Round up: Best free file recovery software 2016

Introduction

Data recovery can be an expensive business, which is why it's no substitute for backing up your key documents, photos and other data on a regular basis. But that's of little comfort to anyone – even those with good backup regimens – who suddenly find themselves confronted by the stomach-churning feeling of data loss.

As soon as you've become aware of data loss, it's critical you stop using the drive affected immediately. Whether the drive itself is failing or you've simply deleted a file accidentally, this is the golden moment when you may be able to get your data back without an expensive purchase or trip to a data recovery specialist.

We've cherry-picked five of the best free data recovery tools in the business. Just pick the one closest to your requirements and with a bit of luck (and no small measure of help from the app involved), you could yet save your files.

DMDE Free Edition

Our favourite free data recovery tool is often overlooked. DMDE Free Edition scores major points because it's capable of recovering data from a wide array of drives, including 2TB+ drives rescued from a fried external drive enclosure with proprietary formatting (it's a long story).

DMDE may not be the simplest tool to use, but it's one of the most effective, and our step-by-step file recovery guide will help you with the basics.

DMDE works by letting you select a drive and then identifies all mountable partitions, with the most obvious choices highlighted. If successful, you're then shown a File Explorer-like view to browse the drive and recover what data you need from it.

There are restrictions on the way you can recover data from the free version, but there's no limit to how much you recover – if you want a simpler and faster recovery process, just upgrade to the Express or Standard edition.

Read on to discover four more of our favourite tools for recovering lost data in an emergency. Have we missed a program that's saved your skin in a near-disaster? Let us know in the comments below!

Recuva

Recuva is purely concerned with helping you get accidentally deleted files back, but to this end it makes things as easy and stress-free as possible. It opens by default to a wizard, which advanced users can subsequently skip: from here, choose the type of file you're trying to recover (picture, documents, compressed, emails and all files are among those on offer) and it'll focus its search accordingly.

You can target your search to a specific location or search all your drives, and you can opt to choose a quick or deep scan. The latter takes much longer, but flushes out more results. Then click 'Start' and wait for the scan to complete.

Once done, your results are presented, with each recovered file given a rating depending on its condition. You can recover files direct from here or switch to Advanced Mode for a frankly better view, offering file preview, information and a peek at the file's header.

PhotoRec

Don't be fooled by the name, PhotoRec recovers far more than just photos. It works with a wide range of file systems and media, from hard drives to CD/DVD, USB flash drives and memory cards, and there are builds for Mac and Linux, giving you flexibility to recover data from a different computer if necessary.

It also has deep knowledge of over 200 file formats, which helps with reconstructing lost files, and comes as part of TestDisk, which can be used to recover partitions.

The main complication is the user interface – it's a command line affair, with no mouse support. At first glance this appears complicated, but the program steps you through the process via a series of menu screens, and because it mounts the target drive in read-only mode, there's no danger of data being lost if you take a wrong turn – you can't write data to the drive you're recovering from, for example.

MiniTool Partition Recovery Free

One of the most frightening data loss experiences is when an entire drive or partition goes missing. Often this can be traced to an accidentally deleted partition or one where the partition header has corrupted. If the issue is this simple, getting the partition back can be done quickly and easily without leaving Windows using MiniTool Partition Recovery Free.

Just fire it up, select the drive containing your lost partition, then choose whether to scan the entire disk or just a portion of it (say the part where your missing partition should be). Choose between full and quick scans, then sit back and let the program do its work.

Don't panic if it appears to become non-responsive, just be patient and eventually it'll list all detected partitions on the drive. Select all of them – including your missing partition – and click 'Finish' to restore it.

You can also double-click a partition to view its file contents – perfect for verifying it's the one you're after.

Paragon Rescue Kit 14 Free Edition

All of the recovery tools we've covered so far assume you're able to boot into Windows to use them. But what happens if Windows won't boot at all? This is where Paragon Rescue Kit comes into play.

The best time to install it is now while your PC is running, otherwise you'll need to do so on a working Windows PC. Once done, you'll need a blank CD/DVD or flash drive (512MB or larger – if you're planning to recover data to this drive, go for the biggest drive you can) – the setup wizard does the hard work.

Now insert the disc or flash media into your non-booting PC and restart, selecting said media from the boot menu. You'll find yourself at a menu offering a multitude of options from recovering lost partitions, fixing boot issues and – crucially – a file-transfer wizard for getting data off a target drive. If all else fails, this could be a lifesaver.

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Round up: Best free email clients for Windows 2016

Download the best free email clients

With webmail services like Gmail and Outlook offering easy email access and mobile apps for all your devices, does the humble email client still warrant a place on you desktop?

