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Everything Microsoft Ships in Windows 11 Gets a Free Replacement, Here Are the Ones That Work

Review

Four things I reinstall on every Windows machine that lands on my bench: a PDF reader, an image editor, an archive tool, and something that tells me where the disk space went. None of them cost a cent, and none of them are the ones Microsoft bundles in. That’s the pattern I keep running into. The built-in apps are fine as placeholders until someone actually has to get work done, and then you’re looking at a free download anyway.

So here’s the honest accounting of what Windows 11 ships with, what it should have been, and which free replacements I actually deploy. Not a list of “alternatives that exist.” A list of the ones that survive contact with non-technical staff who will call you the moment something looks different.

Notepad and the plain-text problem

Notepad is fine for reading a config file. It is not fine for editing one. No line numbers, no column indicator, no clue that you just saved a file in the wrong encoding. Windows 11 has improved Notepad over the years, but it still has no real understanding of what a developer or a sysadmin needs.

Notepad++ takes about twenty seconds to install and immediately gives you line numbers, syntax highlighting that autodetects the language, and a find-and-replace that works across multiple files at once. That last part matters more than people realize. When you need to change a server name in fifteen config files, doing it in Notepad is a fifteen-step mistake waiting to happen. Doing it in Notepad++ is two clicks. I put it on every machine that touches anything technical.

The archive tool nobody wants to pay for

WinRAR still nags you to buy it after the trial expires. That nag screen has been a fixture of office life for so long that people have stopped noticing it. Stop tolerating it.

7-Zip opens everything WinRAR does and a few formats it doesn’t. It’s free with no nag, no trial, no upsell. The interface has the same feel as a tool nobody has touched since 2004, which is exactly the case here, but it works and it’s fast. Right-click a .zip or .7z or .rar, extract, done. The only complaint I ever hear is the icon. That’s a fair trade for never seeing a “please buy” popup again.

Defender is better than you think, worse than the marketing

Here’s where I differ from a lot of IT people. Microsoft Defender is legitimately good enough for most office machines. It’s built in, it’s always on if nothing else is, and independent labs consistently score it well. That alone means you can stop paying for a third-party suite that mostly exists to justify its own subscription.

But it has real gaps. PCMag’s testing flagged poor phishing detection, a slow first scan, and ransomware protection that failed their hands-on test. SmartScreen only guards Microsoft’s own browsers, so if someone lives in Chrome or Firefox, that layer of defense is simply absent. Defender is a solid baseline, not a full suite. If your users click links in email all day, layer something on top or at least tighten the browser settings. Don’t pretend Defender is bulletproof just because it’s convenient.

Photos and files: the two swaps that save the most complaints

The Photos app is fine for looking at pictures. The moment someone needs to crop, resize, adjust exposure, or export for a print, it runs out of road. GIMP covers that. It’s the strongest free Photoshop alternative for most people, and the 3.x releases modernized the interface and closed a lot of the old gaps. The learning curve is real. Someone coming from twenty years of Photoshop muscle memory will fight it for a week. Someone who just needs to crop and resize will be fine in ten minutes. Keep both expectations in mind before you install it on a colleague’s machine.

For file management, Windows Explorer is fine until the drive fills up. Then you’re clicking through folders guessing what’s eating space. WizTree scans a drive in moments and lets you see at a glance which files are hogging the space, with the biggest blocks standing for the biggest ones. I’ve found forgotten video files this way more than once, right-clicked them from the map, and deleted them without ever opening a folder. The free version does everything an office user needs. Just be careful what you delete (system folders and app data look just as big as the junk you actually want gone).

Office documents and the LibreOffice question

LibreOffice replaces Microsoft Office in the sense that it opens .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx files and lets you edit them. What it does not do is behave identically. Complex spreadsheets with pivot tables, macros, or heavy formatting can shift when they cross over. For someone writing a letter or making a simple budget, you’ll never notice. For the accountant with a twelve-tab workbook, test it before you commit.

My rule: if the user only reads and types, LibreOffice is a clean swap and saves a subscription. If their files come from other people and need to look exactly right when they go back out, keep Office. That’s not a knock on LibreOffice. It’s a realistic read of where document compatibility still bites.

Video: don’t oversell this one

Windows has Clipchamp built in now. It’s a browser-based editor, free exports cap at 1080p with no watermark according to Microsoft’s own docs, and it includes some genuinely useful AI features at no cost. For a quick social video or a trim-and-post job, it’s fine.

DaVinci Resolve is the serious answer. The free version handles real editing work, caps exports at 4K, and leaves the advanced AI features (Magic Mask, noise reduction) to the paid Studio version. For an office that occasionally needs to cut a real video, Resolve is the tool. For someone who just wants to trim a clip and post it, Clipchamp is less intimidating and already installed. Match the tool to the person.

What I actually deploy, and in what order

  • 7-Zip first, always. No nag, no cost, no downside.
  • Notepad++ on any machine that touches config files.
  • WizTree on anything with a small SSD and a growing Downloads folder.
  • GIMP where image editing happens, with a warning about the learning curve.
  • LibreOffice where the user only reads and types, tested against their real files first.
  • DaVinci Resolve only where real video work happens. Otherwise leave Clipchamp in place.

None of these are compromises anymore. The gap between paid and free software has narrowed enough that for most office tasks, the free option is the sensible default. The paid option survives where a specific workflow demands it, not because the free one is somehow lesser. My advice: install the free replacement, watch how the user reacts for a week, and only reach for the paid version if they actually hit a wall. Most of them won’t.