Windows 7 wasn’t designed for the touch screen of a tablet PC.  The buttons and scroll bars are far too small to easily use Windows 7 on a tablet PC. It’s all too easy to click the small Close button rather than the small Minimize button.   Thankfully,  there’s a couple of easy tweaks to make the buttons and scroll bars much larger on a Windows 7 tablet PC.

To get to the tweak to increase the button size and scroll bar you need to drill through a few layers of windows.   First right click on the desktop and chose Personalize.   The window below should appear.

You can only increase the size of the buttons on Tablet PCs with a non-Aero theme so select Windows 7 Basic Theme and wait for it to be applied.  Select the Window Color link and the following window should appear.

From this window select Advanced appearance setting… and the following dialog box will appear enabling you to increase the size of the buttons and scroll bars for your Windows 7 tablet.

Select the Active Title Bar and set the size of the title bar to something larger – 50 works well.  Select the Scroll Bar item and set the size of the scroll bar to something larger – 50 works well. Click apply.

In this post I’ve rounded up the very best sites on the internet to download free apps giving you access to over a 1000 free applications.  These download sites for free software contain really good lists of tried and tested applications.  The download sites below have links to the very best free applications, utilities, system tools and online apps. If you can’t download the free app you need from these lists, it probably doesn’t exist.

The Best Free Software of 2010

Legendary PCMag already boasts the very best software of 2010 to download.  Covering a whole ranges of free downloads  including media management, search, video, graphics and just about every category you can think of.   All free applications are organised into 30 different categories.

Best Free Online Applications and Services

A huge page and collection of the very best free online applications and services.  Since they’re all online you don’t need to download anything to your machine.  Neatly organised into 11 categories covering home, office, image viewing, disk tools, internet, email, programming, security and many more.

99 of the best Windows freeware programs you may not know of

The title says it all here.   99 of the greatest free Windows downloads which you may have overlooked.  It isn’t categorised,  but well worth looking down the page for some golden free software.  This list focuses on the little-league of software developers who usually don’t get the headlines.

TopFreeware.net

This is an extensive and well categorised list of free downloads. It’s got virtually every category you can think of including screen capture tools, education, multimedia, security, games, backup and loads more.

The 70 coolest free applications in existence

This is Stephen York’s list of the coolest free downloads around for those people who are more fortunate to spend less time on the internet. Applications are neatly organised into 12 categories including video playback, web development, operating systems, remote access and many more.

I want a Freeware Utility to … 450+ common problems solved.

This self-claimed list of  “Extremely useful free utilities that do specific jobs really well and save time and money.” does what it says on the tin.  This no-frills web page contains over 450 direct links to some great downloads,  all neatly categorised and easy to find.  Download categories include notepad replacements, files and folders freeware, graphics, imaging, internet tools, keyboard utils, recovery solutions and many many more.

Lifehacker Pack 2009: Essential Free Windows Downloads

This is lifehacker’s bundling all the best free downloads for new computer owners, re-installers, would-be geeks, or anyone who wants to save time installing the best stuff out there. It’s all a bit common, but useful all the same.

The Best Applications.com

The Best Free Applications for Windows and Mac. Sporting a user interface which would’t be out of place at a Las Vegas casino,  this web site gives access to dozens of free applications to download.  Hover over each of the Icons to find the name of the free software, or change to List View to give you a scrolling list of free apps to download.

Free Fun Files

FreeFunFiles has a good selection of free software to download for Windows.   It has a good choice of hobby tools, children games, video games and  pda software. The is also quite a bit of paid for software too download also.

I came across this great little feature in Windows 7 to add folders and locations to the “Favourites” in My Computer / Explorer.   With this neat little shortcut,  you can add any folder you use often,  and save you having to continually hunt around for it.  The favourite folder is always available when you open or save a file in any other application – ideal for opening and saving files in Office applications.

In order to use this Windows 7 feature,  simply open up any folder in Explorer and on the left of the folder view you’ll see a section called “Favourites”.

Next, navigate to the folder you wish to add to this list of Favourites.  Once you have the folder in view, Right-Click on Favourites and select “Add current location to Favourites”.  A shortcut link will then appear to your favourite folder.  Every time you open Explorer in the future,  this shortcut will also appear.

The displayed Icon can be changed by right clicking on the shortcut and selecting Properties. From the box which pops up, you can then select Change Icon.

Not only does the link appear in Explorer,  but the shortcut will also appear in the Open and Save dialogs in any other application.  This is perfect for opening and saving files to a favourite folder in Excel or Word, for example.

Throw the post-it notes away and replace them with virtual sticky-notes on your desktop. Sticky-notes complement your to-do list by nagging you to do the tasks you really need to do today. I give you five of my favourite free desktop sticky-notes tools.

AT Notes

The benefit of ATNotes is its simplicity and low screen footprint. This is probably one of the least intrusive sticky-note app there is.  I’ve been using it for years now and it’s not let me down yet. ATNotes lives in the system tray and takes very few system resources. It’s actually discontinued now (booo!),  but you can still download it – see the links are the bottom.

