Scott Hanselman's 2021 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on news.ycombinator.com

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  • winget-pkgs

    The Microsoft community Windows Package Manager manifest repository

  • https://github.com/Microsoft/winget-pkgs

    Pretty much everything major with a installer is covered.

  • Scoop

    A command-line installer for Windows.

  • Here's a comparison page:

    https://github.com/lukesampson/scoop/wiki/Chocolatey-Compari...

    One advantage is that scoop installs (most) tools into a common place and search path, and thus doesn't pollute environment variables as much.

  • InfluxDB

    Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

    InfluxDB logo
  • PyleWM

    A utility for tiling window management keybindings on Microsoft Windows, inspired by use of i3/awesome.

  • I always had problems with bug.n too. The best tool I've found like a tiling wm on Windows is PyleWM: https://github.com/GGLucas/PyleWM

  • Bulk-Crap-Uninstaller

    Remove large amounts of unwanted applications quickly.

  • In the same field as Total Uninstall, there's Bulk Crap Uninstaller[0] that helps you stay sane when fixing up a relative's computer. It finds and helps you uninstall applications unattended, also removes leftover files after the uninstallation.

    [0]: https://github.com/Klocman/Bulk-Crap-Uninstaller

  • hunt-and-peck

    Simple vimium/vimperator style navigation for Windows applications based on the UI Automation framework.

  • I would mention Total commander and Quick Access Popup as two well known ones, but two gems that I see are undiscovered are:

    - TouchCursor https://martin-stone.github.io/touchcursor/ the only one I found that allows you to use Space as modifier key, and works flawlesly (with other ahk scripts handling hotkeys running simultaneously). Praying it does not stop working with some Win10 update, as it is not being worked one, it seems

    - https://github.com/zsims/hunt-and-peck for more mouse free operation of any program.

  • plugins-extra

    These are highly unstable, buggy, incomplete plugins that are not included with Process Hacker by default.

  • The ultimate Task Manger, open source, supports amazing plugins , and has tons of features that Process Explorer lacks: Process Hacker [0] Be sure to get the nightly/3.0 branch , the 2.0 branch is several years old. Also I strongly suggest building the plugins extra repo [1], has some great ones, like a terminator plugin that can kill apps various user and kernel ways.

    Unfortunately due to a personal dispute with by a Microsoft employee its signature ended up in antivirus databases, so don't expect any love from Microsoft and expect having to whitelist it with anti-virus products, but the source code is open and you can build it yourself. [2]

    [0] https://wj32.org/processhacker/nightly.php

    [1] https://github.com/processhacker/plugins-extra/

    [2] https://github.com/processhacker/processhacker/issues/454#is...

  • PowerToys

    Windows system utilities to maximize productivity

  • As a free alternative to Flash Renamer, PowerRename[0] from the latest PowerToys[1] collection might be worth a look.

    [0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/powerrena...

    [1] https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys

  • SaaSHub

    SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews. SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives

    SaaSHub logo
  • windows-terminal-quake

    Turn any app into a Quake-style toggleable app.

  • It seems nice but using WSL(2) Windows Terminal is noticeably faster for me, same compared to most other alternatives including Cmder/ConEmu.

    While Windows Terminal doesn't have a settings UI (yet[0]) it does allow for theming, this page[1] features a range of color schemes that you can define and set in your settings.json.

    There's also a wrapper that allows for quake style drop down [2] until it's implemented by Windows Terminal itself[0].

    [0] https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/blob/main/doc/terminal...

    [1] https://windowsterminalthemes.dev/

    [2] https://github.com/flyingpie/windows-terminal-quake

  • vscodium

    binary releases of VS Code without MS branding/telemetry/licensing

  • VSCodium (https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium) is a better alternative. Same but no Microsoft branding and telemetry.

  • WSL

    Issues found on WSL

  • No, but they're actively working on it. You can mount it as a CIFS share to get somewhat better performance; I believe there are some other hacks to fix specific things like "git status".

    https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4197

  • winget-cli

    WinGet is the Windows Package Manager. This project includes a CLI (Command Line Interface), PowerShell modules, and a COM (Component Object Model) API (Application Programming Interface).

  • Agreed. winget is lacking most features I absolutely need from a package manager, including listing installed packages, uninstalling packages, and updating packages. These are all on the v1 roadmap [1], but for the foreseeable future I'm sticking with scoop.

    [1] https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli/blob/master/doc/wind...

  • bug.n

    Tiling Window Manager for Windows

  • I like TidyTabs [1] and AquaSnap [2] (both by Nurgo Software). They both make window management so much easier.

    What I'd prefer is an open-source tiling window manager like i3. I've tried bug.n [3], but couldn't get it to work consistently for some reason.

    [1] https://www.nurgo-software.com/products/tidytabs

    [2] https://www.nurgo-software.com/products/aquasnap

    [3] https://github.com/fuhsjr00/bug.n

  • gsudo

    Sudo for Windows

  • cinst gsudo

    Works like on linux.

    https://github.com/gerardog/gsudo

  • far2l

    Linux port of FAR v2

  • https://github.com/elfmz/far2l/

  • SaaSHub

    SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews. SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives

    SaaSHub logo
NOTE: The number of mentions on this list indicates mentions on common posts plus user suggested alternatives. Hence, a higher number means a more popular project.

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