 that stopped it from autosaving! Crazy right?

[@darknessblades]

Run as date is exactly what I need to Install a Older version of ATLAS [translator software]. where it does not want to install after 2014

[@Cart1416]

I probably have a NirSoft program on my computer without even realizing

[@SirenGlitch]

2:22 what's that other windows explorer?

[@d3xbot]

My favorite part of BlueScreenView is that you can toggle an old-school WinXP style blue screen display in the lower pane which (to me) is a lot more useful since I know how to read those

[@snarkykat]

As usual, your videos are useful enough for me to take an action with regard to my computers

[@RichardPhillips1066]

One I use a lot is space sniffer , it shows used space visually , very useful for finding wasted space

[@zaibahmad]

Even I use SpaceSniffer mostly, but it sometimes keeps scanning indefinitely on the OS partition. WinDirStat comes pretty handy in such cases.

[@RAZKEN.]

Sounds alot like TreeSize, which is doing the same thing but with a more modern look to it.

[@RichardPhillips1066]

@@RAZKEN. correct

[@TheWilro]

I just waaay too much time playing around with these tools. Such a useful toolkit. Thanks for the video. Top-notch content.

[@AmyraCarter]

I know I have some Nirsoft stuffs. Useful, 'nuff said.

[@hanro50]

Ohhh yea. This guy...if you're curious how IT folks can transfer your emails without your password, get lost product keys and so much more... It is thanks to this guy.

[@shadowchasernql]

Bro censored his local address 💀💀

[@EtonuiYoutube]

I’ve been looking for a video like this

[@lightning_11]

10:04 RunAsDate sounds cool for accessing April fools and other easter egg content.

[@yw1971]

And he writes them in Assembly... (Like the other dude, Gibson)

[@yesterdaysrose5446]

It's kind of an undersell to say Sysinternals is just a bunch of tools released by Microsoft, yawn. A better pitch would be to say that they're a bunch of tools developed by some absolutely glorious Windows turbonerds who were so awesome that Microsoft bought the company. And *for once*, that was not an attempt to quash the competition by buying them out, as was so typical in the Ballmer era. Everyone loved those tools that much. I was a 100% Linux nerd at the time and even I was impressed by them.

[@snowdog03]

Been using since 2013. Majorgeeks is your friend.

[@subway_surfers5251]

How do you add ico files together in a dll file like there is in system32.dll

[@wasiqkhan8214]

i followed you for more than a year i liked your videos because its very interested and beneficial for me and i am also a student of computer science and your videos are very help full for me

[@ianarchibald7928]

WinDirStat is very good with storage management. It's not by Nir but it is really cool.

[@Alcateru]

Hi sir i remember you mentioned a program in one of your videos about viewing the root directory of windows, can you remind me of its name

[@jonathangamingyt3926]

Why wouldn't you make a video about paid programs that you use

[@eltheooooooooo]

i love how in the shell32 thing there is a lot of icons and then theres just a tree

[@dluziond]

already knew about this, glad its getting recognition lol

[@maniesh]

I have been using nirsoft utilities for more than 12 years. Initially I used it to stop running malware when task manager couldn't do it. I also used it to uninstall programs that were not shown in control panel (sneaky Trojans that would eat up my RAM)

[@hugosmoable]

Wireless network watcher from NirSoft is such a helpful tool. It's simple but it has helped me detect devices connected to friends or family wifi that are hogging bandwidth (or they are unwanted devices). So useful to do initial diagnostics.

[@RakeshKumar-pj5xm]

Thanks for the Video, Bro!!!

[@alanberry811]

Libre Office is a great free alternative to Microsoft office

[@Remington510]

NirCMD is pretty nice. I've been using it in the past. I remember one use case was setting a macro on a keyboard to look for my browser. If it was open, it would drag it to the foreground. If not, it would launch the browser. Without it the keyboard software would just keep launching new instances.

[@DiabloXL69]

POV: thiojoe is secretly sponsored by nirsoft

[@alpacamale2909]

I used his tool to find internet explorer passwords

[@TwentyFirsters]

I use Everything almost every day. Very useful.

[@darrelbryant8632]

NOW this looks like fun!! I'm glad you brought this to light. I'm going to have to schedule a month of weekends. You're the best ThioJoe!!!

