Essential add-ons for Windows
This is my take on what you need on your Windows system. I run a limited system myself, so a criteria when I choose programs is that they are small and efficient. In other words: That they do what they should without any fuzz or heavy load on the computer. Most are free too...
System Utilities
2xExplorer
Windows Explorer replacement. Acts as a mixture of old Norton Commander and Explorer, with a folder tree and two explorer panes. It is very consistent and feels very thought through. Has an integrated editor similar to Notepad (also available as a standalone prog) and other very nifty features you'll learn to love while using it.
Total Copy
A program which lets you resume the copying process if your system shuts down unexpectedly! You can control the bitrate, pause the copying process, and it displays the transfer speed as well. Very handy when dealing with large files and folders, especially over a network. Claims to be faster than the built-in copying facility in Windows. - I guess thats why it takes some resources when it's in action, so use it only when you need to. (I'm hosting this myself, it seems to be hard to get elsewhere. Please dont link directly to the file, rather here .)
Powermenu
Adds Priority, Transparency, Always on top, and Minimize to Tray to the System menu (Alt+Spacebar) of any program. Always on top and minimize to tray are the ones I use most frequently, so I've disabled the others, something which you do on the startup command line. On the command line you can also make it perform multiple actions, like minimize apps with such and such title to the tray. Once you've installed it, you'd wonder why on earth it isn't included in windows already.
allSnap
A free utility to make all windows snap to edges on the desktop or other programs, just like Winamp does! Works on MDI windows too.. It's properly configurable without being a "gee, look what I can do" program. (Yes, you can hide its tray icon).
GNU utilities for Windows
This is a "very must". It is most of the utilities you have on linux(and unix), for windows. That means you can do on windows on the command-line (command.com or cmd.exe) what you do in bash etc in Linux. It gives you awesome power, and lets you use the keyboard to do most things very fast (some training andlearning needed though) instead of pointing and clicking on everything. For instance, I just mirrored my site by typing this command into the command prompt:
wget -m ftp://myusername:mypassword@my.server.com/the_folder
Fresh Diagnose
Diagnostic tool. Asks every part of your system(harddrives, CPU, modems, etc) for details, and shows them to you. Includes info about system files, variables, etc, etc, and a nice set of benchmarks too. All info including benchmarks can be put out in HTML form at once by the press of a button. Very small and fast compared to other diagnostics programs. Requires registration, but I've gotten no spam related to them in two years.
IERadicator
Think your Windows is slow? Do you know why? ME neither. (Got it? Sorry, bad joke.) What I do know, is that Internet Explorer is tied into Windows, and that many parts of IE actually run when you start you computer, hence they are in memory all the time, even if you use Mozilla or Opera. You can speed it up somewhat by removing that tie. IERadicator does just that. Very thoroughly too, so read the instructions!
Madonote
Tweaking Program for the looks of Windows. It can change just about everything, from folder and drive icons, to the startup and shutdown dialog. Small, fast, thorough and stable.
Automachron
Not a system utility per se perhaps, but it adjusts your clock against any time-server you choose on the web. Very unobtrusive and stable, can hide itself completely. Unlike other time-keepers, it works well in waiting for an actual connection to the internet before it tries to set the time.
PathCopyEx
A tiny add-on to Windows which will add a new entry to the context-menu of any folder or file; "Copy Path to clipboard". I find this one invaluable in almost any situation.
Startup Control Panel
Just what it says, a control panel for controlling what programs start when your computer boots up. Has five different tabs representing the different parts of your registry where Windows looks for programs to run. If you delete one, it's kept under it's own 'deleted' tab, so no worries! :-)
Maxmem
A tiny memory optimizer. Sits in your system tray and frees three different configurable amounts of memory every so often. The uninstaller is actually larger than the program itself! :)
Filemon, Regmon, etc
Sysinternals.com has a vast set of system monitoring utilities. I use Regmon for monitoring who does what to my Registry and Filemon to monitor what files do ?something? where. If you are having troubles with settings that keep jumping back or simply have an urge to see the millions of calls windows does to the registry, try them out.
Regclean
From Microsoft, to help keep your registry healthy. The latest version of Regclean was released in 1997, but it still works on most Windows versions... A nice way to use it is to run it every week or so via Task Shedueler. If you add -s to it's command-line, it will hide itself and do the corrections automatically before it exits.
EasyCleaner
Also made to keep your system top-notch, but this one searches other places of your registry, and includes file tools to clean your system as well. Describing every detail will take forever, you just have to try it out! :-)
Security utilities
Avast!
Although using only a skinned interface dragging it a little down on slow computers, this is a very light-weight, fast starting anti-virus application. It is fully automated in checking for both updated virus-definitions and updates to the program itself. Can act as a mail-tunnel for both Outlook and other clients, checking your mail before it gets planted on your disk.
Automation is this antivirus main force: everything can be automated, you don't need to operate it at all. The free version is somewhat limited in configurability though, but you'll miss nothing, believe me.
SuperShredder
When you delete something on your disk, all you do is remove the reference to the file that you see in your explorer interface, and the allocation space it has on the disk. The file itself will still be on your disk until windows writes another file on top of it.
