10 Excellent Tools To Customize Your Windows

Windows customization is just another step in personalizing our computers. Just like we personalize our office space with our favorite coffee mug or family photos to make it more comfortable, Windows customization gives us a more comfortable environment to work in. Consequently we get things done faster and have an improved efficiency.
While there are many Windows customization tools out there, getting by free and good ones is not that easy. That is why I am sharing 10 great freeware tools for Windows customization with all of you. Read each entry in the list and see which tool suits your needs best.
You are welcome if you want to share more tools that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at  smashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter , follow us on Google Buzz and do not forget to become our fan on facebook as well
MouseExtender

MouseExtender requires no installation. It is a 110KB download overall and includes EXE which we run. The application is a small window that lets us customize our mouse menus. We can use the little window of the program to quickly access our control panel, shut down our computer, or set up a custom shortcut for any program, file, or folder.
Logon Studio

Many application lets us change the theme and background of our desktop but only Logon Studio lets us change the Windows login screen. The program works best with Windows Vista and is a 3MB download only. Brilliant backgrounds are included in the application that replace the default Windows login screen background. More backgrounds can be downloaded from the application’s website.
Fences

Fences is an application I used and got many friends to start using. The program is 9MB to download and creates docks on our screen with titles. We can arrange our desktop icons in these docks to keep things tidy and easily accessible.
Radian

I remember being thoroughly impressed by Radian. It gives our mouse massive shortcut power. We can hold down the right click button to bring into view a circle containing shortcuts for files and programs which we set. Radian is a brilliant technique to empower the mouse.
Window Blinds

If you are looking for an easy to use (yet very powerful) Windows theme changer, then Window Blinds will serve your needs well. The download is relatively large (33MB) but the interface is beautiful to justify it all.
RKLauncher

RKLauncher is another dock-adding application. But unlike Fences, it provides a singular dock with all our applications. We can scroll through our applications. The highlighted ones are magnified into view. The interface is visually brilliant considering that RKLauncher is merely a 720KB download and requires no installation.
Actual Window Minimizer

Actual Window Minimizer is a 4MB download that adds an additional button to the most-left of each window’s top right pane, where the close, restore, and minimize buttons are located. Clicking this new button minimizes the window to the System Tray rather than the Taskbar. In this simple way, users are able to free up space on their Taskbar.
T3Desk

T3Desk is a wonderful Windows customization program. It lets us set an angle to all our open windows so we can always have the desktop in view. We can set which side of the screen the window will be aligned to. We can also set the transparency and exact angle of the window.
SecondShell

SecondShell is an application many Windows users will be able to benefit from. It is a tiny program that requires no installation. All it does is add new hotkeys and mouse shortcuts for the tasks we perform daily on our computer. Once mastered, these tasks end up saving a lot of our time. Laptop users in particular will find SecondShell to be immensely helpful.
Iconizer

Iconizer is a free website to create our own custom icons. We can have detailed customization of Windows by creating our icons and assigning them to our folders and files.

Read More

DirectX For windows Xp Update

Microsoft DirectX is a group of technologies designed to make Windows-based computers an ideal platform for running and displaying applications rich in multimedia elements such as full-color graphics, video, 3D animation, and rich audio. DirectX includes security and performance updates, along with many new features across all technologies, which can be accessed by applications using the DirectX APIs.
The latest version of the Microsoft Windows Gaming API delivers Microsoft's powerful new High-Level Shader Language (HLSL) and features its most-advanced suite of design tools for the development of rich multimedia elements such as full-spectrum color graphics, video, 3-D animation and enhanced audio capabilities.
DirectX 9.0 introduces significant improvements across its suite of APIs. DirectSound offers new audio capabilities, DirectShow accelerates video rendering hardware, and Direct3D enhances low-level graphics programmability with new programmable vertex and pixel shader 2.0 models.

Download
Latest Version
95.63MB

 

Read More

Defraq Tools For windows

Most defrag tools only allow you to defrag an entire drive. Defraggler lets you specify one or more files, folders, or the whole drive to defragment.
When Defraggler reads or writes a file, it uses the exact same techniques that Windows uses. Using Defraggler is just as safe for your files as using Windows.
At a glance, you can see how fragmented your hard drive is. Defraggler's drive map shows you blocks that are empty, not fragmented, or needing defragmentation.

• Give your hard drive a quick touch-up with Quick Defrag
• Organizes empty disk space to further prevent fragmentation
• Defragment while you sleep - and wake up with a faster PC. Set Defraggler to run daily, weekly or monthly
• Full Windows OS and Multi-lingual support
• Boot time defrag of system files
• Supports 37 major languages

Defraggler is made by Piriform, the company that also brought you CCleaner and Recuva, so is completely free!

Download
Latest Version
2.93MB

 

Read More

CPU-Z 1.57 For Windows

CPU-Z is a freeware utility that gathers information on some of the main devices of your system. CPU-Z does not need to be installed, just unzip the files in a directory and run the .exe. In order to remove the program, just delete the files. The program does not copy any file in any Windows directory, nor write to the registry.
CPU

• Name and number.
• Core stepping and process.
• Package.
• Core voltage.
• Internal and external clocks, clock multiplier.
• Supported instructions sets.
• All cache levels (location, size, speed, technology).

Mainboard

• Vendor, model and revision.
• BIOS model and date.
• Chipset (northbridge and southbridge) and sensor.
• Graphic interface.

Memory

• Frequency and timings.
• Module(s) specification using SPD (Serial Presence Detect) : vendor, serial number, timings table.

System

• Windows and DirectX version.

Download
Latest Version
3.67MB

Read More

CCleaner 3.05.1408

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware! :)
Cleans the following:

• Internet Explorer
• Firefox
• Google Chrome
• Opera
• Safari
• Windows - Recycle Bin, Recent Documents, Temporary files and Log files.
• Registry cleaner
• Third-party applications
• 100% Spyware FREE

Download
Latest Version
2.91MB

From : filehippo.com

Read More

Process Explorer For Windows

Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.
The Process Explorer display consists of two sub-windows. The top window always shows a list of the currently active processes, including the names of their owning accounts, whereas the information displayed in the bottom window depends on the mode that Process Explorer is in: if it is in handle mode you'll see the handles that the process selected in the top window has opened; if Process Explorer is in DLL mode you'll see the DLLs and memory-mapped files that the process has loaded. Process Explorer also has a powerful search capability that will quickly show you which processes have particular handles opened or DLLs loaded.
The unique capabilities of Process Explorer make it useful for tracking down DLL-version problems or handle leaks, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work.

Download
Latest Version
1.47MB

From : http://www.filehippo.com/download_process_explorer/tech/ 

Read More

Net Frame 4.0

The .NET Framework is Microsoft's comprehensive and consistent programming model for building applications that have visually stunning user experiences, seamless and secure communication, and the ability to model a range of business processes.
The Microsoft .NET Framework 4 redistributable package installs the .NET Framework runtime and associated files that are required to run and develop applications to target the .NET Framework 4.
The .NET Framework 4 works side by side with older Framework versions. Applications that are based on earlier versions of the Framework will continue to run on the version targeted by default.
.NET Framework 4 includes the following new features and improvements:

• Improvements in CLR and BCL
• Improvements in ADO.NET
• Enhancements to ASP.NET
• Improvements in Windows Presentation Foundation
• Improvements to Windows Workflow Foundation and Windows Communication Foundation

Download
Latest Version
48.11MB

Other Net Frame Work :

• .NET Framework Version 1.1
• .NET Framework Version 2.0 SP1
• .NET Framework Version 3.5 SP1

 

Read More