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A new computer ships with a raft of programs, but quite which programs you get depends where you purchase your computer but it can also depend on which country you live in. For example, in the UK, all new computers come with Windows pre-loaded, yet in Thailand some come with Linux although this is a recent development.

How useful are these programs that come ‘free’ with your new computer? Well, it varies, to be frank, and in the remainder of this article we will take a look at some of the most common pre-loaded programs.

Sometimes you receive ‘Notepad’, sometimes you get ‘Wordpad’ and sometimes you get both. Wordpad is a more sophisticated version of Notepad and it can open old ‘Write’ documents. It can also open all rich text files (.rtf) as well as plain text (.txt) files.

Most people see Wordpad as an upgrade to Notepad and in numerous ways that is what it is, yet it does not have enough features to make me want to use it. I use Notepad each and every day, yet I very rarely use Wordpad. Wordpad can be seen as a halfway house to MS Word the documents of which it can also read.

Wordpad is a helpful program if you do not have Word, because you can make attractive-looking documents and embed sound and picture files and text can be coloured. Regrettably, there is no spell-checker, and it can open Excel files as well, which can be handy.

If you have the MS Office suite, then Wordpad is superfluous. If you do not have MS Office, download OpenOffice, which is a free Open Source contender to Office.

Outlook Express is a competent email client that can actually perform some tasks that Outlook can not. It also has an address book. Outlook Express is useful enough for most people, but if it is not, download Opera and integrate the email client and address book that is available with it.

The calculator that ships free with Windows is very impressive. The version that comes with Windows 7 can be converted into a mathematical, a scientific, a statisticians”, a programmers’ calculator and a number of others besides. You will absolutely never need another calculator if you have this tool. In one word it is excellent.

Paint is a passable image editor. It is not especially sophisticated, yet it can perform a number of useful functions. If you require more and there are a lot who will, you will be able to find much better free image editors on the Internet.

Windows Media Player is a very robust media player of sound, pictures and movies, yet occasionally you have to go hunting for a new codex, if you have to play something in an unusual format. This is not a big drawback. WMP is a very helpful and fully-equipped tool. You can play radio from all over the world through it too.

The system tools provided with Windows are adequate. They will monitor system resources and help you take care of your hard disks, but many users move on to more dedicated tools in the end.

Internet Explorer is a good browser, yet again, lots of surfers drift away from it and use other browsers (|and there are quite a few). In short, the tools and programs shipped with Windows are all right to get you going (although there are a few gems), usually, you will want to upgrade, and this can often be done by downloading other programs free of charge.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on several topics, but is now concerned with the wireless broadband router. If you want to know more, please visit our website at Best Router For Gaming Online

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