Best Free Software for Windows

System Information Utility

Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, missing Microsoft hotfixes, anti-virus status, CIS (Center for Internet Security) benchmarks, and displays the results in your Web browser. All of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent to any web server.

System Information Viewer is a general Windows utility for displaying lots of useful Windows, Network and hardware info - CPU info, PCI info, PCMCIA info, USB info, Machine Info, Hardware Sensors, Networked computers, Operating System Information and more. I use Craig Hart's pcidevs.txt file for my PCI device display with my usbdevs.txt being used for the USB devices, mondevs.txt for monitor descriptions and pcmdevs.txt for PCMCIA device descriptions. SIV is designed for Windows XP, Vista, 2008, 2003, 2000 and NT4. Windows 95, 98 and Me are also supported.

Spiceworks IT Desktop has the features you need: inventory and report on your company's hardware and software assets automatically, monitor and troubleshoot the hardware and software on your network, run an IT Help Desk for your company that's easy to use.

SparkleXP is an application designed to tweak Windows XP and improve its performance. It helps freeing up computer resources resulting in a faster and responsive computer.