Shout out to soundswitch for people with multiple audio outputs hooked up, blacktop for people who just want to turn their screens off and unified remote to use your phone to control your pc
Please make more content like this. This stuff is so much more applicable to me than many of the other video topics. Techquickie would be perfect for content like this.
The thing is most of these tools are already well known if you're even remotely familiar with the space itself. There's GitHub repos which actually contain giant lists of different tools all neatly sorted and categorized. (Awesome-Selfhosted being one of them for example) I end up usually skipping these types of videos, though I might not be the target audience.
@@crbrus7657 ?? A person posts their suggestion and other users will like it to the top if they agree and want similar content. When it reaches the top it generally represents an opinion held by many people. And considering the direction Linus shared about catering to more niche content, a channel focusing on content like this might be worth pursuing.
Quick note on VoiceMeeter, please be careful when setting it up, keep your volume low and headphones OFF while setting up routing. It is easy to accidentally create an infinite feedback loop within it, and it can be super loud, enough to damage your hearing. Great tool, but it's very flexible and doesn't always safeguard against this, so play it safe until you're familiar with how it works! Regards, a sound engineer who got blasted with high frequency feedback the first time she used VM and almost sh*t the bed! 😂
Thanks for the warning... Hey a bit offtopic, but I always wanted to learn about sound, i have never understood any of the terminology and I find it intimidating. Do you know any online resources for me to learn as a complete ignoramus?
Also note that this software has a very slight delay on audio, it very noticeable on games like Osu that require you to actually press the keys in time with the music.
@@toopink4death492 I also had that issue and it made the tool useless for me because, when i tried using it quite a few years ago, i used it to be able to hear myself and the slight delay in hearing myself made speaking impossible
Void tools “everything” needs to be on this list. It’s far better than the search tool in windows and after it builds its database then the searches are instantaneous. It’s one of the first things I install on every windows installation. You never need to worry about where you saved your files again.
LOVE having an ACTUAL tech tips video! Yes, I love the tech news content, the reviews, the builds, etc. but this video was definitely high on useful/utility vs just entertainment.
I'm going to check that out because I've yet to find a portable (USB) Live OS be it Linux or otherwise with persistance (for those that don't know that means the ability to change and save things that will still be on the USB stick the next time you boot ) that has actually worked correctly. I usually just install ParrotSec on a portable HDD or SSD which isn't exactly the most convenient in terms of portability. But I'd love to have it on a tiny USB stick on my keys and boot into my personalized desktop on any PC I need to. Which was the goal since I first tried it with Ubuntu - Natty Narwhal which was in probably 2012 or so but after probably 3 or so tries every few years I've pretty much just accepted that a "PC on a keyring" just wasn't feasible for me anyway..
@@Nine_Divines you can prepare everything in VirtualBox or even Windows Hyper-V, just be sure to make your virtual hard drive fixed size and VHD, VDI or RAW format. I have a Windows 10 VM VHD image that works. I believe everything is explained in the official documentation and there's even a few tutorial videos on yt.
No kidding? I've used ventoy for close to 2 years now, and I had now idea. Well, I guess if I didn't read the documentation 2 years ago, I was never going to figure it out on my own.
@@ВикторФирсов-е9ф Can you give me some context on that? I can't find anything about it and balena etcher just can't do the things that I use ventoy for. And Ventoy is also open source, which makes those claims seem kinda weird.
I've been using ventoy for about a year now. The best way I've found to use it is by putting it in a partition with a ton of isos, and then putting the rest of the partition as general encrypted storage for files and such. Or the other way around which is how I have it for my main USB now, with 63GB for ventoy and 1GB encrypted.
In case no one has said it, Medicat USB loved the mention and added a small *tasteful* image of Linus on their site. Also thanks for a bunch of these tools especially Ventoy, by god I need that.
More, I want MORE! Please make these software videos a regular reoccurring topic. I feel like I am solidly on top of the consumer grade hardware on the market, but when it comes to software I feel like a foreigner. I only recently discovered wiz tree and I absolutely love it compared to the old winterstadt. Thanks for the great work!
Worth noting that Winget now comes built in to Windows. It basically does what Chocolatey does, but it also lets you install apps which are on the MS Store.
Yeah I found it odd that they mentioned Chocolatey but not Winget which actually comes built-in to the OS now. Just as easy to operate and offers a huge library of apps to install. I keep snippets of each winget command I use for each PC in my home.
Came down here to see if I was the only one. It's also worth noting that WingetUI is also pretty powerful as it can handle Winget and Chocolatey as well as Scoop, Pip and Npm too. Sure the interface isn't as well polished as Chocolatey GUI but it's lightweight enough to run in the background a potato PC and notifies you of updates for software installed through other methods but are available though the other package managers too.
I find winget does not function until I go to the MS Store and "Install" it on new computers I build for work. I use it all the time, but calling it "built in" seems a bit... optimistic to me.
Ventoy has been my goto multi-iso boot for years! Super easy to setup, and you can use your drive with other stuff too. I just keep an ISO folder, then subfolder the rest for my tracking. Window / Linux / Firewalls / Spinrite etc. Welcome to the Ventoy family :)
I keep 3 different usb on my keychain for IT. Medicat is by far my favorite. It was pretty annoying to setup bc Windows really DOES NOT like half the stuff it can do. Linus wasn’t kidding. My PC lost it’s shit when I was installing and adding other things to it. Oh and he kinda glossed over it, but I find Ventoy to be hit or miss for IT usb drives. Works great for different Linus distros and portable OS. I’ve had issues with booting to different OS for diagnostics so I just stick with one OS on a usb for IT. (Outside Medicat bc the custom Ventoy for that is outstanding.)
Pro Tip: Equaliser APO really shines with the Peace GUI (which it looks like they’re using but never stated). So download both if you want the software in the video!
I used EQ-APO and Peace for around 2 years, and it was nice for a while, but I couldn't really get it to play nice with my setup, so I ended up getting Voicemeeter and have been using that for just over a year since then, and it is SO much better, and doesn't bork itself with Windows updates (it could still happen, but I haven't experienced it yet).
an alternative to APO and Peace GUI is Steelseries Sonar. I switched to it since last year as APO gets clunky when you have multiple output sources. Plus, Sonar has similar functionality to Voicemeeter which let you output different streams of audio to your chosen output device. It's very handy when streaming.
To add to Linus’ last tool, there’s a GUI based version of that program called HFS or HTTP File Server by Rejetto that works a lot like this but has features like a password feature, logging, and is pretty easy to use; used it for many years and I highly recommend it
Back in the day I would buy PC Format a magazine that came with a double-sided DVD every month full of Game Demo's, Free2Play Games and awesome tools like these. Unfortunately the Magazine has discontinued and up until this day I haven't found a service that puts together a comprehensive list of the newest PC Tools every month that are actually useful. It would be great if LTT made a page with all the links to useful tools like these, that gets updated every month. Just a suggestion.
@@TheSliderW right, I really wish there was a site or blog that had all the same things as the pcformat. I basically started watching LTT because the pcformat discontinued and I had to get my tech updates from somewhere
Forget PC Format ... that thing focused on beginners. PC Plus was the big boy back in the day for us geeks. And over here we had C't, which was a German magazine featuring CD's which often had Live Linux cd's / dvd's. The magazine did awesome deep dives in the latest hardware too. Not just Windows, but Linux too. I agree that the internet brought of loads of good stuff, but it really lacks a centralized curated site with this sort of stuff.
I would LOVE to see more content like this. These tools are all incredibly useful and I could see myself using them day-to-day. Thank you! Could be cool to see this for more specific niches like media editing (image, video, audio), security, networking, etc
you reminded me of Polarr. if u ever wanted to edit a photo but dont want to mess with lightroom or such, polarr has a website, u drag n drop ur image, edit it (color sliders, contrast, etc etc) and export it fast n free! they also have polarr raw if ur on the run and got a raw picture from ur fancy phone or camera
I'd also add Sigma File Manager to that list (I'm the dev). It's an open source modern file manager that let's you do some similar advanced things. Here's a few examples: - You can download UA-cam videos just by dragging their URL into the app. - It can create local wireless server and let you stream any of your files to any of your local devices (on the same network). - It lets you search / filter files super quickly. - And much more I also plan to add custom script actions, community extension support, etc.
Hiren’s Boot CD still exists in bootable USB form, and it runs in a custom WinPE. It looked like the one shown here had a bunch of the same utilities, so I guess you can go with whichever one you want. Obviously my preference is to remain old school with my bootable repair tools. Another nice tool that I like using is Windows Repair Toolbox. It’s a fairly basic program that groups a curated set of tools and utilities into a single menu that launches and/or downloads the latest versions, so if you load onto a thumb drive it will be updated as you use each tool. It’s handy since you can pre-load it with stuff in case you don’t have working Internet access on a system. You can also automate a bunch of Anti-Malware tools that can run unattended, which is kinda helpful if you help out folks who don’t know how to avoid malware and want to make sure their system is completely clear. There’s buttons that launch scripts for some of the built-in repairs Windows has had for years, so if you don’t recall the various flags or forget the syntax of the commands, you can just click a button. Most of the tools are portable where portable tools exist, but there’s an Uninstaller tool that can make sure to do a better job of clearing up old shit, which unfortunately is one that also requires an installation, but removing a single program at the end isn’t the worst thing.
