Tools a Windows administrator cannot live without

3rd party tools are great, but before I start there, the basic ones you get with the system:

• Computer Management
• Event Viewer
• Services Console
• Perfmon
• Active Directory Users and Computers
• Active Directory Domains and Trusts
• Active Directory Sites and Services
• Group Policy Management Console (okay, so you download this one)
• The command line itself with
  • netstat
  • nbtstat
  • ipconfig
  • net
  • findstr
  • netsh
• Internet Explorer/Firefox
• Scripting tool like VBScript/PowerShell/Perl
• Notepad

Other Tools:

• Sysinternals PSTools Suite
• Sysinternals Process Explorer
• Sysinternals Process Monitor
• Joe Richards' free tools for ActiveDirectory
• Microsoft Office OneNote

SysInternals Suite

I can't live without PowerShell.

WinDirStat is great for finding out how all your disk space it getting used.

I always post this one, but it remains true. Beyond Compare is the best folder & file diff program. It is so ridiculously useful for maintenance work and updating, plus it does built-in FTP