I was reinstalling the XP operating system for my friend I was installing all the bare essential softwares from different CD collections. This, therefore, took a lot of time. I then thought of this idea - The Bare Essential CD or Disk. This CD should should included all bare essential softwares in a CD where a person can install from to immediately start using his/her computer right after reinstalling operating system. The list that I came up with is below and all are free or open source softwares.
Bare Essentials Disk:
1. 7-Zip - http://www.7-zip.org/
2. PDF Viewer/Reader - http://pdf-xchange-viewer.en.softonic.com/
3. Office Software http://www.openoffice.org/
4. Windows Essential Codec Pack - http://www.mediacodec.org/ (This includes a media player too!)
5. Anti- Virus, Malware etc.
a. Read - 11 Ways Prevent Computer Viruses (This article is added here because some of my friends don't know the basics of computer virus prevention)
b. Autorun Eater - http://oldmcdonald.wordpress.com
6. CD/DVD Writing - Infra Recorder - http://infrarecorder.org/
What would you include in a CD as a bare essential software if you were to compile one?