[@crosenblum]

My favorite tool is Chocolatey Package Manager for windows. It helps me install almost any software, and set a schedule to automatically update it. If you are familiar with Linux, it has a similar feel.

[@prosthetics963]

I've used his tools for years! saved myself a bunch of time on troubleshooting

[@comprefg5237]

Is is me, or his voice sounds more robotic?

[@barracuda861]

This is similar to a CD I used to download called Hiram’s. It was filled with tools even a windows PE program to get you into your computer.

[@saritarai9739]

it’s really amazing session, plz continue it for more. Thank You 🙏

[@ronalds.5830]

ur a fcking legend dude honestly

[@Lampe2020]

You should have included the NirSoft Installer System (I don't know if it's exactly named like that, I'm almost exclusively on Linux since a year now), It's an installer creator which many programs use for their installers, like e.g. IrfanView. Only important for power users tho.

[@srpenguinbr]

Very cool! IrfanView is my favorite freeware of all time, I use it as the default viewer on Linux too

[@Lampe2020]

@@srpenguinbr Me too!

[@Juliodax]

NSIS????

[@Lampe2020]

@@Juliodax I think it's called like that, yes... @Felipe Lorenzzon Me too! (the only problem is that it needs a while to start because Wine has to start first...)

[@User321nl]

Although that is very useful, it's originally by Nullsoft (the guys behind Winamp), not the hero of this video, Nir Sofer

[@_SJ]

Can I be first?

[@ThioJoe]

Yes if youtube doesnt delete it after publishing 🤔

[@_SJ]

@@ThioJoe So far, they haven't based on previous vids

[@brusslee1814]

How do you get first every time video uploaded 6sec ago and your comment 2hours ago how is that even possible

[@chocolateimage]

@@brusslee1814 I think because S J is a member.

[@_SJ]

@@brusslee1814 Channel membership

[@youtube.user.1234]

Hey ThioJoe you should do a series in which you use Linux as your daily driver for a month. If you’re gonna do it then use Zorin OS (it is a Linux OS or distro). Don’t listen to people saying to use Arch Linux or Gentoo, those aren’t for beginners at all and require some patience and skill.

[@bang1338]

You forgot bunch of tool from Sordum (like Defender Control and DNS Changer) and I made own tool called UAController

[@cowboyfrankspersonalvideos8869]

I use NirSoft Wireless Network Watcher (I use it for hard wired network) every day to keep track of which computers are down. Also Network Adapter Watch and WiFi Info View give an easy way to retrieve information on your computer network connections and what WiFi connections are near me.

[@Bxwizkid]

Thanks, really enjoy your videos. ? I was wondering, do you have any free programs that could password protect a folder profile so no one else can see it? Thank you for your time

[@phoenixpcrepairs-hartbeesp4226]

Hi Thio. I love using mailpv,it is super usefull for extraction of passwords on outlook installations. Ear trumpet lets you control everything with audio running on your pc,best is that you can set vol independendly. Best free search app is everything and its independent from windows search.

[@ShinyMoon502]

Also can u make review about how stable windows 11 is now

[@StuffOfSonny]

I'm gonna test AdvancedRun now to see if it solves one very common issue I have with various games: Them starting on the wrong/non-preferred monitor. I don't know if it's Windows remembering which monitor a program was last run on, or the program itself, but you take it for granted so much and it only takes one bothersome program to ruin it. EDIT: Well, this might be useful for games that don't require extra launchers/scripts. I also tried MultiMonitorTool from NirSoft, but that didn't help with the particularly troublesome game I'm trying to sort.

[@CoderIQBE]

Thanks for the tips! I used ShellMenuView to find and fix something that bugged me for a long time!

[@nemtudom5074]

1:50 YES I've been dealing with inconsistent usb dropouts lately, and that sounds like the exact thing to solve the problem!

[@BritishBeachcomber]

I've been using Nirsoft tools since the start. Small, focused, single function tools. They do the job. They just work.