I would love some sub-videos of this same genre broken down by LTT department (writing vs. labs vs. IT, for example). As a writer one of the most career-changing tools I have installed is Espanso, a text expander. I prefer it over AutoHotkey only cause it runs on MacOS too.
If you want an easy way to sync your phone to PC (contacts, sharing files, sharing the clipboard, SMS messages etc..) a good choice would be KDE connect. It's available on windows, Linux and android (also IOS with some restrictions). Plugins can be selectively enabled and disabled for security and privacy purposes. I find this to be mile ahead of the 'My phone' app and it is very useful
I love KDE connect and it crashes way less than "my phone" from windows. I just wish they could add a screen mirroring function like "my phone" and Samsung have. But for all phones.
the doubling of audio output through voicemeeter is also great for making sure headphones and speakers both constantly play audio, so you dont have to switch back and forth between them with system pop-ups about it, or having to switch audio devices.
Giving a shoutout to the team that put together WingetUI, it also has chocolatey and Scoop support in a nice easy to use UI for users that are not very good with command prompts.
Also Winget! Which means many things on the windows store are also available, plus other things too! WinGetUI is the package manager windows has needed forever!
@@Deveyus Yes! Getting things from the store too is a plus! This tool is one of my go to now, easy to keep things up to date, install new software and all within a simple to use UI.
+1 for VoiceMeter Suggestions: WinGet - it does mostly what Chocolatey does (if not more with its Windows Store integration). Plus it comes with Windows. PowerToys - Thought its what was about to happen but we went to WinToys instead. Does a bunch of stuff from image resizing, to seeing what app has a file open, to global system mute, to so many more, like this segway, to my last suggestion DevToys - likely only useful for devs, its super handy to have a bunch of toys at your fingertips (eg, base64 encode decode) Edit: Files - a replacement file explorer for Windows
+1 for PowerToys, installed it back when I started working at a translation agency (preparing, checking and rebuilding files) and it saved me literal days of work. Mandatory mention for One Commander, absolutely the best file explorer I've used, _and_ as a bonus it does not look like it came bundled with win98 lol
I literally was in the middle of editing a video about my audio setup, including voicemeeter, when I saw this video! So glad I just got it done! ua-cam.com/video/n0RzbWgmQDU/v-deo.html
I ran into Ventoy recently and OMG what a game changer! No more multiple USB drives or DVD disks to lose, able to boot from multiple ISOs from one USB. Awesome. This was great - I haven't used Chocolatey before but definitely worth a look.
This is certainly a video to bookmark. Thank you Linus, very informative and extremely useful. Need to do a part 2! I feel like there is a lot more to cover in this area.
I was expecting them to mention teracopy. The tool may not have many daily drivers, but when copying terabytes of data, the ability to resume, and verify the files were copied correctly is fantastic. I used it recently to get files off my old computer that kept blue-screening mid-copy.
I think windows copy has much more speed at this time ,thera was a time when it was very fast but not now ,just try to copy same file with both the methods and let me know
Loved this, PLEASE MAKE A SECURITY VERSION! All the security tools, there's the obvious VPN and Locally hosted password manager it'd be really cool to have a don't install macafee do this instead kind of video
@@sijedevos2376 in order Many "casual users" dont even realize what ublock do and with chrome closing the gates to the various blocks it will only get worse. Windows defender was so snubbed up to windows 10 that even while NOW it's one of the best antivirus many go for power hungry and less usefull third party antivirus. Malwarebytes is great. The only problem is that it push so much to make you buy the pro version that many uninstall it (I'm guilty of this too). 2FA is where the s**t is. Nothing is as useful and safe as 2FA on phone. And many dont activate it because "it will cost me 20 cent every time I'll need to change settings". Well, then, hope those 20 cents were worth the account that got hacked. All of this to say: common sense is the super power most "casual users" need but dont have.
The package manager for Windows is absolutely god tier. One of the many things I miss from Linux is the package manager, just run one command and all your stuff is updated, no more "an update is available!", going to the website, downloading the new .exe and installing it.
Last year when I was working at a PC repair shop we used a designated SSD with a USB adapter as a Ventoy drive Loaded a few Windows and Linux images on it as well as some file and system recovery utilities It literally saved us a ton of time and effort since we had all the necessary ISOs in one place 🙏
Another useful tool is syncthing to create your own "dropbox". I have it running on an old smartphone as HUB, so each device connected is always getting changes from all other devices. And for Equalizer APO I recommend a free limiter or compressor VST, that levels all sounds to the same volume. So explosions and whispered dialogue are exactly the same volume, no matter what you play on your PC (same for differently loud youtube videos). That in combination with an equalizer to filter out the lower bass frequencies and your neighbors won't hear a thing when you binge some show late at night.
That's interesting. So what do you do exactly and with what app? I guess you are using a FTP app that acts like a server using the internal + a big SD card. I like that it is very low power method.
1. Pureref is like a referance image canvas (think cork board) and you can shrink and enlarge or add as many images to it that you want, it helps when you want to build a visual note board. 2. screnpresso is like snip tool, but saves images good for taking visual notes, which you can "Bank" in PureRef
I can't believe you didn't mention FanControl. Best fan control software currently available. The amount of customisation will allow you to squeeze every inch of performance out of your machine while keeping the fan noise to absolute minimum.
@@dusan3132 I don't understand. Are you in the right thread? I was talking about a software controlling fan speeds. How is this connected to underclocking your CPU?
@@dusan3132 I second what Pirat's reply says. What are you actually talking about? Throttling? Did you incorrectly set the hysteresis? Poorly made curve? I've used fancontrol for about a year now, both with a 3900X and a 13700K. No issues personally, and it makes it infinitely easier to control my 8 fans (including 3 gpu fans) with accurate temperature monitoring and customizable settings for when and how the fans kick in.
Adding to this list: Twinkley Tray on Windows allows to change monitor brightness straight out of your taskbar. Super useful when using multiple monitors, you can adjust the brightness of each monitor individually!
This video and the one that showed us powertoys have got to be the most life enhancing youtube videos I have watched. I seriously do mean that, it helps make every day working on a Windows PC easier.
You can also use winget (which is on Win10 and Win11) to get both choco and chocolatey-gui. Plus winget-run allows for easy queueing making it even easier to reinstall everything. And Ventoy is cool, i love it so much as a distro-hopper! There is also KDE Connect (which is on winget and choco) for file transfer and syncing. Though I prefer Resilio for any personal mass transfer.
@@apiestink It is the other way around, actually. Chocolatey came first and delivered all the functionality of a traditional Linux package manager that people wanted whereas winget is Microsoft trying to play catch up and delivering pathetic results. The first iterations of winget could just install applications and that was about it; no version management, no updates, no removal, etc. although I believe these features have been added recently. The question you should be asking is what winget adds over chocolatey.
@@RogerioPereiradaSilva77 From chronological perspective you are right but from any other view: winget is baked in, runs happily from a script in SCCM, PowerShell, etc. Why would I fiddle with third-party tools and increase my security risks on corporate devices ?
@@RogerioPereiradaSilva77Winget is already integrated into Windows 11, supports MS Store Apps too and recognizes programs installed without Winget compared to Chocolatey.
WizTree is great and it's kinda crazy that it's taken so long for there to be an app like it that utilizes those internal windows tables to actually run fast instead of walking through every directory.
I still use an ancient version of "Space" by Andy H that I keep around just because of this. It's extremely fast and has name labels for the graphical block view, making it much more usable then windirstat. Unfortunately it's abandonware so you may have a hard time tracking it down. Wiztree is a solid, still supported alternative.
One essential tool I use often is Shutdown Timer Classic. It's free on the MS Store and it's so handy when you want to have a process done while also going to bed. When a transfer takes like 10 minutes, I just enable a 20 timer which will then shut down the PC so I know it'll get done.
"shutdown -s -t 3600" (normal shutdown in 3600sec = 1 hour) or "shutdown -s -f -t 3600" (forced shutdown in 3600sec = 1 hour) is the classic way to also achieve that when written into the cmd / shell. either way works though. aborting a shutdown can then be achieved with "shutdown -a" Windows 10 will also give you notifications that the shutdown has been set up or aborted when executed.
Been using WinDirStat for years (on the Windows machines I do have to use) and had no clue there was a modern maintained alternative for Windows. Thanks for featuring WizTree!
9:50 - if its for a personal device, I use dropbox this way - both for uploading camera roll to the cloud, but mainly for accessing stuff from my dropbox on my phone - you can also do this with discord if you are managing a small team
This is awesome. I’m reaching the end of my networking degree so making a little toolbox has become a priority for me and this is a big help. I’d love to see more content like this!
