It’s inevitable - a reinstall of Windows to fix something that wasn’t working, or just to clean up all the crap you’ve installed/uninstalled etc. But what do you install after you have a fresh copy of windows?

Found a site where a user listed all his essential programs. It’s here. Not a bad read and I have got some ideas from it myself.

My own tips are as follows:

With your fresh install of Windows and all your applications and drivers installed, use a program like Acronis True Image to make an image of your working OS. So if it craps itself down the track, a restore of your image will save time and get you back to square one much quicker.

If you’re not going to go down that path, create a DVD of all your programs that you install after a reformat. I call mine DR (disaster recovery). Saves me having to look for, and then download all the programs I use.