A new computer ships with a raft of programs, yet quite which programs you get depends where you buy your computer but it can also depend on which country you live in. For example, in the UK, all new computers come with Windows pre-loaded, but in Thailand some come with Linux although this is a new development.
How useful are these programs that come ‘free’ with your new computer? Well, it varies, to be frank, and in the remainder of this article we will take a look at some of the most common pre-loaded programs.
Sometimes you receive ‘Notepad’, occasionally you get ‘Wordpad’ and sometimes you get both. Wordpad is a more sophisticated version of Notepad and it can open old ‘Write’ documents. It can also open all rich text files (.rtf) as well as plain text (.txt) files.
Most computer users see Wordpad as an upgrade to Notepad and in numerous ways that is what it is, yet it does not have enough features to make me want to use it. I use Notepad each and every day, yet I very hardly ever use Wordpad. Wordpad can be regarded as a halfway house to MS Word the documents of which it can also read.
Wordpad is a practical program if you do not have Word, because you can create attractive-looking documents and embed sound and picture files and text can be coloured. Unfortunately, there is no spell-checker, but it can open Excel files too, which can be convenient.
If you have the MS Office suite, then Wordpad is redundant. If you do not have MS Office, download OpenOffice, which is a free Open Source contender to Office.
Outlook Express is a capable email client that can even perform some tasks that Outlook can not. It also has an address book. Outlook Express is good enough for most users, but if it is not, download Opera and integrate the email client and address book that comes with it.
The calculator that ships free with Windows is very powerful. The version that comes with Windows 7 can be converted into a mathematical, a scientific, a statisticians”, a programmers’ calculator and several others besides. You will absolutely never require another calculator if you have this tool. In one word it is excellent.
Paint is a passable image editor. It is not especially sophisticated, yet it can perform a number of useful functions. If you require more and there are a lot who will, you will be able to find much better free image editors on the Internet.
Windows Media Player is a very robust media player of sound, pictures and movies, yet occasionally you have to go hunting for a new codex, if you have to play something in an abnormal format. This is not a big drawback. WMP is a very practical and fully-equipped tool. You can play radio from all over the world through it as well.
The system tools supplied with Windows are adequate. They will monitor system resources and help you take care of your hard disks, but numerous users move on to more specialized tools in the end.
Internet Explorer is a decent browser, but again, many people drift away from it and use other browsers (|and there are quite a few). In short, the tools and programs supplied with Windows are all right to get you going (although there are a couple of gems), usually, you will want to upgrade, but this can frequently be done by downloading other programs free of charge.
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