Great list! Instead of choco, I sometimes use winget. It might not be as powerful, but since it is officially developed and supported by Microsoft, it can also install Store apps, plays nicely with Group Policies and stuff. Also, instead of SimpleHTTPServer, I suggest Caddy. It is a Go-written, fully featured Proxy like Apache or Nginx, but can also be used as a simple file server with a one-liner.
I'd been using rejetto's HFS for many years just for self and a few gaming friends, pretty great for what it did, but I guess not much development, and getting https working was quite a chore,
One more thing to remember - if you setup a HTTP (or any other) server on your network and it doesn't work - your router might block communication between WiFi devices (AP/Wifi Isolation). Try to disable it or use wired connection for the device you're setting a server on.
Civetweb is a decent portable webserver - but redbean 2 is _really_ cool as it's a single binary that can run on 6 different OSes. A feat of engineering!
Thank you for mentioning Equalizer APO. It is one of the best tools out there! I use it to modify game sounds for better footsteps and noise suppression to my mic. Really works wonders as I can also apply some comp and EQ to my voice to make it sound even better, all at the expense of just 1-2% cpu. Really amazing!
@@raptornation2448 No. LTT managed to completely gloss over one of the biggest reasons this is a must-use for audio setups. Once you have it configured for your audio device, *everything* using that audio device as input/output is just using the filters (and/or plugins, including VST) completely transparently. No fuss, no needing to launch after restarts, no need to figure out how to get things fixed in-app.
if you want to look into another great way to do this, I made a video on my second channel on how to use Voicemeeter and some other software to do basic voice filtering: ua-cam.com/video/qtne68XpZ6E/v-deo.html
One essential modification to this video, would be to use for most usb sticks a device that has an actual hardware write protection switch. Helps with accidental wipes when installing operating systems, and also prevents malware from accessing tools used to remove them, among other similar cases.
With equalizer apo, definitely use the peace interface. It makes it's way easier to use and is sort of the standard to use with it. I'd also recommend checking out oratory1990s eq profiles over auto eq, only because auto eq is an algorithm to make a graph match a target which isn't always good because targets are usually extremely smoothed which hides important information. So areas you want your headphone to deviate from the target will be lost. It also doesn't account for the hrtf differences in the treble. Also if using auto eq make sure your using a graph from an industry standard HATS with a target made for that HATS. You can't use something like the Harman target with a 5128 graph. Which is why Sam and the lab at LTT labs has to create there own target. But either way you go, the less than perfect auto eq, or oratory1999s confirmed by ear profiles. Please alter by ear to match your preference. Within reason of course. Happy listening.
am i the only one who doesn't like the 'peace' interface? i really like the stock ui, easy to add and manage effects, create effect colletions with 'include' files, use knobs for adjustment or numerical input for exact values, fully custom eq, and you can see the final output graph at the bottom. it even supports vst plugins, although havent tested that. i wish i could run it on linux, but i'll have to make do with easyeffects and JamesDSP. jamesdsp seems to be the only one on the linux side to implement Eq-APO's 'Graphic EQ' with variable bands.
I came here to comment this exact thing. Oratory1990's headphone EQs are the way to go. For anyone new to this, his EQs are aimed at achieving the "Harman Target", which isn't flat, but more accurately approximates what the artists who created your music actually heard in the studio. So the best way to go is to copy Oratory's EQ, save it in EQ-APO as a reference, then copy it and modify it from there to your liking.
been using voicemeeter for a few years now. even without streaming it can make life so much easier for managing audio from/to different places. there's so many plugins to do more advanced stuff if you wanna do fancy things with it too, like controlling specific things from other devices, all _completely_ customisable. voicemeeter also has customisable EQ stuff as linus mentioned in the first program
sharex and eartrumpet are also great tools. first one is for easily taking and editing screenshots and second one for easily controlling by-app volume and outputs
some other utilities: Password manager: bitwarden. Cross-platform bookmark manager: raindrop very extensive note-taking software: Notion (I've even recreated google keep in here lol) auto dark mode to automatically switch windows to dark mode at sunset (I think it's from the windows store) start 11: more customizable windows start menu. Can highly recommend as a increased transparency / more blur.
Soundswitch is a tool i use which i absolutely love. It's very simple but lets you bind a key of your keyboard to toggle between output devices of your choice. I currently have it switch between my headset and speakers, which makes switching so much faster then going through the default windows audio output selector.
Haha, someone replied to this saying that these videos don't make LTT any money. I read it checked the view history, came back to let them know that this has almost surpassed their last 3 videos and is sponsored and the comment is gone! Make LTT great again!!
Some quality items in the list! winget is a nice alternative to chocolately and it is included in Windows 10 and 11. Some other useful tools are FreeFileSync for syncing files and folders and MultiCommander as a Windows Explorer replacement that can actually run as admin to let you get to locked down folders, and is both tabbed AND multipane. It isn't free, but PartEd Magic is a tremendous bootable iso with loads of system recovery, cloning, wiping, etc. tools
I would definitely recommend the programs Everything and Flow Launcher. Everything is a replacement for Windows's HORRIBLE indexing, and it works insanely fast. Flow Launcher is an open source Spotlight alternative that works with Everything, and makes it SOOOO much easier to find files, launch peograms, and even do things like quick calculations through the integrated calculator plugin. Literally could not live without those two.
One megatool that is quite nice is Chris Titus’s Windows tool which after running a single command in a terminal opened with admin privileges is a one stop shop for a few apps, mandatory software for coding as well as tweaks for Windows to help get the most out of it.
For the use case shown for Simple HTTP Server, I prefer using LocalSend. It allows to send text (including URL) files, folders. It can be installed in Desktop and Mobile OSes
for voicemeter, a lightweight option for splitting program audio into seperate channels, you can get upto 5 virtual cables. And use eartrumpet to direct apps into channels. I use one for games, using listen to device and one for discord, so only my mic and game audio plays on stream /recording and I can toggle discord and my mic all separately.
Voicemeter was too much for my small brain to comprehend to look stuff up to use it properly, thanks for the random comment for me to try out your approach
You might want to take a look at Syncthing for syncing between computers and phones. With one instance as a "manager" , like on your well known fileserver, it should be fairly easy to setup. It's not as beautiful as some other tools you showed, but gets the job well done once it's ready to sync :)
There's also SharePoint Online and other cloud based options, or having a local NAS and its associated app in the iOS device (why iPhone for teleprompter? Seems like an overly expensive solution compared to a cheap Android phone or tablet).
I use syncthing to my pc in a onedrive folder for photo and video backup since the android gallery version is bugged and doesn't keep the dates correctly.
I remember using Equalizer APO when I had a cheap subwoofer as my only speaker. Yep, I turned the mids and highs to 11 and turned down the bass. Worked good enough to hear voices and windows sounds
I'd also throw in WingetUI, which is a nice package manager gui that supports not only winget/msstore, but also chocolatey, scoop, pip and npm. It's pretty awesome.
HFS (HTTP File Server) is super old but I think it's nicer than the one you showed. You can D&D files into its UI to make them available, you can bind only to specific IP/interfaces and you can even let the clients upload files!
This is the greatest video you have put out in years. Thank you so much. I know you read these, and I don't comment often, so I hope this comes with some weight. You and the team crushed it with this one, going to help so many people out who are new "power-users" or have been out of the game for a while and haven't heard of the newer tools. Awesome video.
I have been using Equalizer APO for the past few years ever since I read a random comment on how to make my HyperX Cloud 2's sound better, and I have never had a problem with it. The only thing I dislike is how it forces you to restart during installation, but I can get over that fairly quickly. Surprisingly, I found some of the best EQ settings for my devices in the Steam community comments, so you never know where the best EQ profile might be hiding! These types of LTT videos are my absolute favorite! Please keep them coming!
Ventoy is literally the best piece of software on earth. So freaking reliable, works wonderfully. Back in the day multi ISO usb booting was always kind of risky and unstable, nowadays I prefer it to a Zalman or IODD drive, which used to be the standard in that field. No later than two weeks ago we got an intern (I work in the IT department in an education related company) and he had an IODD that would refuse to boot on the machines we just assembled together, plopped by Ventoy drive in it and it worked instantly. Turns out his IODD didn't like usb3 on those machines, all that to say that what used to be the most reliable option became inferior to the multi boot usb which used to be the unreliable option lol. Medicat used to be great but I've been meh about it ever since it's been a ventoy image, I think it's really weird and unpractical that's it's an image you gotta write to the disk, meaning you'd have to have a usb drive dedicated to it, because it's not just an ISO that you plop into your existing Ventoy drive or IODD type device. There's work arounds like making a vhd of it, but yeah... As to the questionnability of the paid software, offered for free in such free collections of software, yeah it's questionnable but like you said you see it everywhere, in repair shops, in IT departments of big companies, oftentimes they actually own the licence to those but use those boot cd like medicat or hbcd simply out of convenience.