If you use more than one email account, we say yes - particularly if they're with different providers, which would otherwise require you to have several browser tabs open at once.

As well as aggregating all your messages in one convenient place, a good email client can add features like encryption and integration with calendars, RSS feeds and VoIP apps.

Desktop clients can also store your mail locally, giving you access to archived messages when you're offline and providing a valuable backup.

Here are our nominations for the best email clients of 2016. Have we missed your favorite? What makes it stand out? Let us know in the comments below.

Inky

Inky's free edition is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Android, and its one-time setup makes it the perfect email client for use across all three platforms.

After downloading and installing the client, you'll be asked to create an Inky account. This links all your email addresses together, enabling you to access them from any device with Inky installed without the hassle of setting up POP and IMAP settings.

Once you've registered, setup is simple; enter the username and password for each account, and Inky takes care of the rest.

In everyday use, Inky is excellent, with a clever auto-tagging feature, intelligent filtering of message types (personal, subscriptions, social, notes and so on), very fast searching and cloud syncing between devices.

If you're running Windows 7 or later and spend lots of time trying to find particular messages or threads, Inky could save you an enormous amount of time.

Read on to discover more of the best free desktop email clients for Windows.

Claws Mail

Claws isn't hard to use, but is best suited to more experienced users who want to get stuck into its custom mail filtering and support for an unlimited number of email accounts.

Unlike the other clients here, Claws requires users to set up their POP3/IMAP settings manually. If you use Gmail, you may also need to adjust your Google account settings and grant access for potentially less safe applications - something you might well prefer to avoid.

Unusually for a modern email client there's no option to send HTML messages - Claws is plaintext-only - but by omitting potentially unnecessary features, Claws can run at lightning speeds. Its search function is particularly good, and it's expandable via plugins too.

It isn't the prettiest email app, but Claws is a great free choice if you value substance over style. It's also updated regularly, so bugs are stamped out quickly.

eM Client

eM Client has been kicking around for nearly 10 years now, and its long development has made it one of the best email apps for Windows.

The free version is limited to non-commercial use and two email accounts, but otherwise it's identical to the paid-for edition.

eM Client includes support for Gmail, Exchange, iCloud and Outlook.com, touch controls, fast searching and integrated calendaring and contacts. There's an integrated chat app too, with support for common standards such as Jabber and Google Chat, and it's a good alternative to heavyweight apps like Outlook.

Mailbird Free

Mailbird isn't just an email app - it's a whole communication platform to which you can add apps for scheduling, chatting, file syncing and teamworking.

After downloading Mailbird you'll be treated to a 30-day trial of the full version, which is downgraded to the more limited free edition if you choose not to upgrade at the end of the month.

Free users miss out on features such as speed reading, email snoozing and quick previews of attachments, but Mailbird is still an excellent choice. It supports up to three email accounts, is optimised for speed, and looks great to boot.

Setup is simple; enter your email details and Mailbird will find the necessary POP or IMAP settings automatically, then get to work importing your messages. It offers to connect with your Facebook account, so it can liven up your inbox with your contacts' profile photos, and can also link with Whatsapp, Google Calendar, free task manager Moo.do, and teamworking app Asana.

Opera Mail

The developers of Opera have always considered email to be a key feature of any good browser, and have poured a great deal of effort into developing Opera Mail.

Its features include message templates - particularly handy for business use - message filtering and sorting, message sorting by type and a wide range of customisation options.

It also imports RSS feeds, making it a good alternative to web apps like Feedly and the much-missed Google Reader.

Thunderbird

Like Firefox, Thunderbird was created by the Mozilla Foundation (though development of the two has since been uncoupled). Like the web browser, its features can be extended and enhanced with a huge range of third-party add-ons.

Some of its excellent built-in features include the ability to link files that are too big to email and the ability to read RSS news feeds alongside your email.

Setup is straightforward; as with most modern email clients, all you need are your usernames and passwords, and Thunderbird takes care of the rest.

Windows Live Mail

Windows Live Mail is bundled as part of Windows Essentials (though you can choose to install it separately after clicking the main Download link), and despite its busier interface it does much the same job as the pared-back Mail app in Windows 10.

Windows Live Mail delivers the three-pane layout that many email users, including us, prefer to more modern but more minimal designs. It supports RSS and cloud-based email as well as POP3, and makes it easy to send attachments and work with multiple accounts.

If you like Microsoft's way of doing things but find ultra-streamlined Windows 10 apps too limiting, Windows Live Mail is a sensible choice.

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Computex: Microsoft makes Windows Holographic available to all headset vendors

Microsoft has decided that third-party VR headset makers should have access to its Windows Holographic OS to bring mixed reality to a wider audience in the future.

