Best Free Microsoft Downloads

 

When people set out to look for freeware, a lot of times they specifically look for free alternatives to Microsoft products – free office suites, free alternatives to built-in programs like Paint, Notepad, Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer... even free alternatives to Windows itself. However, Microsoft does provide a collection of free software that is definitely worth checking out.  This article is designed to provide an overview of the best free Microsoft programs, some of which are featured in other articles on this website.

Best Free Microsoft Downloads

Free Speech Recognition Software - Dictation Pro

 

Having difficulty in typing your documents?  Speak and let Dictation Pro type for you.  Prepare your letters, reports, e-mails just by speaking into a microphone. A good-quality headset is required.  Dictation Pro is fast, easy and fun.  You'll wonder how you managed without it!

Free Speech Recognition Software - Dictation Pro

Convert audio formats, combine audio files, and extract audio tracks from videos with Freemake Audio Converter | freewaregenius.com

 

Now that your entire music collection, your audio books, and videos, (and even your family recordings from when you were eight) are on a hard drive, you might want to have a dependable, user-friendly tool to convert across different audio formats, as well as for performing various tasks such as merging audio files or extracting audio from video files.

Convert audio formats, combine audio files, and extract audio tracks from videos with Freemake Audio Converter | freewaregenius.com

Maximum PC | Tiny, Free and Kick-Ass: 20 More Awesome Apps Under 2 MB - Page 1

 

A month or two back, we posted our list of 30 amazing apps under 2MB. We thought it was a pretty fun concept, and apparently you guys agreed, because we got some great feedback, and some excellent suggestions. Our first list was far from complete, of course, so we decided to do some more investigating, and found 20 more great apps. They're all free, all easy to download, and all great at what they do. Read on, and hit the comments if we've still missed any of your favorites.

Maximum PC | Tiny, Free and Kick-Ass: 20 More Awesome Apps Under 2 MB - Page 1

FOUR Free Alternatives To Adobe Reader Malware Magnet | Bill Mullins' Weblog – Tech Thoughts

 

If you continue to use Adobe Reader, make sure you install the latest version. Users who continue running older versions of Adobe software (not uncommon), is a major element in cyber crooks successful manipulation of this  application.

Better yet – don’t even consider running Adobe Reader. Instead, choose one of a number of much faster, more streamlined free applications.

FOUR Free Alternatives To Adobe Reader Malware Magnet | Bill Mullins' Weblog – Tech Thoughts

Free License Giveaway for BufferZone Pro Virtualization Application

Trustware - BufferZone-Threat Free Internet BufferZone, a virtualization application which creates an isolated environment called the Virtual Zone, while you surf the Internet. The Virtual Zone “buffers” your PC from all forms of known or unknown attacks, that originate from the Internet and external devices. Virtualization provides a strong layer of protection against malware infection while surfing the Net, and this license giveaway will give you an opportunity to run with the Pro version of BufferZone, and save $40.00 in the process.

WizMouse makes your mouse wheel work on the window under the mouse

WizMouse is a mouse enhancement utility that makes your mouse wheel work on the window currently under the mouse pointer, instead of the currently focused window. This means you no longer have to click on a window before being able to scroll it with the mouse wheel. This is a far more comfortable and practical way to make use of the mouse wheel.

Free Kindle Reading Applications

Amazon.com’s reader is available for the PC, Mac, iPhone, and is soon coming to an Android device near you. Get the best reading experience available on your PC. No Kindle required.

Find Duplicate Files

Duplicate Cleaner 1.4.5b. Find and delete duplicate files, mp3s, photos, old documents and much more. This fully featured, program will work at home or in a networked environment. Best of all Duplicate Cleaner is freeware, meaning you get the full program and it doesn't cost a thing! Use the download button on left side of screen. On the page that comes up, click the third line from top " Download DuplicateCleaner 1.4.5b from DigitalVolcano". Do not click the Free Scan button, it is an advertisement for another program.

Resize any non resizeable dialog box on windows

Majority of settings dialog boxes on windows have fixed dimensions. Users cannot resize them as per requirement. Now you can easily tweak windows to resize any non resizeable dialog box using portable ResizeEnable tool. It adds functionality that allows user to resize any windows dialog box by dragging it from either size of the dialog box.

Office Web Apps Now Available on Windows Live

Office Web Apps are free web-based version of Microsoft's Office productivity suite. It includes the web-based versions of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft OneNote. The web apps allow users to access their documents directly from anywhere within a web browser as well as share files and collaborate with other users online. Supported web browsers include Internet Explorer 7 and later, Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and later, Google Chrome and Safari 4.

Print Documents in Batches Without Opening Them

PrintConductor program prints any number of documents in batch mode. It lets you print large numbers of files, including Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word DOC, Microsoft Excel XLS, Autodesk AutoCAD DWG, Microsoft PowerPoint PPT, etc. Simply specify the files, adjust your printer and press the Run button! This is free software.

Automated Shutdown Tool

AMP WinOFF is a utility to automate the shutdown of Windows. It supports shutdown, restart, hibernate, lock workstation, and can also be scheduled to perform the action at a regular time or when the CPU becomes idle. In addition, it can hang up the modem, capture the desktop and/or execute a program before the shutdown.

Digital Janitor

Digital Janitor is a program that helps you sort your folders. Imagine downloading a lot of documents, pictures and photos every day, in the end your "Downloads" folder will be full of files that you will have to cut/paste by yourself into their proper directory. Digital Janitor sorts the folder depending on where the user wants a certain filetype to go.

Advise for Computer Backup

Remember: it's not if your hard-drive fails, it's when. This article highlights various backup strategies. The Dropbox online backup service is worth considering for your precious documents.

25 GB of free storage on Windows Live

With Windows Live SkyDrive, it's easy to store and share your files and photos with almost anyone. Get to your online files from home, work, or on the road. Keep your files to yourself, or share them with anyone you want. Drag files into your online folders, just like on your PC.

STREAMING VIDEO SOFTWARE

CamStudio is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs). This is free software.

Scan Tailor Cleans Up Scanned Pages

Tired of fiddling with scanned pages to remove borders, correct alignment, and otherwise prettify them before storing or emailing them? Then Scan Tailor could be right up your alley. Scan Tailor is an interactive post-processing tool for scanned pages. It performs operations such as page splitting, deskewing, adding/removing borders, and others. You give it raw scans, and you get pages ready to be printed or assembled into a PDF or DJVU file. Scanning, optical character recognition, and assembling multi-page documents are out of scope of this project. Scan Tailor is free software.

Sumatra PDF Viewer

The Sumatra PDF Viewer is a tiny, open-source, portable, and, most of all, lightning-quick replacement for the bloated Adobe Reader. It's only a 1.2 MB download. Sumatra is a free download.

Turn Your Web Cam into a Security Camera

If you've been thinking about setting up a web surveillance camera but were put off by the expense or hassle, Vitamin D makes it easy to turn your web or networked camera into an easy-to-use