Downloading the best freeware audio & video editor on Windows today

Is this good advice which I just wrote to a friend who wants to create a
simple video with his own string music of the family's vacation?

I downloaded everything (to make sure the links were good); but since I
already had the software installed years ago, I didn't run the installers.

Here's what I wrote to him... 

To answer your question, IMHO, the best freeware audio editor on Windows is
generally acknowledged to be audacity (plus ffmpeg, whose installation is a
PITA due to licensing restrictions).

https://www.audacityteam.org/download/
https://www.audacityteam.org/download/windows/

https://github.com/audacity/audacity/releases/download/Audacity-3.5.1/audacity-win-3.5.1-64bit.zip
Name: audacity-win-3.5.1-64bit.zip
Size: 23576093 bytes (22 MiB)
SHA256: EB7CE348AFBF951A2F7B7849A2B32E52D9723729AAB05F3022032FC92FF3041D

https://github.com/audacity/audacity/releases/download/Audacity-3.5.1/audacity-win-3.5.1-64bit.exe
Name: audacity-win-3.5.1-64bit.exe
Size: 16087032 bytes (15 MiB)
SHA256: E3D6691546CC57C27972FB3F233D626E3E4A362ECB00955D90C71B25EA0BC0C6

https://lame.buanzo.org/ffmpeg.php
https://lame.buanzo.org/FFmpeg_5.0.0_for_Audacity_on_Windows_x86_64.exe
Name: 20240622_FFmpeg_5.0.0_for_Audacity_on_Windows_x86_64.exe
Size: 8577296 bytes (8376 KiB)
SHA256: 9B31E2402CB27C76D56F252E3D6E1BBB4D82526EB93A0FFAB7B25193F25DE072

https://support.audacityteam.org/basics/installing-ffmpeg
1 Download the FFmpeg installer from https://lame.buanzo.org/ffmpeg.php
2 For most computers, the 64-bit Windows version is correct.
3 Run the installer. You can ignore the "unknown publisher" warning.
4 Read and accept the license
5 Select the location to install FFmpeg. By default FFmpeg will be 6
installed into C:\Program Files\FFmpeg for Audacity
6 Finish the installation
7 Restart Audacity
8 Audacity should now automatically detect FFmpeg

If you prefer a manual installation of FFmpeg you can download a ZIP file
from a different source:
https://github.com/BtbN/FFmpeg-Builds/releases 
https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/#release-builds

https://github.com/BtbN/FFmpeg-Builds/releases/download/latest/ffmpeg-master-latest-win64-gpl-shared.zip
Name: ffmpeg-master-latest-win64-gpl-shared.zip
Size: 60293510 bytes (57 MiB)
SHA256: D9E5896EBFBF4936B0BF20CB5079B530FFC6FA6D31E3CC552DEBA34A4F8D66AE

https://github.com/BtbN/FFmpeg-Builds/releases/download/latest/ffmpeg-master-latest-win64-gpl.zip
Name: ffmpeg-master-latest-win64-gpl.zip
Size: 140807523 bytes (134 MiB)
SHA256: F381DD85D56D210F734F33609B8F51016B9CEEA00833FE2B9E8D7AACCCDFE7C5

For the difference between GPL & GPL-Shared... 
https://superuser.com/questions/1712179/which-version-of-ffmpeg-is-the-latest
a. gpl Includes all dependencies, even those that require full GPL instead
of just LGPL.
b. gpl-shared Same as gpl, but comes with the libav* family of shared libs
instead of pure static executables.

Unless you require a specific set of libraries or licenses I think it's
easiest to just get the full ffmpeg releasebuild for the latest release
version from gyan.dev.
https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/#release-builds
https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/ffmpeg-release-full.7z
https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/packages/ffmpeg-7.0.1-full_build.7z
Name: ffmpeg-7.0.1-full_build.7z
Size: 51939996 bytes (49 MiB)
SHA256: 0C04837490BDBF401A03F5B67428BC234009F34AE5CC5111CA18B0BDBC8CA506

For freeware video editing, there is less of a consensus out there.

I personally like Shotcut because it has more tutorials than any of the
others, and it's shockingly well maintained for a free product; but there
is no such thing as a non-complicated video editor (if it does everything
needed) - so - as with all video editors - it is complicated to use.

https://www.shotcut.org/download/

https://pilotfiber.dl.sourceforge.net/project/shotcut/v24.04.28/shotcut-win64-240428.zip
Name: shotcut-win64-240428.zip
Size: 158692796 bytes (151 MiB)
SHA256: EAF73579E77C3D195B67B8D208FE993950416316FF8F2E7C0AAC6CE32C417B7B

https://pilotfiber.dl.sourceforge.net/project/shotcut/v24.04.28/shotcut-win64-240428.exe
Name: shotcut-win64-240428.exe
Size: 121049616 bytes (115 MiB)
SHA256: 9DCDE3AFB346297735BFABE5DAE8E569FD73A5B2C8DA96ADCA534835230B98AF