I'm so glad you mentioned Ventoy. Just be aware you HAVE to eject the USB before unplugging it. In my experience on Linux, sometimes ejecting will take up to 45 minutes. It will seem frozen. It's not, just let it work and it will eject.
That is because your Linux system uses write caching for that removable device. Windows doesn't do that by default because it is easier to lose data. You can turn it on or off on both systems.
@@cissikatt Oh, that's really good to know. I'll search up how to turn it off in Arch. Thank you! I swapped back to Linux recently and I'm a bit rusty.
You guys don’t do this enough!! What about a little series where you really help demystify some of these tools, for example: Voicemeter looks handy af - why not give us a whole video deep diving on it - that would be 👍🏼😊
man have i not saved a video from this channel in so long but this one is definitely heading into my playlist. I thought i had it all but nope; some excellent compilation by you guys. Literally every one of these tools is a must have.
Chocolatey is nice and certainly extremely versatile, though I'm missing a mention that Windows nowadays actually has its own built-in version called Winget, which is compatible with Windows 10 and up! It was a bit rough in the beginning and is not quite as fully featured as Chocolatey, but it's still very powerful in its own right and already comes preinstalled with any fresh install of Windows 10 or above. It also integrates with the Microsoft Store to allow software installs from there as well!
Maybe my favorite ltt video in a min. If you just read a brief description of these programs, not all would really interest me. But the demonstration of them had me pretty much sold on every single one. Very cool. Im downloading Wiztree rn and doing some cleaning.
man, about time that EQ APO got some coverage. I have been using it for years to tune my microphone to sound a bit better. You can use it to boost gain and lower that heavy bass noise that vocals can have.
Very good video. I would add "SyncBackPro portable", "Araxis Merge" for syncing files. If you're a coder, portable docker images, personal server, dns configs, tls certificates, env variable backups help a lot while switching from system to system and having consistent experience even without internet. Also, I have been using ventoy, Easy2boot, refind, clover combo for years. Works great for different scenarios. Be it a buggy UEFI/CSM implementation and whatnot.
At this point, I'd suggest winget over Chocolatey. I've been using winget on my Windows device and my wife's system and it has 99% of the things I use. The missing 1% are niche things anyway. After having used package managers on Linux and brew on Macs, I can finally deal with installing apps on windows without losing my mind
Hey, love that video. No over pumped hype, just tech info but with typical Linus vibe. Please keep it up like this style, so I have feeling that I watch something worth my time!
Steel Series Sonar does everything Equalizer APO and Banana does in 1 program. As well as allowing multiple audio tracks to be routed directly into OBS and recording software. This allows you to separate music, discord, and your mic into different audio tracks. You also get a bonus Aux if you need yet another additional track. It also has auto leveling for all volumes to make everything the same level. Noise canceling, AI Noise Canceling, and a bunch of other cool perks like compression. Would recommend 10/10. Been using it for over a year now, and it receives active updates very frequently!
I had high hopes for this after major struggles with VM Banana, but I still had trouble getting it to route properly in Streamabs OBS (same with Voicemeter Banana). Moved to OBS Studio and didn't have any trouble with keeping everything separate but your comment makes me want to try Steel Series Sonar again for the great GUI and audio processing features. I was super disappointed I couldn't use it because it's neat, thanks for the reminder!
Ventoy looks great. Also another nice tool for Windows 11 users who don't like the right-click context menu, Nilesoft is a fantastic tool. You have the ability to completely customize what options are available and when.
Do you have an essential tool that not enough people know about? Let us know!
I have soundswitch
A second monitor XD
Idk
Mouse Bungie, underrated
Shout out to soundswitch for people with multiple audio outputs hooked up, blacktop for people who just want to turn their screens off and unified remote to use your phone to control your pc
Please make more content like this. This stuff is so much more applicable to me than many of the other video topics. Techquickie would be perfect for content like this.
He makes these videos for the community not for you as an individual. We are all obsolete in the eyes of the universe
The thing is most of these tools are already well known if you're even remotely familiar with the space itself.
There's GitHub repos which actually contain giant lists of different tools all neatly sorted and categorized. (Awesome-Selfhosted being one of them for example)
I end up usually skipping these types of videos, though I might not be the target audience.
Teckquickie is a channel with identity issues. So much useful information buried in rubbish.
@@crbrus7657 ?? A person posts their suggestion and other users will like it to the top if they agree and want similar content. When it reaches the top it generally represents an opinion held by many people. And considering the direction Linus shared about catering to more niche content, a channel focusing on content like this might be worth pursuing.
@@crbrus7657wow you are so smart dude holy shittttt wowwwww
Quick note on VoiceMeeter, please be careful when setting it up, keep your volume low and headphones OFF while setting up routing. It is easy to accidentally create an infinite feedback loop within it, and it can be super loud, enough to damage your hearing. Great tool, but it's very flexible and doesn't always safeguard against this, so play it safe until you're familiar with how it works!
Regards, a sound engineer who got blasted with high frequency feedback the first time she used VM and almost sh*t the bed! 😂
Thanks for the warning... Hey a bit offtopic, but I always wanted to learn about sound, i have never understood any of the terminology and I find it intimidating. Do you know any online resources for me to learn as a complete ignoramus?
Sound lock would fix that
Also note that this software has a very slight delay on audio, it very noticeable on games like Osu that require you to actually press the keys in time with the music.
@@toopink4death492 If you can, try to use ASIO audio drivers with VM and not WDM. ASIO is pretty much a direct hardware interface.
@@toopink4death492 I also had that issue and it made the tool useless for me because, when i tried using it quite a few years ago, i used it to be able to hear myself and the slight delay in hearing myself made speaking impossible
Void tools “everything” needs to be on this list. It’s far better than the search tool in windows and after it builds its database then the searches are instantaneous. It’s one of the first things I install on every windows installation. You never need to worry about where you saved your files again.
thank you
Dude this is insanely good, actually like SO FAST wtf? thanks!
Well said
My favourite too
It makes me so lazy. I love it. Instantly finds whatever I'm looking for so I don't need to be good about organizing.
LOVE having an ACTUAL tech tips video! Yes, I love the tech news content, the reviews, the builds, etc. but this video was definitely high on useful/utility vs just entertainment.
VOUCH NEED MORE OF THESE TYPES OF VIDS
this free by why you are selling it
Everyone else is already saying it but PLEASE keep making videos like this!!! Literally every single one of these tools are S TIER!!!!
The problem with that Idea is, that they will run out of S tier tools to present real quick.
literally C-D tier for me most the time. this was a B though, surprisingly.
hell nah i do not understand a simgle word
Ventoy tip: it can also boot your VM images (in VHD format) directly from USB onto bare metal, so you can have your personal portable OS on it.
I'm going to check that out because I've yet to find a portable (USB) Live OS be it Linux or otherwise with persistance (for those that don't know that means the ability to change and save things that will still be on the USB stick the next time you boot ) that has actually worked correctly. I usually just install ParrotSec on a portable HDD or SSD which isn't exactly the most convenient in terms of portability. But I'd love to have it on a tiny USB stick on my keys and boot into my personalized desktop on any PC I need to. Which was the goal since I first tried it with Ubuntu - Natty Narwhal which was in probably 2012 or so but after probably 3 or so tries every few years I've pretty much just accepted that a "PC on a keyring" just wasn't feasible for me anyway..
@@Nine_Divines you can prepare everything in VirtualBox or even Windows Hyper-V, just be sure to make your virtual hard drive fixed size and VHD, VDI or RAW format. I have a Windows 10 VM VHD image that works. I believe everything is explained in the official documentation and there's even a few tutorial videos on yt.
No kidding? I've used ventoy for close to 2 years now, and I had now idea.
Well, I guess if I didn't read the documentation 2 years ago, I was never going to figure it out on my own.
That's amazing never knew about that.
I'll have to try that. Thank you!
Used Chocolatey for months now, and had no idea how powerful and useful it is. And Ventoy is EXACTLY what I needed. Thanks, LTT!
Ventoy had a big controversy with phoning unnecessary user data back to a server. I would recommend a proper open-source tool like balenaEtcher
@@michalthekind Mint has integrated imager, so that's not important to me)
@@ВикторФирсов-е9ф Can you give me some context on that? I can't find anything about it and balena etcher just can't do the things that I use ventoy for.
And Ventoy is also open source, which makes those claims seem kinda weird.
@@ВикторФирсов-е9ф Oh, didn't Etcher have some sort of problem with spyware or adware being bundled with it, too? Don't use that, use dd.
I've been using ventoy for about a year now.
The best way I've found to use it is by putting it in a partition with a ton of isos, and then putting the rest of the partition as general encrypted storage for files and such.
Or the other way around which is how I have it for my main USB now, with 63GB for ventoy and 1GB encrypted.
In case no one has said it, Medicat USB loved the mention and added a small *tasteful* image of Linus on their site. Also thanks for a bunch of these tools especially Ventoy, by god I need that.
