Software we recommend
Software we recommend to use in providing support and general day to day computer usage.
Whitelist
Blacklist
Anti-Virus and Malware tools
Windows Maintenance
Disks
Disk & Partition Management
Verifying Disk Health
Reading Machine Temperatures & Voltages Whitelist
This serves as a master list of recommended and permitted software that we permit in the
community. Please see the 'how tos' that may be present for these pieces of software.
TypeNameNotesDownloadHowTo
File https://www.7- 7zip Archival zip.org/download.html
Gparted is a Linux/GNU front- end to the parted tool.The It gparted Disk is package Gparted HowTo manipulationthein recommendedany methoddistro for manipulating disks when using a Linux live session. TypeNameNotesDownloadHowTo
Chrome , FireFox AduBlock , BlockerOrigin Edge , Opera TypeNameNotesDownloadHowTo
Ventoy
Linux
documentation . Yumi
documenation , make sure you Rufus select , the correctVentoy Rufus, tool, Ventoy, forbalenaEtcher balenaEthcher, your Image , YUMI, mountingmotherboard WindowsYUMI tools (BIOS Media, or Creation UEFI).Windows Tool TheMedia Windows Creation Media CreationTool Tool only works on Windows and for creating the Windows installer Blacklist
This serves as a master list of banned software that we do not permit in the community.
EOL OS
Any EOL OS is unsupported, it does not need to be listed here.
Name Notes
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Windows 7
Ubuntu 12.04 Name Notes
See
here to check if you are running a compatable verion. Windows You 10 can type "Winver" on the start menu to see your current version.
ETC
Unsupported OS
Name Notes Due to ReviOS TOS this is considered to have malware ReviOSincluded such as keyloggers. The vendor also provides support to users.
Debloaters
These break machines and are black boxes for troubleshooting. If you have an issue with an OS don't use it. Do not break it then expect help.
Name Notes
Win10DebloaterSycnex
Win10ScriptChrisTitusTech
Debloat- Windows-W4RH4WK 10
Tron bmrf Script
Utilities Name Notes
Use 7zip as Winrar a free alternative
Benchmark tools
Name Notes
UserBenchMark is UserBenchMarkbiased and untrusted
Driver finders
See here for our stance and instructions on drivers. All driver finders are blacklisted, it doesn't have to be listed here.
Name Notes
SnappyDriver Installer
DriverBooster
DriverEasy
System cleaners/optimizers
Cleaners have a long record of use in the Windows community but often times are abused, leading to broken systems and many wasted writes on an SSD. System cleaners or optimizers often do more harm then good, and don't solve issues. Always determine your real issue and solve it with a more direct method.
All cleaners/optimizers are blacklisted, it doesn't have to be listed here.
Name Notes
Advanced IOBit SystemCare
CcleanerPiriform
iolo Systemiolo Mechanic
Outbyte PC Outbyte Repair
Audio manipulation programs
Programs that use virtual cables often permanently damage Windows audio systems.
Name Notes
Voicemod
Voicemeeter
Clownfish
Third-party AVs
See here for our stance on AV Tools. It doesn't have to be listed here to be blacklisted.
Name Notes
Avast
AVG
Comodo Name Notes
Kaspersky
McAfee
Norton
Webroot
Precompiled Windows PE
The distribution of pre-compiled PE is illegal under Microsoft TOS.
Name Notes
Hires
Gandalf
Vendors
This list of vendors offer nothing to the community or make multiple products that are considerd
PUPs/Malware.
Name Notes
All IOBit products Anti-Virus and Malware tools
For information about how to clean malware from your computer, or prevent it in the future, see this malware guide
Definitions
AV - Anti-Virus runs constantly in the background, scanning files on download, on access, or on a schedule
AM - Anti-Malware should be run on demand to check for residual PUPs or other issues.
