This is a listing of the top 25 applications I use for Windows. I am focusing on an online installation. I rely on native tools to Windows when I can to reduce the number of parties I am expected to rely on. However, since Windows is a hostile platform for privacy, I use Free and Open Source tools whenever the Microsoft alternative will be detrimental or just full of unnecessary features.
I should note the main reason I use Windows is for .NET development. Keep that in mind.
This is more of an overview section of the platforms I use to manage Windows application installs.
The latest Windows update with a redesigned Start menu, Widgets integration, Xbox gaming features, and tighter security requirements, built with modern hardware in mind.
While Windows 11 has a lot of slop and anti-features, using Windows 10 when it is no longer supported online is a much bigger risk.
PortableApps.com is a website offering many free, commonly used Windows applications that have been specially packaged for portability. These portable applications can be used from removable media such as USB flash drives.
This is the primary means by which I will get tools I need for an online install of Windows to avoid installing third party tools directly in Windows. There are two major drawbacks though:
- The frequency of updates. Some PortableApps haven't been updated in literally years and others have updates which lag behind the actual updates to the mainline development process.
- There may be performance issues, especially if you are using a small USB, although that is rarely an issue now in 2026.
Note that any tool which is available in PortableApps will be flagged in my notes below.
Hardening a Windows installation is critical for me prior to starting to use it.
BitLocker Drive Encryption is a data protection feature that integrates with the operating system and addresses the threats of data theft or exposure from lost, stolen, or inappropriately decommissioned computers.
Despite the scandal surrounding BitLocker, there isn't really a good solution for full disk encryption that works well with Windows (probably by design). Keeping sensitive documents on a USB drive helps to mitigate this risk.
Secure and encrypt entire partitions or devices, including system drives, with automated, real-time protection and enhanced security measures.
Always a key install if one is using encrypted USB and SSD drives, which is highly recommended when using Windows.
- Available on PortableApps
Open-source tool to enforce privacy & security best-practices on Windows and macOS, because privacy is sexy 🍑🍆.
Unlike other solutions, this site prints out scripts to run to harden a Windows install and to revert changes. Avoid solutions like Winhance, which has an absurd Terms of Service agreement, or the Chris Titus Tool which requires a remote script run, and more often than not, is calling other third party tools like Shutup10++ to execute its functions. But also be sure to know what you are doing running scripts!
Minimal Firewall is a portable Windows firewall frontend that alerts users to internet connections without requiring custom kernel modifications or disabling core isolation, striking a balance between TinyWall's security and SimpleWall's functionality.
This helps keep other systems from phoning home while still remaining minimal enough to make usage uncomplicated.
nomacs is a free, open source image viewer, which supports multiple platforms. You can use it for viewing all common image formats including RAW and psd images.
A simple, cross-platform image viewer.
A free, open-source viewer for Windows, supports PDFs, eBooks, Comics, with a simple, fast, and portable design prioritized for ease of use.
A tool for viewing PDFs that works well in stripping away document protection that prevents viewing or copy/pasting details from a PDF.
- Available on PortableApps
Cross-platform, free media player supports multimedia files, DVDs, streaming, offers hardware acceleration, 4K, lossless audio, and more.
The best desktop media player that can play just about any video known to human kind.
- Available on PortableApps
Free open-source code editor and Notepad replacement supporting multiple languages, featuring high speed, low resource usage, privacy focus, and plugin extensibility.
A great tool that has had some security issues in the past. Great syntax highlighting for viewing markdown files.
- Available on PortableApps
Free, open-source note-taking with rich text, cross-platform support, syntax highlighting, embedded files, and customizable interface.
A more complex note-taking tool than Notepad++ with fewer known security issues.
- Available on PortableApps
LibreOffice Calc is the spreadsheet program you've always needed. A fork of OpenOffice.org Calc, professional data miners and number crunchers will appreciate its comprehensive range of advanced functions.