Adding that was a laugh that totally added to an already kickass day. That was a hell of a surprise.
I'm dying with that 😂 It's so good
Such a gem 😂
I don't see it
This made me belly-laugh. Well done Medicat.
More, I want MORE! Please make these software videos a regular reoccurring topic. I feel like I am solidly on top of the consumer grade hardware on the market, but when it comes to software I feel like a foreigner. I only recently discovered wiz tree and I absolutely love it compared to the old winterstadt. Thanks for the great work!
glary disk explorer is also fast if you don't need graph & it's free
Worth noting that Winget now comes built in to Windows. It basically does what Chocolatey does, but it also lets you install apps which are on the MS Store.
Yeah I found it odd that they mentioned Chocolatey but not Winget which actually comes built-in to the OS now. Just as easy to operate and offers a huge library of apps to install. I keep snippets of each winget command I use for each PC in my home.
@@lighthawk95Winget also recognizes programs installed without Winget compared to Chocolatey.
Came down here to see if I was the only one. It's also worth noting that WingetUI is also pretty powerful as it can handle Winget and Chocolatey as well as Scoop, Pip and Npm too. Sure the interface isn't as well polished as Chocolatey GUI but it's lightweight enough to run in the background a potato PC and notifies you of updates for software installed through other methods but are available though the other package managers too.
There’s also WingetUI that can use winget, chocolatey and scoop under the hood
I find winget does not function until I go to the MS Store and "Install" it on new computers I build for work. I use it all the time, but calling it "built in" seems a bit... optimistic to me.
As IT specialist I never heard about Ventoy and Medicat. That tools are gorgeous! Please, make more videos like this.
I discovered ventoy a couple years ago and it really is life changing lol.
Ventoy has been my goto multi-iso boot for years! Super easy to setup, and you can use your drive with other stuff too. I just keep an ISO folder, then subfolder the rest for my tracking. Window / Linux / Firewalls / Spinrite etc. Welcome to the Ventoy family :)
As a Linux Hopper I can say that Ventoy was my most used method in the last 2 years 💀
@@KegRaiderSpinrite. Now that's a name I've not heard in a very long time. :p
I keep 3 different usb on my keychain for IT. Medicat is by far my favorite. It was pretty annoying to setup bc Windows really DOES NOT like half the stuff it can do. Linus wasn’t kidding. My PC lost it’s shit when I was installing and adding other things to it.
Oh and he kinda glossed over it, but I find Ventoy to be hit or miss for IT usb drives. Works great for different Linus distros and portable OS. I’ve had issues with booting to different OS for diagnostics so I just stick with one OS on a usb for IT. (Outside Medicat bc the custom Ventoy for that is outstanding.)
Pro Tip: Equaliser APO really shines with the Peace GUI (which it looks like they’re using but never stated). So download both if you want the software in the video!
I used EQ-APO and Peace for around 2 years, and it was nice for a while, but I couldn't really get it to play nice with my setup, so I ended up getting Voicemeeter and have been using that for just over a year since then, and it is SO much better, and doesn't bork itself with Windows updates (it could still happen, but I haven't experienced it yet).
Agree with this. Been using both for a long time now and it has never been easier to make an eq profile for my headphones :).
an alternative to APO and Peace GUI is Steelseries Sonar. I switched to it since last year as APO gets clunky when you have multiple output sources. Plus, Sonar has similar functionality to Voicemeeter which let you output different streams of audio to your chosen output device. It's very handy when streaming.
And for thoses who are into headphones equalizer tweaking : HeSuVi is a great software
HeSuVi allows users to select from many HRTF models to have spatial 3d sound on their headphones, similar to Windows Sonic or Dolby Atmos Headphone.
All the NirSoft utilities are so incredibly useful. They deserve a Nobel prize.
Yep. Saved me from losing many accounts one time lol
NirSoft 🐐
NirSoft + SysInternals = FTW!!
@@Leak-ec5gb Watson and Crick never helped me customize my context menus or toggle default audio devices with a single button. Just sayin.
To add to Linus’ last tool, there’s a GUI based version of that program called HFS or HTTP File Server by Rejetto that works a lot like this but has features like a password feature, logging, and is pretty easy to use; used it for many years and I highly recommend it
I agree, HFS by Rejetto is awesome!
Same same
Rejetto's HFS is Windows only, while TheWaWar's simple-http-server is multi-platform
@@gaweyn true, this is a nice tool for peeps with windows to use
Just started using this for hosting some of these tools on my network. Thank you. This is such a good utility.
Back in the day I would buy PC Format a magazine that came with a double-sided DVD every month full of Game Demo's, Free2Play Games and awesome tools like these. Unfortunately the Magazine has discontinued and up until this day I haven't found a service that puts together a comprehensive list of the newest PC Tools every month that are actually useful. It would be great if LTT made a page with all the links to useful tools like these, that gets updated every month. Just a suggestion.
That magazine was amazing, and I would love for it to come back, I know it's nostalgia talking, but I agree with you.
same. I used to spend so much time trying out the tools and demos.
@@TheSliderW right, I really wish there was a site or blog that had all the same things as the pcformat. I basically started watching LTT because the pcformat discontinued and I had to get my tech updates from somewhere
My contribution for that list would be Aurelius multitool, it is not well known but has many useful features in one place
Forget PC Format ... that thing focused on beginners.
PC Plus was the big boy back in the day for us geeks.
And over here we had C't, which was a German magazine featuring CD's which often had Live Linux cd's / dvd's.
The magazine did awesome deep dives in the latest hardware too. Not just Windows, but Linux too.
I agree that the internet brought of loads of good stuff, but it really lacks a centralized curated site with this sort of stuff.
6:40 Glad to see Ventoy here.
Been using it for ~2 years, it's so convenient and so easy to use, I love it.
I would LOVE to see more content like this. These tools are all incredibly useful and I could see myself using them day-to-day. Thank you! Could be cool to see this for more specific niches like media editing (image, video, audio), security, networking, etc
you reminded me of Polarr. if u ever wanted to edit a photo but dont want to mess with lightroom or such, polarr has a website, u drag n drop ur image, edit it (color sliders, contrast, etc etc) and export it fast n free! they also have polarr raw if ur on the run and got a raw picture from ur fancy phone or camera
These are ACTUAL tech tips!
I'd also add Sigma File Manager to that list (I'm the dev). It's an open source modern file manager that let's you do some similar advanced things. Here's a few examples:
- You can download UA-cam videos just by dragging their URL into the app.
- It can create local wireless server and let you stream any of your files to any of your local devices (on the same network).
- It lets you search / filter files super quickly.
- And much more
I also plan to add custom script actions, community extension support, etc.
Hiren’s Boot CD still exists in bootable USB form, and it runs in a custom WinPE.
It looked like the one shown here had a bunch of the same utilities, so I guess you can go with whichever one you want. Obviously my preference is to remain old school with my bootable repair tools.
Another nice tool that I like using is Windows Repair Toolbox. It’s a fairly basic program that groups a curated set of tools and utilities into a single menu that launches and/or downloads the latest versions, so if you load onto a thumb drive it will be updated as you use each tool. It’s handy since you can pre-load it with stuff in case you don’t have working Internet access on a system. You can also automate a bunch of Anti-Malware tools that can run unattended, which is kinda helpful if you help out folks who don’t know how to avoid malware and want to make sure their system is completely clear. There’s buttons that launch scripts for some of the built-in repairs Windows has had for years, so if you don’t recall the various flags or forget the syntax of the commands, you can just click a button. Most of the tools are portable where portable tools exist, but there’s an Uninstaller tool that can make sure to do a better job of clearing up old shit, which unfortunately is one that also requires an installation, but removing a single program at the end isn’t the worst thing.
I would love some sub-videos of this same genre broken down by LTT department (writing vs. labs vs. IT, for example). As a writer one of the most career-changing tools I have installed is Espanso, a text expander. I prefer it over AutoHotkey only cause it runs on MacOS too.
ShareX and PowerToys are some of the most useful utilities I know of. Can't imagine using a PC without them.
Same here man
ShareX in particular
Windows 11 has those features built in now right? Even screen recording specific areas
@@RAUWOFFICIALyeah but worse
@@sebastiangonzales46this tbh
ShareX also has some additional tools. Especially the color picker is something i cannot imagine my pc without
If you want an easy way to sync your phone to PC (contacts, sharing files, sharing the clipboard, SMS messages etc..) a good choice would be KDE connect. It's available on windows, Linux and android (also IOS with some restrictions).
Plugins can be selectively enabled and disabled for security and privacy purposes. I find this to be mile ahead of the 'My phone' app and it is very useful
I love KDE connect and it crashes way less than "my phone" from windows. I just wish they could add a screen mirroring function like "my phone" and Samsung have. But for all phones.
the doubling of audio output through voicemeeter is also great for making sure headphones and speakers both constantly play audio, so you dont have to switch back and forth between them with system pop-ups about it, or having to switch audio devices.
