Useful Laptop Software Recommendations

[orion]

I have a ThinkPad X60 on the way via UPS (see sig). This is going to be the first time using XP (and 7 when it comes out) on a laptop. Also is my first ever ThinkPad and non-Apple laptop.

I know how to use Windows XP/7 pretty well (I'm a long-time Apple veteran), I just don't know much 3rd party software and utilities for Windows. There is A LOT of it to go through before you find something good when it comes to Windows software and a lot of junk malware seems to be the first results in search engines.

So my question is, what do you guys recommend for monitoring different things on laptops in Windows?

I'd like to get status on things like this:

• - Battery Life/Readout Information (Specifically capacity in mAH, charge cycles and diagnostics)
  - Hardware Monitoring (Readouts for things like temperature, fan RPM etc)

Basically, I'd like either one or multiple apps that can give similar information as this widget I use on my Macbook Pro. They have screenshots showing off what it displays on their website: http://www.islayer.com/apps/istatpro/


Also, what do you recommend for ThinkPads in general? Is there any special software I should go look for that's specific to them?


Thanks for any help in advance.

[mattbiernat]

battery life monitoring software is preinstalled. for RPM and temp I used tpfancontrol which you can find here: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=17715

[Marin85]

For monitoring the temperatures of both cores as well as the temperature of the cpu as a whole, it´s voltage, the temperatures of the HD (including the one in the ultrabay in my case) I use Everest. It´s not free but it has many more features like stressing the laptop to test some hardware components, gives very detailed information about the system (hardware + windows) etc.

Marin

[beGi]

Notebook Hardware Control can give you lot info, IMO a must have...

[Marin85]

Good suggestion. But It looks awful in Vista IMO... Yet, in Win 7 it might look much better, this is something to check out...

[orion]

Thanks for all the replies everyone, very helpful. I'll look into everything when I get the laptop.

Only one more day of waiting...

[beGi]

Most of the software that you'll need (for average user) comes pre-instaled...

If you want info to be displayed on desktop gadgets/widgets (or whatever their name is) you CAN install vista versions but you'll need XP sidebar (MS independent, but supports MS's apps), i use some of them...

[Mike Blake]

I see folks here have recommended both Notebook Hardware Control and TPFanControl, in different messages. But it's not recommended you run both at the same time, is it? If not, perhaps we should make that clear to the original poster.

I use the free personal-use edition of Everest for monitoring and then invoke TPC if I think the situation warrants it.

[mulambo187]

driveimage xml
avast for antivirus
firefox with adblock plus
filezilla ftp
speedfan
mplayer with cccp
winamp
utorrent
infrarecorder
7-zip or winrar

all free hope that helps. i use xp pro oem cd to install, and just get drivers i need (mainly video) and i install other things as i may need them.