PNotes

PNotes is my current favourite sticky-note app. I love it.  You can skin it to a whole range of designs including the classic post-it yellow.  You can group notes, hide groups, and dock them to the sides of your screen.  It’s got loads of features and easy on the eye.

Sticker Lite

Sticker Lite has one additional nice features not found in the other sticky-note apps. It allows you to send the note to anyone else on your LAN who might happen to use  Sticker Lite also.  A nice feature if you are a team working closely together and need to assign a task to someone!

Note-It

Note-It is one of our favourite Sticky-Note apps. Each Note is stored as a separate file on the file system, and supports images and spell checking.   Note-It also allows you to have RSS feeds in the sticky-note, and also the latest stock-market prices.

DeskNotes

Desknotes is unique among this group as its the only sticky-note app to allow sync up with Outlook.  It also supports images and advanced formatting features.  You can also set reminders, add timestamps and hyperlinks.

Download Sticky-Note apps
ATNotes
PNotes
Sticker Lite
Note-It
DeskNotes

 

Tell me what you think and if you use a better sticky- notes tool?

If you have some large archive files (zip, rar, iso), and just need to extract or update one single file,  it can be a little painful to have to extract the whole folder.  However,  with this free Windows tool you can easily mount the archive file as a folder,  and explore or write to it just like any normal folder.

Pismo file mount allows you to mount ZIP, ISO, CISO, CFS, ISZ, DAA, and PFO files as virtual folders within Windows.

Download the 1.5MB file, and simply install the program.   You can either mount an archive file by selecting the file in Windows Explorer and selecting Quick Mount.

Quick Mount will simply mount the archive file as a read only virtual folder within the parent folder.  This is by far the easiest way to use Pismo.

However, for more control over the mount point, and read/write access,  the control panel is provided, which also provides a list of all the current mounts.  Very useful if you want to unmount a file without having to hunt around for it.

To use the control panel,  select File > Open and select the file to mount.

From the control panel, you can alter the mount visibility to make the archive visible to the entire system, or a specific user.  The archive file can be mounted as Drive letter only if  you select to mount the file for the entire system.    You can also set the mount as read only, or with write access.

Batch Mount of Archive Files.

If you have many different archive files which you regularly access,  Pismo also provides a great command line feature which can be used in batch files.

To mount and unmount an archive file use the following commands:

pfm mount archive.zip
pfm unmount archive.zip

Download [via Pismo]

The Best Bulk Installers

Bulk installers simplify the process of downloading and installing all your favourite free applications.   Bulk-installers often work by providing all the necessary installation files in a neat package which can be installed on different PCs.  You can also select precisely which applications you want in the bulk install package, and make sure you have all your favourite freeware.

In this post I give you the best bulk installers on the web.   You can send me your suggestions using the comments at the bottom.  The choice of which one you favour depends on which one offers most of the applications you’ll use.

FreeApp

Simply select all the programs you like,  and then download the installer (approx. 1MB).  Once the bulk download tool has loaded,  Freenew then provides you with a neat list of applications to install.   If you want to download additional applications,  then you can also select them through the installer.

FreeApp will also identify if you already have some applications installed and prompt you to upgrade.

The FreeApp installer is a great way of selecting which applications you want to bulk install.

Ninite

Select the applications you want to bulk download,  and then download the Ninite bulk installer (approx 220KB) onto your machine.  This bulk installer contains details of all the applications you selected on the web site,  and then proceeds to download all the applications you requested.    Unlike FreeApp, there doesn’t appear to be an option to change your mind after you’ve downloaded the installer.

The bulk installer for Ninite simply downloads all the applications you requested on the web site.

Allmyapps

Quick and easy setup for Windows 7. Allmyapps gives you a range of ways to download the free applications.  You can either select the individual applications and click on Install, or you can add each application to your shopping-cart-style list. The catch is the shopping-cart will cost you a penny-pinching £3 to access the bundle of free software.

Having selected your apps, you then need to register which is a long winded. Click Install and sign in using your Google, Twitter, Facebook or Windows Live account.  Or you can register a new account.  Allmyapps then send you an email (check your junk mail folder) and directions to verify your account and password. Unfortunately,  by the time I’d registered and verified,  my shopping cart was emptied, so I’d recommend you register before you select your apps.

After registration and selecting your apps now comes the crunch.  You have to send an SMS message to the web site to get a special download code. You guessed it, this isn’t free and will leave you £3 out of pocket.  It’s your choice whether you think it’s worth it.

ZEUAPP

ZEUAPP takes a different approach requiring you to download a small (900KB) application first. The tool is neatly divided by tabs for each application category along with a screen shot of each application.

You need to click Download next to each application, select a save location, and wait for the download to finish. Unfortunately,  we couldn’t find a easy way to Bulk download all the installation files, which kind of makes it less useful. But is does mean you don’t have to hunt around the web for precious free applications.

What’s your recommended bulk installer? Have you got a question about them? You can send us your comments using the form below.