Giving a shoutout to the team that put together WingetUI, it also has chocolatey and Scoop support in a nice easy to use UI for users that are not very good with command prompts.
Wow this looks great! Have generally liked using Winget a lot since its release but won't say no to a nice GUI for it :)
Also Winget! Which means many things on the windows store are also available, plus other things too! WinGetUI is the package manager windows has needed forever!
Love this app. It's been my go-to for months and it's amazing.
winget also really nice. been using it for awhile but never tried the UI. I'll give it a go.
@@Deveyus Yes! Getting things from the store too is a plus! This tool is one of my go to now, easy to keep things up to date, install new software and all within a simple to use UI.
+1 for VoiceMeter
Suggestions:
WinGet - it does mostly what Chocolatey does (if not more with its Windows Store integration). Plus it comes with Windows.
PowerToys - Thought its what was about to happen but we went to WinToys instead. Does a bunch of stuff from image resizing, to seeing what app has a file open, to global system mute, to so many more, like this segway, to my last suggestion
DevToys - likely only useful for devs, its super handy to have a bunch of toys at your fingertips (eg, base64 encode decode)
Edit: Files - a replacement file explorer for Windows
I use WinGet to install Chocolatey ;)
@@jeremiefaucher-goulet3365uncanny
+1 for PowerToys, installed it back when I started working at a translation agency (preparing, checking and rebuilding files) and it saved me literal days of work. Mandatory mention for One Commander, absolutely the best file explorer I've used, _and_ as a bonus it does not look like it came bundled with win98 lol
I literally was in the middle of editing a video about my audio setup, including voicemeeter, when I saw this video! So glad I just got it done!
ua-cam.com/video/n0RzbWgmQDU/v-deo.html
bro devToys is a good suggestion
I can definitely vouch for ventoy. made installing ReviOS much easier since I could have the basic drivers installed on the same stick as the ISO
I ran into Ventoy recently and OMG what a game changer! No more multiple USB drives or DVD disks to lose, able to boot from multiple ISOs from one USB. Awesome. This was great - I haven't used Chocolatey before but definitely worth a look.
As a USB Flash Drive, I can confirm these are handy tools.
As a tool, I can confirm this is a USB flash drive
@@mknkmmnn as a motherboard I can confirm that both of the above statements are true.
As a monitor I can see it to be true
As a human, I’m scared the peripherals are talking.
@@patco258 wait till the webcam enters
This is certainly a video to bookmark. Thank you Linus, very informative and extremely useful. Need to do a part 2! I feel like there is a lot more to cover in this area.
I was expecting them to mention teracopy. The tool may not have many daily drivers, but when copying terabytes of data, the ability to resume, and verify the files were copied correctly is fantastic. I used it recently to get files off my old computer that kept blue-screening mid-copy.
I think windows copy has much more speed at this time ,thera was a time when it was very fast but not now ,just try to copy same file with both the methods and let me know
Loved this, PLEASE MAKE A SECURITY VERSION! All the security tools, there's the obvious VPN and Locally hosted password manager it'd be really cool to have a don't install macafee do this instead kind of video
this, please!
Ublock origin, windows defender, malwarebyte scanner, 2fa on all accounts and common sense.
@@sijedevos2376 in order Many "casual users" dont even realize what ublock do and with chrome closing the gates to the various blocks it will only get worse.
Windows defender was so snubbed up to windows 10 that even while NOW it's one of the best antivirus many go for power hungry and less usefull third party antivirus.
Malwarebytes is great. The only problem is that it push so much to make you buy the pro version that many uninstall it (I'm guilty of this too).
2FA is where the s**t is. Nothing is as useful and safe as 2FA on phone. And many dont activate it because "it will cost me 20 cent every time I'll need to change settings". Well, then, hope those 20 cents were worth the account that got hacked.
All of this to say: common sense is the super power most "casual users" need but dont have.
The package manager for Windows is absolutely god tier. One of the many things I miss from Linux is the package manager, just run one command and all your stuff is updated, no more "an update is available!", going to the website, downloading the new .exe and installing it.
Last year when I was working at a PC repair shop we used a designated SSD with a USB adapter as a Ventoy drive
Loaded a few Windows and Linux images on it as well as some file and system recovery utilities
It literally saved us a ton of time and effort since we had all the necessary ISOs in one place 🙏
Another useful tool is syncthing to create your own "dropbox". I have it running on an old smartphone as HUB, so each device connected is always getting changes from all other devices.
And for Equalizer APO I recommend a free limiter or compressor VST, that levels all sounds to the same volume. So explosions and whispered dialogue are exactly the same volume, no matter what you play on your PC (same for differently loud youtube videos). That in combination with an equalizer to filter out the lower bass frequencies and your neighbors won't hear a thing when you binge some show late at night.
That's interesting. So what do you do exactly and with what app? I guess you are using a FTP app that acts like a server using the internal + a big SD card. I like that it is very low power method.
1. Pureref is like a referance image canvas (think cork board) and you can shrink and enlarge or add as many images to it that you want, it helps when you want to build a visual note board.
2. screnpresso is like snip tool, but saves images good for taking visual notes, which you can "Bank" in PureRef
I can't believe you didn't mention FanControl.
Best fan control software currently available. The amount of customisation will allow you to squeeze every inch of performance out of your machine while keeping the fan noise to absolute minimum.
And then you have something like Argus Monitor which leaves FanControl in the dust.
i had some issues (cpu underclock at 0.52 Ghz) with it so i wouldn't recommend it. for anyone who wants to try it do it at your own risk
@@dusan3132 If you can report the issue to them I would try. That is a really odd issue! Help make the software better!
@@dusan3132 I don't understand. Are you in the right thread? I was talking about a software controlling fan speeds. How is this connected to underclocking your CPU?
@@dusan3132 I second what Pirat's reply says.
What are you actually talking about? Throttling? Did you incorrectly set the hysteresis? Poorly made curve?
I've used fancontrol for about a year now, both with a 3900X and a 13700K. No issues personally, and it makes it infinitely easier to control my 8 fans (including 3 gpu fans) with accurate temperature monitoring and customizable settings for when and how the fans kick in.
Adding to this list: Twinkley Tray on Windows allows to change monitor brightness straight out of your taskbar. Super useful when using multiple monitors, you can adjust the brightness of each monitor individually!
This video and the one that showed us powertoys have got to be the most life enhancing youtube videos I have watched. I seriously do mean that, it helps make every day working on a Windows PC easier.
You can also use winget (which is on Win10 and Win11) to get both choco and chocolatey-gui. Plus winget-run allows for easy queueing making it even easier to reinstall everything. And Ventoy is cool, i love it so much as a distro-hopper!
There is also KDE Connect (which is on winget and choco) for file transfer and syncing. Though I prefer Resilio for any personal mass transfer.
I wonder what does chocolatey add over winget?
Recent android versions ruined KDEconnect (can't mount phone fs anymore). I will probably roll back to android 10 or 9.
@@apiestink It is the other way around, actually. Chocolatey came first and delivered all the functionality of a traditional Linux package manager that people wanted whereas winget is Microsoft trying to play catch up and delivering pathetic results. The first iterations of winget could just install applications and that was about it; no version management, no updates, no removal, etc. although I believe these features have been added recently. The question you should be asking is what winget adds over chocolatey.
@@RogerioPereiradaSilva77 From chronological perspective you are right but from any other view: winget is baked in, runs happily from a script in SCCM, PowerShell, etc. Why would I fiddle with third-party tools and increase my security risks on corporate devices ?
@@RogerioPereiradaSilva77Winget is already integrated into Windows 11, supports MS Store Apps too and recognizes programs installed without Winget compared to Chocolatey.
WizTree is great and it's kinda crazy that it's taken so long for there to be an app like it that utilizes those internal windows tables to actually run fast instead of walking through every directory.
I prefer TreeSizeView
Ikr. I just cleaned 50gb junk on my laptop a week ago using WizTree. Epic software
I wished discovered this 2 days ago, too windirstat 1 day to scan the whole drive
I still use an ancient version of "Space" by Andy H that I keep around just because of this. It's extremely fast and has name labels for the graphical block view, making it much more usable then windirstat. Unfortunately it's abandonware so you may have a hard time tracking it down. Wiztree is a solid, still supported alternative.
SpaceSniffer is pretty good too
One essential tool I use often is Shutdown Timer Classic. It's free on the MS Store and it's so handy when you want to have a process done while also going to bed. When a transfer takes like 10 minutes, I just enable a 20 timer which will then shut down the PC so I know it'll get done.
"shutdown -s -t 3600" (normal shutdown in 3600sec = 1 hour)
or
"shutdown -s -f -t 3600" (forced shutdown in 3600sec = 1 hour)
is the classic way to also achieve that when written into the cmd / shell.
either way works though.
aborting a shutdown can then be achieved with "shutdown -a" Windows 10 will also give you notifications that the shutdown has been set up or aborted when executed.
