Collecting and installing all your favorite apps is usually the most tedious part of a fresh OS installation. FreeApps makes bulk installation of popular free and open-source applications a snap. More »
Blog Archives
FreeApps Bundles Popular Free Applications for Easy Downloading [Downloads]
Posted on August 13, 2010
ZeuApp Downloads 82 Awesome Open Source Apps [Downloads]
Posted on March 26, 2010
Windows: If you’re setting up a new system or helping a friend to see how much great free and open source software exists, ZeuAPP is a portable installation tool for nearly a hundred applications. More »
Ninite Bulk-Installs Great Free Windows Apps [Installation]
Posted on October 23, 2009
Windows: If you’re upgrading to Windows 7 from XP, you’ll spend a lot of time grabbing installers and Next-Next-Next-clicking through setup wizards. Unless you use Ninite to check off the best free software and install it all at once.
This post can be fairly short because Ninite works exactly as advertised. Head to Ninite's web site, check off the free downloads you want from each category, grab the custom installer download that it serves up, and run it. Ninite runs through each installation with an absolute minimum of pop-up questions—none of them, in face, with most installs—and then it's done.
The selection is pretty great, too, with many of the must-have apps we’ve fawned over in the past like VLC, Audacity, IrfanView, Paint.Net, uTorrent, and many more. In fact, Ninite offers the majority of our 2009 Lifehacker Pack, give or take a few recommendations.
Ninite’s installers are free downloads for Windows systems only. Thanks Josh!
WinToFlash Turns Your Windows Installation DVD into a USB-Based Installer [Downloads]
Posted on August 29, 2009
Windows: Want to turn your Windows installation DVD into an installation flash drive? WinToFlash can do that and more.
WinToFlash can transfer Windows XP, Vista, and 7 onto a flash drive as well as Server 2003 and 2008. WinToFlash can also transfer Windows Preinstallation Environments to flash drive.
The process is simple and mostly obvious. You tell WinToFlash where the installation files you want to transfer are located and either let the transfer wizard take care of things, or specify settings like what kind of format the flash drive will undergo. In our test using a USB 2.0 generic flash drive it took about 12 minutes to turn a Windows 7 installation DVD into a USB-based installer.
WinToFlash is freeware, Windows only.
WinToFlash [via Download Squad]
Smart Installer Pack Automatically Installs Your Favorite Software to a New PC [Downloads]
Posted on April 27, 2009
Windows only: Hunting down application after application to fill a new computer with your favorite software can be a pain. Free application Smart Installer Pack makes it easy.
Just download the (rather hefty) 227MB application, run it, and choose à la carte from the many popular applications contained within, from Firefox or Chrome to Picasa or GIMP to more obscure favorites like Daemon Tools (image mounter). We've seen similar tools in the past, like previously mentioned InstallPad and AppSnap, and while SIP doesn't offer as wide a feature set as either of those options, it's still a decent alternative to a long Google hunt for each app. The SIP installers don't run silently, so you'll still have to hassle through all the clicking (another drawback that puts the previously mentioned apps a step ahead of SIP), but it's got an attractive, simple interface that anyone—computer savvy or not—can handle.
Smart Installer Pack is a free download, Windows only.
Install-It Creates Auto-Starting Installer CDs for Any Applications [Featured Windows Download]
Posted on January 6, 2009
Windows only: Free app Install-It puts a small auto-starting application on any removable drive that makes installing applications a double-click affair.
After downloading the Install-It package, you’ll want to extract its files to somewhere you can reach, like your desktop, and open up the Install.ini file in your favorite text editor. This file is simply a list of program descriptions and the locations of their installer files. If you’re creating a disc full of useful installers, just replace the default examples with your chosen verbiage for each app and the location/names of the setup files. You separate those two items with a comma, using slashes where necessary, and end each line with a semi-colon.
Here’s an example Install.ini I made for a supposed Windows XP re-installation:
Copy all your installer files and Install-It’s files into a CD-burning app, such as CDBurnerXP, and fire away.
Now you’ve got a CD that, on most computers, will pop up with a list of programs that can be installed without anyone having to guess which icon or cryptic filename means. If a computer isn’t set to auto-start when it detects an autorun.inf file, though, you’ll have to point the computer to install.exe—not a problem, though, if you've put each application in its own directory.
Install-It is a free download for Windows systems only.