PUP - Potentially unwanted program, this is a generic term for 'shitware'
Windows Defender
The built in solution for AV in Windows 10 is more than adequate for consumers. This is much better than running a free AV suite that is of lesser quality or plans to sell your personal habits for profit (MCafee, Avast, AVG, etc)
Free Alternatives
All free alternatives are considered shitware. They will sell you as their product and provide more a more troublesome experience. We do not recommend Avast, AVG, Kaspersky, McAfee or any other alternative AV.
Paid AV Suites
We do not recommend any paid AV suite for consumers, they do not provide significant advantages over Windows Defender and only increase overhead. Windows Maintenance
Cleaners
CCleaner
CCleaner and all other cleaners can be very destructive. The use of these to clean excessively can lead to increase wear on SSDs when temp file are constantly being written and deleted.
The use of any registry 'cleaner' can also be detrimental to a machine there is never a good reason to 'clean' a registry, it is not a source of load on the system in any way.
Driver finders
All applications are PUPs
We do not recommend any driver finder applications, this list includes but is not limited to:
Snappy Driver Installer
IObit DriverBooster
Driver Easy
Windows can natively handle most drivers during install, or directly from Device Manager. If you are seeking to update drivers outside of Windows Device Manager only seek them online from the motherboard, laptop, or GPU manufacturers support page.
Defrag
Only use Windows built-in tools All third party tools, such as defraggler, are considered PUPs
Advanced Uninstallers
Revo Uninstaller
This is one of the few maintenance tools we can recommend, and it is for a specific need. If you ever have an app break and continue to misbehave after a reinstall you may need to clear out more items than Windows natively does.
Running this tool can clear residual configuration files and registry entries. The registry cleanup on this application has the same warning as ccleaner, it can break the OS if something goes wrong.
Download Disks Disks Disk & Partition Management
Disk Managment
You can open disk managment by pressing Win+R and typing diskmgmt.msc .
Disk managment can only be run from a installed copy of windows, and has limits on what partitions and disks can be edited. For a more robust solution, consider using diskpart or gparted.
Creating a new partition
New partitions can only be created from unallocated space.
1. Right click on the unallocated space and choose "New Simple Volume".
2. By default, the size will be the entire unallocated space. Most of the time, this is fine. 3. You can assign your new partition any drive letter you would like. Assigning A:\ or B:\
may cause issues.
4. For file system, there are 3 options (you may have less depending on your drive).
Fat32: Desgined to be used with smaller USB drives, 32GB or less in size.
exFat: Desgined to be used with all USB drives, can replace Fat32.
NTFS: Designed to be used with hard drives and SSDs of all sizes, internal and external.
Label can be whatever you would like it to be, it will be displayed in explorer. Changing drive letter, file system, or label.
Editing drive letter
1. Right click on an existing partition and choose "Change Drive Letter and Paths...".
2. On the open dialog choose "Add..." if you don't have a drive letter, and choose
"Change..." if you do. If you want to remove your drive letter, choose "Remove".
Changing file system
Note: This is a destructive action, all data on the drive will be deleted. 1. Right click on an existing partition and choose "Format...".
2. Most of the time, leaving allocation unit size at default and quick format selected will
work. When choosing a file system, reference this:
Fat32: Desgined to be used with smaller USB drives, 32GB or less in size.
exFat: Desgined to be used with all USB drives, can replace Fat32.
NTFS: Designed to be used with hard drives and SSDs of all sizes, internal and external.
Changing drive label.
1. Right click on an existing partition and choose "Properties".
2. From this menu, you can change your drive label to anything you would like
Deleting a partition
1. Right click on an existing partition and choose "Delete Volume..."
2. Click "Yes" to delete the partition. You will loose all data on this partiton.
Diskpart
Diskpart is a command line tool that doesn't have as many restrictions as disk manager. It is still limited on C:\ , and not a good tool for partition manipulation. This tool can be run from the windows installation media, allowing it to operate on C:\
This is going to guide you through wiping a disk and creating a single empty partition using the entire drive. This will not securly erase your data, see wiping disks for instructions on how to do that. 1. To open diskpart, you will need an elevated command prompt. Just type diskpart and
diskpart will load.