I love watching Linus being handy with tools
Hrm?
linus can be handy with my tools anytime
He can store his tool in my toolbox whenever he wants.
HUH
This has to be the weirdest Segue for our sponsors...
Been using WinDirStat for years (on the Windows machines I do have to use) and had no clue there was a modern maintained alternative for Windows. Thanks for featuring WizTree!
I also like to use Treesize! Good alternatives nowadays
THIS is the kind of LTT video I like. Concise, to the point, with no unnecessary jokes/humor, filler stuff like vlogs, just straight tech tips.
I agree 100%!
Aye, gayly forward tech tips
9:50 - if its for a personal device, I use dropbox this way - both for uploading camera roll to the cloud, but mainly for accessing stuff from my dropbox on my phone - you can also do this with discord if you are managing a small team
Voicemeter really is great. If you have an audio interface with all the XLR mics and headphones, it's a must.
This is awesome. I’m reaching the end of my networking degree so making a little toolbox has become a priority for me and this is a big help. I’d love to see more content like this!
Great list! Instead of choco, I sometimes use winget. It might not be as powerful, but since it is officially developed and supported by Microsoft, it can also install Store apps, plays nicely with Group Policies and stuff.
Also, instead of SimpleHTTPServer, I suggest Caddy. It is a Go-written, fully featured Proxy like Apache or Nginx, but can also be used as a simple file server with a one-liner.
I'd been using rejetto's HFS for many years just for self and a few gaming friends, pretty great for what it did, but I guess not much development, and getting https working was quite a chore,
One more thing to remember - if you setup a HTTP (or any other) server on your network and it doesn't work - your router might block communication between WiFi devices (AP/Wifi Isolation).
Try to disable it or use wired connection for the device you're setting a server on.
Civetweb is a decent portable webserver - but redbean 2 is _really_ cool as it's a single binary that can run on 6 different OSes. A feat of engineering!
Thank you for mentioning Equalizer APO. It is one of the best tools out there! I use it to modify game sounds for better footsteps and noise suppression to my mic. Really works wonders as I can also apply some comp and EQ to my voice to make it sound even better, all at the expense of just 1-2% cpu. Really amazing!
do I need to run this application every time I reboot my pc?
@@raptornation2448 No. LTT managed to completely gloss over one of the biggest reasons this is a must-use for audio setups. Once you have it configured for your audio device, *everything* using that audio device as input/output is just using the filters (and/or plugins, including VST) completely transparently. No fuss, no needing to launch after restarts, no need to figure out how to get things fixed in-app.
if you want to look into another great way to do this, I made a video on my second channel on how to use Voicemeeter and some other software to do basic voice filtering:
ua-cam.com/video/qtne68XpZ6E/v-deo.html
@@raptornation2448 yes. It auto runs on every windows boot.
One essential modification to this video, would be to use for most usb sticks a device that has an actual hardware write protection switch. Helps with accidental wipes when installing operating systems, and also prevents malware from accessing tools used to remove them, among other similar cases.
THIS is the content we need. Really useful stuff, not some premium component I will never be able to afford or need.
With equalizer apo, definitely use the peace interface.
It makes it's way easier to use and is sort of the standard to use with it.
I'd also recommend checking out oratory1990s eq profiles over auto eq, only because auto eq is an algorithm to make a graph match a target which isn't always good because targets are usually extremely smoothed which hides important information.
So areas you want your headphone to deviate from the target will be lost. It also doesn't account for the hrtf differences in the treble.
Also if using auto eq make sure your using a graph from an industry standard HATS with a target made for that HATS. You can't use something like the Harman target with a 5128 graph. Which is why Sam and the lab at LTT labs has to create there own target.
But either way you go, the less than perfect auto eq, or oratory1999s confirmed by ear profiles. Please alter by ear to match your preference. Within reason of course.
Happy listening.
am i the only one who doesn't like the 'peace' interface? i really like the stock ui, easy to add and manage effects, create effect colletions with 'include' files, use knobs for adjustment or numerical input for exact values, fully custom eq, and you can see the final output graph at the bottom. it even supports vst plugins, although havent tested that.
i wish i could run it on linux, but i'll have to make do with easyeffects and JamesDSP. jamesdsp seems to be the only one on the linux side to implement Eq-APO's 'Graphic EQ' with variable bands.
@@liquidmagma0yeah peace is a tad bit overwhelming, but it gets the job done
I came here to comment this exact thing. Oratory1990's headphone EQs are the way to go. For anyone new to this, his EQs are aimed at achieving the "Harman Target", which isn't flat, but more accurately approximates what the artists who created your music actually heard in the studio. So the best way to go is to copy Oratory's EQ, save it in EQ-APO as a reference, then copy it and modify it from there to your liking.
been using voicemeeter for a few years now. even without streaming it can make life so much easier for managing audio from/to different places. there's so many plugins to do more advanced stuff if you wanna do fancy things with it too, like controlling specific things from other devices, all _completely_ customisable. voicemeeter also has customisable EQ stuff as linus mentioned in the first program
Please, do more videos like this. This is really great.
no, only cringe clickbait
sharex and eartrumpet are also great tools. first one is for easily taking and editing screenshots and second one for easily controlling by-app volume and outputs
Another good alternative to Windirstat is "Space Sniffer", great as it puts the folder and file names right on the boxes that represent the size.
and its portable and just a mb in size
That's 1 click away in wiztree too :)
some other utilities: Password manager: bitwarden.
Cross-platform bookmark manager: raindrop
very extensive note-taking software: Notion (I've even recreated google keep in here lol)
auto dark mode to automatically switch windows to dark mode at sunset (I think it's from the windows store)
start 11: more customizable windows start menu. Can highly recommend as a increased transparency / more blur.
Soundswitch is a tool i use which i absolutely love. It's very simple but lets you bind a key of your keyboard to toggle between output devices of your choice. I currently have it switch between my headset and speakers, which makes switching so much faster then going through the default windows audio output selector.
Thank you guys, this feels like a video from the early days of LLT. Love to be seeing Linus doing awesome videos like this.
Yes! I prefer these kind of videos instead of those 38 minute long "we're building a PC that none of you can afford anyway" videos.
@@potzblitz49583 Good to have a mix of everything or else it gets stale. You'd get bored of these videos if that's all they put out.
Make LTT great again. pump out tech videos just like this for the tech people.
…and make no money. It’s a business after all!
Haha, someone replied to this saying that these videos don't make LTT any money. I read it checked the view history, came back to let them know that this has almost surpassed their last 3 videos and is sponsored and the comment is gone!
Make LTT great again!!
The voicemeter devs also have virtual audio cables which I personally use. Less software to manage. Amazingly useful.
Some quality items in the list! winget is a nice alternative to chocolately and it is included in Windows 10 and 11. Some other useful tools are FreeFileSync for syncing files and folders and MultiCommander as a Windows Explorer replacement that can actually run as admin to let you get to locked down folders, and is both tabbed AND multipane. It isn't free, but PartEd Magic is a tremendous bootable iso with loads of system recovery, cloning, wiping, etc. tools
I would definitely recommend the programs Everything and Flow Launcher. Everything is a replacement for Windows's HORRIBLE indexing, and it works insanely fast. Flow Launcher is an open source Spotlight alternative that works with Everything, and makes it SOOOO much easier to find files, launch peograms, and even do things like quick calculations through the integrated calculator plugin. Literally could not live without those two.
Having used a Mac for ions, Flow Launcher made me gasp out loud - thank you, you beautiful human being
But does it search bing and tell Microsoft every request you type into it. Will never trump Spotlight / Cortana in that regard! /s
One megatool that is quite nice is Chris Titus’s Windows tool which after running a single command in a terminal opened with admin privileges is a one stop shop for a few apps, mandatory software for coding as well as tweaks for Windows to help get the most out of it.
Dang i always run that script after a fresh Windows Install and after installing updates, just so handy to get everything read in a few minutes
That one's a must have for me, too.
YO this is super neat and handy too. Thanks!
^this a must-have for making windows a better OS
Aurelius multitool is an alternative
For the use case shown for Simple HTTP Server, I prefer using LocalSend. It allows to send text (including URL) files, folders. It can be installed in Desktop and Mobile OSes
for voicemeter, a lightweight option for splitting program audio into seperate channels, you can get upto 5 virtual cables. And use eartrumpet to direct apps into channels. I use one for games, using listen to device and one for discord, so only my mic and game audio plays on stream /recording and I can toggle discord and my mic all separately.
Voicemeter was too much for my small brain to comprehend to look stuff up to use it properly, thanks for the random comment for me to try out your approach
Eartrumpet is great!
I was surprised they didn't mention it.
EarTrumpet for me has just become absolutely essential. Honestly could barely imagine using Windows without it since I use it so often.
This is so helpful. Please make these more often! I've been having annoying headset issues forever now and this is the answer I needed!