I install the entire Libreoffice suite, but only ever use Calc as a makeshift replacement for Excel.
- Available on PortableApps
Privacy-focused diagramming software supporting real-time collaboration, offline mode, and cloud storage without ads or registration.
Useful for drawing flowcharts, data flow diagrams, programming UML, and even just drawing basic logos and shapes.
- Available on PortableApps
A listing of small utilities I use in Windows. The list is small because most tools I use are on my linux computers, but occasionally I have to inspect details of my windows machine.
Set of open-source tools enhancing Windows with features like FancyZones, PowerRename, and Keyboard Manager. Lightweight and ad-free.
Great out of the box set of additional tools from Microsoft.
Disk analysis tool with treemap views, duplicate file detection, and cleanup actions. Works offline and ad-free on Windows as an open-source project.
Useful for checking the disk usage profile for a PC.
- Available on PortableApps
I use Windows primarily for game development in both Lua using Love2D and C# and .NET using Monogame.
This is an up-to-date fork of 
GitHub Desktop, with many quality of life improvements and advanced features for power users.
A superior fork of Github Desktop if you want to avoid using the browser to view online repositories.
The completely free and source-available game engine Defold solves the technical issues we all have in common when making games. That way, you can focus on being creative and building a great game.
The best engine for using Lua. I used to also use Zerobrane Studio, but that IDE hasn't seen updates in years.
Microsoft Visual Studio is an IDE used to create programs, apps, websites, and web services using various frameworks. It supports multiple languages and offers tools for coding, debugging, and design.
A Microsoft solution for C# and .NET. Useful as it's free, but heavy and relies on Microsoft.
JetBrains Rider is a powerful integrated development environment (IDE) designed specifically for developing .NET applications. With its intuitive and feature-rich interface, Rider provides developers with a seamless coding experience across multiple platforms, including Windows...
A useful tool if you prefer to trust Jetbrains rather than Microsoft with your IDE. Is paid for commercial use but free for personal use.
Real-time 3D engine enabling collaboration to create immersive, interactive experiences on Windows, Mac, and Linux, with extensive platform support.
Useful when developing for the Unity Platform, although it gets less use from me than I expected lately.
Firefox Developer Edition brings you latest features, fast performance, and the development tools you need to build for the open web. Its powerful development tools will extend your ability to work across multiple platforms from one place.
I don't do a lot of web development on Windows but useful just in case.
Bluefish is a powerful editor targeted towards programmers and webdesigners, with many options to write websites, scripts and programming code. Bluefish supports many programming and markup languages, and it focuses on editing dynamic and interactive websites.
A callback to the old days when web editors weren't really just JavaScript IDEs (or text editors pretending to be one). It's getting long in the tooth though.
A versatile, open-source database tool for developers and administrators supporting multiple databases via JDBC drivers with extensive plugins.
A database GUI, especially useful for the aforementioned .NET development for web.
The API client for modern developers. Call REST, GraphQL, and gRPC APIs from a simple and intuitive app.
Bruno is going on the same path as Insomnia and Postman so Yaak is now my preferred solution when dealing with APIs.
I tend to avoid using the internet browser when on Windows to prevent drive-by downloads and malicious JavaScript (and to avoid Edge altogether). Here are the options I use more often than not.
The Mullvad Browser is a privacy-focused web browser developed in a collaboration between Mullvad VPN and the Tor Project. It’s designed to minimize tracking and fingerprinting. You could say it’s a Tor Browser to use without the Tor Network.
Useful as a hardened version of Firefox for clearnet browsing. I use this for sites where I have accounts to log into, but do so very rarely. A good alternative on PortableApps is LibreWolf.
I tend to install some additional tools for my offline instance of Windows but I generally still use a lot of the same tools except for the following:
Is there anything you'd like to add or that I should try on this minimal install? Please feel free to like, comment, and subscribe!
No comments so far, maybe you want to be first?
