Software Dependancies/Extensions
This section is divided into two sub-sections:
- Windows updates or extensions
- Third party software
| Driver | Comments | Version | Size | Available |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Windows Updates/Extensions | ||||
| Direct X | Multimedia interface for graphics, sound, controllers and networking. | 9.0b | Varies |  |
| Help Compiler | Used to create hlp and chm help files. | unknown | unknown | |
| Java Virtual Machine | Used to run Java programs | 5.0.6 | 16 MB | |
| MSI Installer | Microsoft Windows Installer | 2 | 1.6 MB | |
| riched2.dll | Dynamic Link Library file used to provide Rich Text editing features to Windows applications | unknown | unknown | |
| Visual Basic Runtimes | Needed by programs written in Microsoft's Visual Basic language. | 6 | 1 MB | |
| Third Party Software | ||||
| CutePDF Writer | Installs a printer driver to your system that allows you to create PDF files from any Windows application that allows you to print. You will also need to download GhostScript, which is a PostScript interpreter (basically it does the converting of stuff to PDF form and CutePDF handles the inbetween stuff). | 2.5 | 1.96 MB | |
| Diskeeper Lite | The disk defragmentation program that is included with Windows NT, 2000 and XP is based on the software from from this company. Much better than the 95/98 application, so you should consider installing this if you are a Win 95/98/ME user. One advantage of this program over the original Microsoft application is that it doesn't keep restarting every five seconds, no matter what programs you have running (although it's probably best to have only the bare minimum of programs running when you defrag anyway.) | 7 | ~11 MB | 
|
| FreeZip | Allows you to compress and decompress zip files by adding options to the Windows Explorer context menu. Since later versions of Windows have built-in capabilities to handle zip files this isn't incredibly useful but for users of Win 95/98/ME it might be worth a download if you are stuck on a computer with no zip/unzip capabilities. | 1.4.9 | 250 KB | |
| Mouse Emulator | This tiny program allows you to emulate a mouse using the numeric pad. Now this might not sound all that useful but if you've ever had your mouse break or been stuck on a computer that doesn't have a working mouse then you'll probably appreciate just how useful a program like this can be. | 2.2 | 10 KB | |
| Process Explorer | Another tool that brings Win 9x users up to the standards that Win 2000 and XP are used to. This is like the Task Manager program of the latter operating systems. It allows you to see what processes are currently running and what DLL's are loaded. It's yet another great utilities from the guys at SysInternals. | 9.2 | 566 KB | |
| StartUp Control Panel | Another excellent utility from Mike Lin; this program installs as a Windows control panel extension and allows you to see what programs are being loaded up automatically upon Windows startup. It covers various methods for loading programs including the startup folder in the start menu and various registry entries. | 2.8 | 59 KB | |
| TreeSize | This is a great program for finding out where your disk space is being used up. It adds a new item to the shell context menu (right clicking in Windows Explorer) that will open a new window and calculate the size of the current folder and subfolders. You'd be surprised at where some space might be wasted; I once discovered that a Star Wars game was using over 1 GBs worth of disk space just for saved games! | 1.77 | 687 KB | |
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