1:30 missed opportunity for screwdriver LTT Store add ^
Bro u literally just witnessed a crime and ur talking about a damn screwdriver💀
"Ear Trumpet" in the Windows store is quite helpful if anybody wants to set custom volumes easily for each application individually.
What would be the difference between the Windows built-in audio mixer and EarTrumpet?
I've been using Winget instead of chocolatey. Its built in and works nicely.
You might want to take a look at Syncthing for syncing between computers and phones. With one instance as a "manager" , like on your well known fileserver, it should be fairly easy to setup. It's not as beautiful as some other tools you showed, but gets the job well done once it's ready to sync :)
Synchthing and an original Google Pixel for unlimited photo and video backups in original quality
There's also SharePoint Online and other cloud based options, or having a local NAS and its associated app in the iOS device (why iPhone for teleprompter? Seems like an overly expensive solution compared to a cheap Android phone or tablet).
Nextcloud
I use syncthing to my pc in a onedrive folder for photo and video backup since the android gallery version is bugged and doesn't keep the dates correctly.
I use it to sync retroarch saves between my PC, laptop, raspberry pi, and my phone :)
I remember using Equalizer APO when I had a cheap subwoofer as my only speaker. Yep, I turned the mids and highs to 11 and turned down the bass. Worked good enough to hear voices and windows sounds
Equalizer APO destroy audio too much to my taste
@@bapt_andthebasses might just be a skill issue tbh.
@@june3149 no. Don't have these issues with Rogue software on Mac and Realtek EQ on Windows.
These kind of videos are why I'm subbed. The assorted shenanigans are fun, but these are genuinely super helpful.
I love Ventoy. Being able to change ISOs whenever I want to is awesome, and I haven't used anything else for boot drives
I'd also throw in WingetUI, which is a nice package manager gui that supports not only winget/msstore, but also chocolatey, scoop, pip and npm. It's pretty awesome.
Nothing sticks it to the man like GUI package managers
HFS (HTTP File Server) is super old but I think it's nicer than the one you showed. You can D&D files into its UI to make them available, you can bind only to specific IP/interfaces and you can even let the clients upload files!
I used HFS to d&d a file and now it's a level 7 sorcerer
@@73caddydaddy93 sorry, what do you mean??> what's the reference?
@@73caddydaddy93I'm always a fan of useful tools to d&d my files.
Except last time it rolled a commoner and revolted. Shame
@@Kavyatej Roleplaying my friend, the not-do-hidden passion of many
Voicemeeter was an absolute game changer for my streaming setup. Kudos for covering it!
0:03 Nah that's not a USB stick, that's a USB BRICK
This is the greatest video you have put out in years. Thank you so much. I know you read these, and I don't comment often, so I hope this comes with some weight. You and the team crushed it with this one, going to help so many people out who are new "power-users" or have been out of the game for a while and haven't heard of the newer tools. Awesome video.
Agreed. this style of video is educational and I prefer it
I have been using Equalizer APO for the past few years ever since I read a random comment on how to make my HyperX Cloud 2's sound better, and I have never had a problem with it. The only thing I dislike is how it forces you to restart during installation, but I can get over that fairly quickly. Surprisingly, I found some of the best EQ settings for my devices in the Steam community comments, so you never know where the best EQ profile might be hiding! These types of LTT videos are my absolute favorite! Please keep them coming!
As an IT admin, thanks for sharing this. Ventoy will be in my arsenal of tools from now on.
Ventoy is literally the best piece of software on earth. So freaking reliable, works wonderfully. Back in the day multi ISO usb booting was always kind of risky and unstable, nowadays I prefer it to a Zalman or IODD drive, which used to be the standard in that field. No later than two weeks ago we got an intern (I work in the IT department in an education related company) and he had an IODD that would refuse to boot on the machines we just assembled together, plopped by Ventoy drive in it and it worked instantly. Turns out his IODD didn't like usb3 on those machines, all that to say that what used to be the most reliable option became inferior to the multi boot usb which used to be the unreliable option lol.
Medicat used to be great but I've been meh about it ever since it's been a ventoy image, I think it's really weird and unpractical that's it's an image you gotta write to the disk, meaning you'd have to have a usb drive dedicated to it, because it's not just an ISO that you plop into your existing Ventoy drive or IODD type device. There's work arounds like making a vhd of it, but yeah...
As to the questionnability of the paid software, offered for free in such free collections of software, yeah it's questionnable but like you said you see it everywhere, in repair shops, in IT departments of big companies, oftentimes they actually own the licence to those but use those boot cd like medicat or hbcd simply out of convenience.
so glad y'all made this video. i feel like there isn't enough coverage of software overall on youtube.
I'm so glad you mentioned Ventoy. Just be aware you HAVE to eject the USB before unplugging it. In my experience on Linux, sometimes ejecting will take up to 45 minutes. It will seem frozen. It's not, just let it work and it will eject.
That is because your Linux system uses write caching for that removable device. Windows doesn't do that by default because it is easier to lose data. You can turn it on or off on both systems.
@@cissikatt Oh, that's really good to know. I'll search up how to turn it off in Arch. Thank you! I swapped back to Linux recently and I'm a bit rusty.
You guys don’t do this enough!! What about a little series where you really help demystify some of these tools, for example:
Voicemeter looks handy af - why not give us a whole video deep diving on it - that would be 👍🏼😊
man have i not saved a video from this channel in so long but this one is definitely heading into my playlist. I thought i had it all but nope; some excellent compilation by you guys. Literally every one of these tools is a must have.
We're is this for max?
@@JustinMacri007 Mac doesn't have most of this stuff.
Chocolatey is nice and certainly extremely versatile, though I'm missing a mention that Windows nowadays actually has its own built-in version called Winget, which is compatible with Windows 10 and up!
It was a bit rough in the beginning and is not quite as fully featured as Chocolatey, but it's still very powerful in its own right and already comes preinstalled with any fresh install of Windows 10 or above. It also integrates with the Microsoft Store to allow software installs from there as well!
Maybe my favorite ltt video in a min. If you just read a brief description of these programs, not all would really interest me. But the demonstration of them had me pretty much sold on every single one. Very cool.
Im downloading Wiztree rn and doing some cleaning.
man, about time that EQ APO got some coverage. I have been using it for years to tune my microphone to sound a bit better. You can use it to boost gain and lower that heavy bass noise that vocals can have.
Very good video. I would add "SyncBackPro portable", "Araxis Merge" for syncing files. If you're a coder, portable docker images, personal server, dns configs, tls certificates, env variable backups help a lot while switching from system to system and having consistent experience even without internet. Also, I have been using ventoy, Easy2boot, refind, clover combo for years. Works great for different scenarios. Be it a buggy UEFI/CSM implementation and whatnot.
At this point, I'd suggest winget over Chocolatey. I've been using winget on my Windows device and my wife's system and it has 99% of the things I use. The missing 1% are niche things anyway. After having used package managers on Linux and brew on Macs, I can finally deal with installing apps on windows without losing my mind
WingetUI is a nice addition to Winget.
Agree! and it might not be perfect yet, but microsoft is making sure it's gonna be golden :D
Winget is also included with windows now as well. so no need for additional software
Well that's your problem. You install programs on a PC, not apps. Mac software doesn't run easily on a PC.
I use both chocolatey and winget cause some packages won't download and install properly on winget and vice versa
Voicemeeter is so underrated!
I love the more technical videos. I doubt that they get the same views, but they still make me learn.
Please make a part 2. This is the exact kind of content I look for
Hey, love that video. No over pumped hype, just tech info but with typical Linus vibe. Please keep it up like this style, so I have feeling that I watch something worth my time!
The last one is what iv needed for soo long, makes it so much easier to transfere clips to phone for tiktok posts
Steel Series Sonar does everything Equalizer APO and Banana does in 1 program. As well as allowing multiple audio tracks to be routed directly into OBS and recording software. This allows you to separate music, discord, and your mic into different audio tracks. You also get a bonus Aux if you need yet another additional track. It also has auto leveling for all volumes to make everything the same level. Noise canceling, AI Noise Canceling, and a bunch of other cool perks like compression. Would recommend 10/10. Been using it for over a year now, and it receives active updates very frequently!
I had high hopes for this after major struggles with VM Banana, but I still had trouble getting it to route properly in Streamabs OBS (same with Voicemeter Banana). Moved to OBS Studio and didn't have any trouble with keeping everything separate but your comment makes me want to try Steel Series Sonar again for the great GUI and audio processing features. I was super disappointed I couldn't use it because it's neat, thanks for the reminder!
@KilledbyBoom been using it for Studio OBS for about 2 years now. Absolutely love it.
Edit: Streamlabs OBS is beyond hot garbage. It's molten trash. 🗑
Ventoy looks great. Also another nice tool for Windows 11 users who don't like the right-click context menu, Nilesoft is a fantastic tool. You have the ability to completely customize what options are available and when.
Probably been mentioned, but Snappy Driver Installer Origin is a good tool for this list.