This means that Windows Holographic won't be limited to Microsoft's own HoloLens, and any firm will be able to access it to realize mixed reality experiences on their own hardware – mixed reality (broadly speaking) being the combination of virtual reality and the real world, which allows for the overlay of VR objects onto real environments.

That's quite different to a purely virtual world, of course, and allows for clever tricks such as being able to see your actual physical hands as you manipulate a virtual object. Or incorporating a holographic representation of another person into a real world setting, so you can meet and interact with them, opening up a lot of possibilities in terms of collaboration with folks who may be many miles away from you.

All shapes and sizes

In a blog post, Microsoft said that: "Windows Holographic is coming to devices of all shapes and sizes from fully immersive virtual reality to fully untethered holographic computing."

The company noted it has been talking to device manufacturers and chip firms including Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, HTC, Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, MSI and others.

This is still early days of course, but it should mean the development of a good deal more pieces of hardware in the VR/mixed reality sphere. As Microsoft points out, the market for virtual reality is expected to be selling some 80 million devices per year by the close of the decade.

By that time, the price tags on these sort of headsets should have been reduced considerably, because at the moment for the higher-end VR hardware like HTC's Vive, cost is definitely a barrier to adoption.

• Also check out: What Windows 10 means for VR and AR

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Samsung warns against installing Windows 10 on its PCs

Do you own a Samsung PC? Then you shouldn't be upgrading to Microsoft's latest operating system on that machine – and this is advice direct from the company itself regarding installing Windows 10.

It's a pretty worrying situation when Samsung's tech support is advising against installing the OS due to potential issues this will cause with the company's laptops and computers, when Windows 10 has been out for almost a year now.

As The Register reports, one Samsung laptop owner (among a number who have reportedly experienced problems) whose Wi-Fi card didn't work with the new OS contacted the company for advice and was told by UK tech support: "Honestly speaking, we don't suggest installation of Windows 10 to any Samsung laptop or PC and we are still coordinating with Microsoft regarding to this matter. The Drivers that we have on our website are not yet compatible to the latest version of Windows."

The technical support rep went on to say the best course of action is to keep the current version of Windows, and Samsung will advise when issues with Windows 10 have finally been ironed out.

Of course, that's not much help to those who want to avail themselves of the free upgrade to Windows 10 – this expires at the end of next month, so folks need to upgrade before then or they'll end up paying for the OS.

On the other hand, people who don't want to upgrade and have been 'forced' into the move by Microsoft's controversial tactics pushing Windows 10 could end up with a non-functional notebook. Either way, nothing good is happening here.

Old drivers which haven't been updated for the new OS are certainly a major issue, with wireless cards appearing to be a persistent offender in this category. Samsung, of course, isn't the only vendor to be having problems in this department, either.

• Windows 10 is a step closer to big anniversary release

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Here are the free PlayStation Plus games for June 2016

Updated: The best Windows 10 deals in June 2016

Windows 10 is free for anyone who wants to upgrade an existing PC or laptop from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. Simply download from the Microsoft site and off you go!

However, if you're building a brand new system or want to install Windows 10 on a device that doesn't already have Windows 7 or 8.1 already installed, you're going to need to buy a copy. Don't worry though, because we check the prices of Windows 10 every day to make sure you get the best deals. Deals below are for DVD copies windows 10 - no dodgy third party codes here!

Windows 10 Home deals

The perfect version of Windows for home users

Windows 10 Home is the version that most people will need. It's for home use and includes game streaming from Xbox One and other consumer features like Cortana, as well as Windows Hello for logging into your PC via a fingerprint scanner or your face. If Windows 8 was the steepest learning curve imaginable, Windows 10 is like meeting a great friend you once knew again - it's just that they've bought some new clothes of which you really do approve.

Read more about Windows 10

Windows 10 Pro deals

Go Pro if you think it's worth paying more for the Pro features

Windows 10 Pro comes with security and management improvements over the Home version above. It includes Hyper-V for virtualisation, BitLocker whole disk encryption, enterprise mode IE, Remote Desktop, a version of the Windows Store for your own business and assigned access (which locks a PC to running only one modern application, to use like a kiosk). Network admins can also schedule updates so they don't happen at important times.

Read more about Windows 10

Windows 7 deals

Buy Windows 7 for cheap and upgrade to Windows 10 for free!

What's this? Windows 7 deals on a page that advertises Windows 10? This is probably the cheapest way to get Windows 10 on your system right now. Remember, anyone with Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 can upgrade to Windows 10 for free. So if you can pick up a cheapo copy of Windows 7, you can then upgrade to Windows 10 without paying more. It will be slightly more hassle, but that's the fun right?

Read more about Windows 10

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