[@SilentPrayerCG]

My old LG monitor wont show up anything in Control My Monitor. I have suspiction that it's because it's connected to GPU's display port via Ali Express adapter. Cuz 1070 jetstream have only 1 hdmi, and rest of them dp and one DVI-I. And for some reason if i connect my main monitor with dp directly, it's very buggy. When monitor goes to wait mode, DP litterly disconnect it from PC same as if you just pull of the cord, and windows start moving around because of it and for some reason, if PC went to sleep with monitor connected to DP, USB gen 3.1 (i think, 2 ports of usb with some latest at time usb gens) stop working. Like you need unplug DP, and then reboot PC. I never found any solution for this, and when something connected via DP adapter it's works ok.

[@deanio4618]

I'm putting together a flashdrive using containing Medicat, I'm adding more iso's but also want to add this collection of tools. I'm not sure if I'm missing something but when I extract to my flashdrive I get the tools but also a html file with a yellow ? Can I delete the html files.

[@wartortlerulestheworld]

I know I don't want to judge but Why do people defend Microsoft and Windows 11 its kinda a S*** OS because it is only just a Re-Skinned Windows 10 + lacks any good customizion features I'm not here to bash on the OS but it really sucks is there actually an actually improvement over Windows 10 besides just garbage UI Design, also thanks for telling me about these tools.

[@lawliot]

nircmd - it can open bat files and hide the window so it's really useful for running scheduled tasks hidden in the background. Of course it has many other functions too.

[@themusesquad8554]

"Sysinternal" was better before Microsoft bought them.

[@Thex-W.I.T.C.H.-xMaster]

To be honest I don't see much use for these 🤔.

[@jchinckley]

"It's only about 3MB and runs in the background." -- I remember when my PC (first one) only had _4_ MB of ram... This program would have made it impossible to run anything else at that time... I mean it uses 3/4 of all the RAM I had at the time. (This program being the one that tells you what just disconnected from the system... the 1st one he mentioned.)

[@ZaZulin]

4mb of ram? 0_o

[@LugiDergX]

@@ZaZulin First computers were really limited. 4MB of RAM might sound impossible and ridicolous today, but it was a reality just some years ago.

[@MindCaged]

NirSoft is awesome, I've had several problems over the years or needed certain information, and it was surprising how many times nirsoft had a program to do just what I needed. As for RunAsDate, I did find one good practical use for it, I have a bunch of old flash games on my computer but since the devs decided to give it a fixed cut off date where it pretty much won't run anymore, I just use RunAsDate to run the Flash Viewer program with a date /before/ flash's cutoff date. I know there's third parties trying to make their own software to run flash games, but last I checked they weren't 100 percent compatible, and I have a custom flash launcher that uses the ActiveX control, which I'm not aware of any third party software that has a replacement for it.

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

Wireless key view is another nir tool that's very useful. When you come somewhere and they don't remember their wireless password, it helps a lot

[@ShrirajGPethe]

I was using The Task view thingy, it stopped working with Windows 11. So now i use GUI prop view. Both by this dude.

[@KuroiRyuu]

Wow so cool and so usefull. I used BlueScreenView before never thought is part of this

[@kbytes92]

You aren't a real IT geek if you haven't used Nirsoft applications once in your career. Especially my boomers and millennial IT folks 🤣

[@UNICORNSF3ProgameplayProRACER]

Super🙂

[@XXLcze]

USBDeview is also very usefull to uninstall any UBS device and it's settings so it behaves like it was never plugged in before. My headphones have this weird bug that sometimes it appears to be at 100% volume but in fact is only 30% and this program can just reset the settings letting it reinstall again.

[@CattopyTheWeb]

Interesting apps 🤔 Thio

[@INGIE32]

This is so useful. I was actually looking for the icon extractor to use in python. Now I can just use the shell command from subprocess to use it in Python!

[@cambridgeport90]

His tools are amazing... I sort of forgot about them,until you just reminded me.

[@DimusTech]

Nir is most likely (according to the name and small search on Google) from my country :-) I did use in the past some of his tools but lately I didn't some are old some have other ways... BUT! YOU JUST CHANGED MY LIFE!!! I recently started making some videos with over the table view and I connect my camera to the second input of the PC, my monitor has some not so comfy touch buttons to switch inputs etc and I'd wish to have some better way, now thanks to you showing the "ControlMyMonitor" I'm gonna make those into a macro key on my keyboard!!!! Thanks!!!