Alex@Net

The purpose of this list is to collect in one place the best (and mostly free) programs for Windows operation systems. In other words, this is what you may want to install just after you have a fresh computer with the out-of-the-box operation system.

I suppose you already have Windows Vista or Windows XP with IE7 and WMP11. You even may install it as I described in my post about how to install Windows XP with all updates.

System

• Microsoft .NET Frameworks
  • 1.0 (not available for x64) + SP3.
  • 1.1 + SP1.
  • 2.0 (x86, x64) + SP1 (x86, x64), not for Windows Vista + SP2
  • 3.0 (search for "full redistributable package") + SP1
  • 3.5 SP1 (search for "Full Package", includes 2.0 SP2 and 3.0 SP2) + KB929509
• DAEMON Tools Lite - DVD/CD emulation.
• K-Lite Codec Pack - codecs for most of the audio and video formats
• EditPlus - Text Editor, excellent notepad replacement.

Internet Browsers

• Safari
• FireFox + FireBug, Google Toolbar, Stop-or-Reload Button, Locationbar2, Fireshot, Scrapbook, Greasemonkey, Adobe flash
• Opera
• Google Chrome

Download and Share Files

• Free Download Manager - Good UI, scheduler, can download from YouTube and other video services, BitTorent.
• µTorrent - popular BitTorrent client
• Dropbox - backup, sync, and share files.

Security and protection

• KeePass - keeps all your passwords secured.
• Antiviruses: AVG, Avira, Symantec Client Security (antivirus+firewall).
• Lavasoft Ad-Aware
• TrueCrypt - for encrypting sensitive documents.

File and archive managers

• Total Commander
• 7-Zip

Office

• OpenOffice.org
• PDF: Adobe Acrobat Reader, FoxIt Reader.
• MS Office: Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, PowerPoint Viewer 2007, Office File Converter Pack.

Images

• Paint .NET - editor.
• Google Picasa - albums.

Multimedia

• MPlayer - does not require external codecs, supports dozens of command line options.
• Apollo - high quality and compact music player.
• VirtualDub - for simple video editing and processing.

Email

• Mozilla Thunderbird

IM

• Windows Live Messenger
• Google Talk
• Skype
• Mutiprotocol clients: Trillian, QIP

Advanced

• unxutils - port of the most important GNU utilities
• PuTTY - a free Telnet/SSH client
• WGet - console download manager. Ideal for automatization.
• Console - cmd.exe replacement
• Sysinternals Suite - set of tools for Windows 
• Virtualization: Virtual PC 2007 SP1 + KB969856 + KB958162

For Administrators and Software Developers

• TortoiseSVN - Subversion (SVN) client.
• Wireshark - Network Protocol Analyzer

For .NET Software Developers

• Visual Studio 2008 + Service Pack 1
• JetBrains ReSharper
• RedGate .NET Reflector (formely Lutz Roeder's Reflector)
• Snippet Compiler
• Microsoft FxCop
• Microsoft StyleCop
• CLRProfiler
• Debugging Tools for Windows
• NUnit

Recommendation from readers:

• akrabat: Trillian - IM, Skype - IM, 7-Zip - Archive manager, AVG - Anti-virus, Synctoy - Backup, CD Burner XP - CD burning, Tweak UI - Advanced Configuration, Launchy - Keyboard based program launcher, Acrobat Reader - PDF reader