This is a major security concern for some, at least if you share access to the computer with others. - There are numerous programs that can recover a deleted file, like the one below.
SuperShredder will write a lot of random bits'n'bytes over the file you choose, making it impossible to recover them.
PC Inspector File Recovery
Like mentioned, when you delete files, you don't really delete the file, rather the operating system's reference to it. This app will scan your disk searching for files deleted, but not completely damaged. I think you'll be amazed at what you thought you deleted, but really didn't.
If you're a little to quick on your Empty Recycle Bin, this one will help recover those precious files for you.
Kerio Personal Firewall
This is the best personal firewall(PF), at least for win 9x. Based on the former Tiny PF, it is light-weight and has features you really need, no frills. You can bake your own rules, which is essential.
An better alternative on Win 2k/XP is Sygate PF, which also let you bake your own rules, but it's a little too weighty for my smallest system running win98. If you have a machine running say, a processor above 700Mhz and have WinXP, get Sygate. Kerio gave standby problems on our more modern Windows XP machine.
Internet Utilities
Opera Browser
My favourite browser. Not only does it have features seen in no other browser, but from version 7, it allows you to completely customize the interface. Yeah, yeah, I've heard of skins I hear you say. But thats the look. You can remove and add your own menu-items and whole menus, make them execute programs, shut down windows, add buttons, your own search- engines, and the list goes on. You can make your own browser, plain and simple. Look at nontroppo's wiki Opera tips for an idea of what can be done, or take a peek at Opera employee Rijk's Hugin and Minun to see it in action..
And don't forget the built in mail program called M2. It's quite unique, using a database storing system, where mail is stored one place, then accessed from other folders, kinda like the shortcuts on your desktop. Yada-yada. Download it and see. It's just above 3MB (In comparison, IE is about 70MB).
SmartFTP
The most convenient, allround, feature-packed freeware FTP-client I know. Like any popular ftp client, it resembles Windows Explorer, but SFTP is fully integrated, with drag'n'drop to and from it, and the familiar windows context-menu for files and folders. But that isn't the main reason why I use it: It has MDI, just like Opera! :-) - Meaning you can have any number of ftp-sites open in one window. Together with "trans-loading", you can drag'n'drop from one server to the other, without having to first download the file from server A to your computer, then from your computer to server B. Imagine! Now supports IPv6, the next-generation internet adressing system.
Proxomitron
Odd-sounding? I thought so too. It's a Proxy. But it's also a http-header and webpage- filter (think no more commercials!). Have you tried Webwasher? If you liked that, but got bored with too few or simply too wrong options, then you will be glad to hear that with Proxomitron you can create your own rules, just like you make them to filter your mail! Give yourself some time to learn how it works, and you'll be grateful the rest of your online life.
Various Media handlers
The GIMP
"The Gnu Image Manipulation Program". Although a GNU/Linux program, it is ported to Windows. A full-fledged free image creator, editor and manipulator. It's not tiny, but it runs very well on limited machines. If you've used Photoshop Elements, you'll find this even smoother and faster, with a lot more options. It has a lot of filters and is generally all I need to create images. Easily competes with the likes of Photoshop. This one you don't wanna miss.
Irfanview
The best general purpose daily image viewer besides XnView. Irfanview is tiny and has useful options like sharpen and blur, along with various color and contrast options. A quite unique thing about Irfanview is that it can play almost any video and sound file too.
XnView is another image viewer which directly competes with irfanview. It has MDI as the main difference, so you can keep multiple images in one window. In the end you'll probably want both installed, they both have their strengths. XnView is multi-platform..
pkColorPicker
A very nice color picker and tool for creating good-looking color-schemes. Lets you adjust any aspect of the color, mix and blend between colors etc. Puts out colors-codes in three formats, decimal and hexadecimal; BGR and RGB. It also shows you the web-safe color closest to the one you are making so the color you make doesn't look too ugly on lesser colored devices. I used this for a recent retouching of this site. :-)
Metapad
The best Notepad replacement I've found so far. It has that magic combination of being both small (less than 100KB) and well-featured while not being bloated. It reads rtf too.
NoteTab Light
A very good text-editor with special features for HTML/CSS. Relatively light-weigth when concidering all it's useful features. If you can live without syntax highlighting, get this. It has loads of other useful features too, such as HTML to/from text conversion, integration with the built-in Windows FTP client(down/upload, delete files etc on the FTP server).
Although it claims to be a notepad replacement, the comparison is out of proportion. It's like comparing Wordpad with MS Office. Try it!
Winamp 2.x
Need I say more? Winamp 3.x is way to heavy for my machine.
CDEx
Actually the first CD ripper I've tried on this system. It's small and does the job well. Can encode in a variety of formats, I especially like ogg-vorbis, the open source alternative to mp3...
SysTrayPlay
This is a marvel! The tinyest of tiny mp3-players with features you sometimes find you lack in even Winamp. It can display itself only as the tiniest view in Winamp, but it can do another thing: Glue itself to the title-bar of any active window! When you change to another program, it will follow suit and move to that window. It's like having an mp3 player built into the windows shell.. It has an equalizer and playlist too, among other things.