2. To identify your disk, type list disk , then type select disk X where X is the disk
number. (Choosing the wrong disk will cause data loss)
3. To wipe all partitions from your disk, type clean
4. For disk type and partition structure, most cases will want basic and GPT. If this disk
needs to be read on older systems, use MBR instead of GPT. Run convert basic and
convert gpt .
5. To create the raw partition, run create primary partition . If you picked MBR, you must
run active after creating the partition. 6. Run detail disk and list partition to ensure that your disk looks correct and you have
both the partition and volume selected. You should have a star next to the volume and
partition.
If either the partition or volume is missing, type exit , reconnect your drive and startover.
If the partition or volume isn't selected (you can tell by the star on the right), type
select partition X or select volume X .
7. To format tbe partition, type format fs={FileSystem}. For what file system to use,
reference the following:
Fat32: Desgined to be used with smaller USB drives, 32GB or less in size.
exFat: Desgined to be used with all USB drives, can replace Fat32.
NTFS: Designed to be used with hard drives and SSDs of all sizes, internal and external.
You can also add a label at this stage, by adding Label=label to your command.
If you are using NTFS and want to enable file compression, add Compress to your format
command.
Adding Quick to the end of your command will significantly speed up the format time.
A full format command will look something like format fs=fat32 Label=Drive Quick . This
will do a quick format with a label of "Drive" and file system of fat32.
8. To assign a drive letter to the new partition, run assign letter=X where X is the letter
you choose. 9. Type exit to close diskpart. Your drive is formatted.
Gparted
This is used via a Linux live environment.
Gparted has the advantage of working on almost any disk, when in Windows you cannot operate extensively on your main C:\ drive but Gparted is booted from its own media and not running on
C:\ so it does not have this restriction.
Gparted can be downloaded from here and you can read How to use gparted Disks Verifying Disk Health
Definitions
S.M.A.R.T. - this is a monitoring system included in disk drives(HDDs and SSDs). Its primary function is to detect and report various indicators of drive reliability and health.
Sectors - these are sections of your hard drive that store data. Your hard drive has many many sectors.
Important SMART Values
If you ever read a SMART report from any of the below tools it is useful understanding the common ones that you want to watch for.
Current Pending Sector Count
When a sector is detected as bad it will be counted and the disk will attempt to move it. This value can go up and down as the disk moves or recovers sectors.
More info
Reallocated Sectors Count
When detected as bad your disk will attempt to move a sector. If it is moved successfully this count will go up.
More info
Uncorrectable Sector Count
This count goes up when the disk is not able to recover and move a sector. This indicates lost data.
Crystal Disk Info Crystal disk is the simplest way to get a reading on SMART within Windows. Download the application then run it to view every disk in the machine.
If a disk shows up as Yellow 'Caution' or Red 'Bad' we recommend replacing it.
Hard Disk Sentinel
Download
SEAGATE (SeaTools)
Bootable
Info
Download
Windows Application
Info
Download
SmartmonTools
For a GUI solution see here
You can check SMART in Linux using smartmonTools. The quick steps to get a report in Ubuntu are: (replace X with your desired disk)
sudo apt install smartmontools
sudo smartctl -a -d ata /dev/sdX
More Info Reading Machine Temperatures & Voltages
Watching your temperatures is an important part of managing any machine, especially a gaming rig. There are several tools that can work for this, some may not work on all CPUs (Ryzen most notably).
When reporting your temperatures to people, please use Celsius. It doesn't matter what country you are in, everyone uses Celsius.
Speccy
This is an all around system reporting tool. We use this actively in the Discord to get a ton of information about your machine.
Speccy can have some issues reading Ryzen, if you temps are incredibly high please check with a
Ryzen specific tool.
Download
Ryzen Master
The go-to for ensuring you get proper temperature readings for your Ryzen CPU. If other tools show the same temperature you can assume they are accurate.
Download
HWiNFO
Like speccy this has a ton of info, but it is isolated to hardware. We utilize this for extended logging of voltages, temps, etc. during stress tests.
Download