BumpTop has crafted a revolutionary “Minority-Reports”-type UI which allows you to drag apps around the desktop using your finger, and literally pin anything to any of the walls, and floor space. And you don’t even need the gloves.

With the acquisition of BumpTop now by Google this week, we can’t wait to see whether there will be some interesting new additions to Google’s Android and Chrome operating systems.

In the meantime, you can watch a BumpTop demonstration of the the amazing 3D multi-touch desktop below and download it for yourself.

Until Google remove it from the web servers, you can download BumpTop here.

Download BumpTop Free for Mac (1.05.2)
Download BumpTop Free for Windows (DirectX 2.1-6225)

Since Smart Defrag runs in the background, you’ll need to tweak just how much resource Smart Defrag should have access to. In addition, you can configure it to only defrag files when the PC has been idle for a while.

Further, Smart Defrag also streamlines your file system by placing the frequently used files and directories into the fastest area of the disk to keep it running at top speed.  Recent updates to Smart Defrag also allow it to support solid state disks,

1.74MB download size 
Runs on Windows Vista/Server 2008/Win7 (64bit and 32bit)

Download [via iobit]

This latest beta service from Microsoft promises to allow you to synchronise files across Windows PC, Mac OS (coming soon) and mobile devices (coming soon).  You’ll need a Windows Live account to access the 5GB of storage you’re provided.  This appears to be Microsoft’s latest iteration of SkyDrive which we always found clunky.   Things seems to have improved, a lot.

Once you’ve logged in using your browser,  you’re shown the Live Desktop which details all the devices which you can share files across.  

To add your Windows PC,  you have to download and install the Live Mesh app (1.41MB) which does take quite a while to install.  In addition, there doesn’t currently seem to be direct support for Windows7,  but the Vista app seems to work ok.  After installation, you then need to enter your Live account details before you can then add the computer to your Mesh.

Having added the computer to Live Mesh,  a special folder is created on your PC in your home folder which is your link through to your Live Mesh account.   Unlike many of the other file sharing apps, you always need to be connected to the Internet to access this special folder as there is no offline access.

Once you’ve added a couple of devices, Live Mesh then automatically syncs all the files in the Live Mesh folder when they next sync up.

Unfortunately, the Mac OS and Mobile support is still in development,  but the syncing across WIndows PCs is actually very good. We especially like the View History so you can see which files and folders were last synced, and also the Folders View which gives shortcuts to your favourite folders.  We also like the Windows feel of the Live Mesh desktop which is very initiative and easy on the eye.

The only downside is there also seems to be no support for File Sharing with other Live Mesh users which you do get with SkyDrive.   A combination of SkyDrive and LiveMesh would be a fantastic combo.

Visit Mesh.com

Connectify works with all Wi-Fi cards under Windows 7. Any card should be able to do "Ad Hoc" mode, and Windows 7 certified cards should also do "Access Point" mode. If you do need to purchase a Wi-Fi card, there is a list of supported cards and devices to guide you.  There is also a comprehensive support and FAQ website for if you run into difficulties.

You could also watch the Connectify demonstration video to see how you can have your very own Wi-Fi hotspot up and running, sharing your Internet connection with friends and co-workers

Security

Wi-Fi enabled devices can see and join your Connectify hotspot just like any other Wi-Fi access point and are kept super safe and secure by the usual WPA2 Encryption

Windows7 only. 
Download from Connectify (1MB).

Disk Space Fan gives you a beautiful and intuitive interface to find out where you can free up some disk space.  It’s simple and elegant design is a pleasure to use.  The great visualisation is extremely useful,  with the fan displaying the larger folders or files in the centre,  and smaller folders or files towards the edges.  By clicking through the segments,  you’re taken to the next folder level down which gives you another fan view of the files and folders.

To start using the tool,  all you need to do is select the disk you want to scan,  hit the “Scan for Details” button and wait a few moments for the scan to complete.  The progress bar under the Fan shows you just what’s being scanned and how much further there is to go.

The time it takes to scan obviously depends on how many files you have.  Disk Space Fan also has nice integration with Windows Explorer so you can right click on any large files it finds,  and find the file on the disk to delete.

Disk Space Fan is completely free and probably gives you everything you need.  There is also a pro version available with a few more features which will help you identify duplicate files, and enable you to exclude certain files or folders.

System Requirements: Windows XP / Vista / 7

Download size: 1.2MB

Download Disk Space Fan

With this neat little suite from PortableApps.com,  you can choose from 3 packages,  depending on the size of thumb drive you have,  and the number of apps you need.

The portable apps which get installed depends on the bundle you select,  but you’re sure to get some usage out of the key ones.

• Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition (web browser)
• Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition (email)
• Mozilla Sunbird, Portable Edition (calendar/tasks)
• PNotes Portable (sticky notes)
• KeePass Portable (password manager)
• CoolPlayer+ Portable (audio player)
• OpenOffice.org Portable (office suite)

Download at Portable Apps.com