What is your list of programs to install to Windows after a fresh install?

Solution 1:

Basically, here is my software list (maybe not completly up to date) :

Edition

Pspad: A free and really powerful editor.
NVU: An HTML editor.
Kompozer: The NVU bug-fixes release.

System

Process Explorer: Replace the default windows task manager by Process Explorer!
Autoruns: Want to know what is launched when Windows starts? Try autoruns!
CubicExplorer: An alternative to the Windows Explorer, with bookmarks, tabs...
Supercopier: Replace the default copy tool of Windows.
Unlocker: A process is locking a resource on your disk? Use unlocker to solve this problem.
Console²: Change the DOS command for Console², with tabs, better UI...
Taskbar shuffle: Rearrange the programs on your Windows taskbar by dragging and dropping them.

Tools

Stroke It: Execute commands, start programs only with a mouse gesture! Magic!
7-zip: A free file archiver.
Ditto: A copy-paster manager, to not be limited to one element in your clipboard.
Dirkey: Use Ctrl-0 to Ctrl-9 to access your preferred directories on your disks on Windows Explorer.
Print screen: A free tool to create screenshots, with a lot of options...
Launchy: Type Ctrl-Space, then write the first letters of the application, and it's launched!
Keybreeze: Almost the same thing as Launchy.
PDF Creator: To transform any document to the PDF format (a new printer is added in your configuration).

Development

Tortoise CVS: A CVS extension for Windows Explorer.
Eclipse: Java development IDE.
Netbeans: Another Java development IDE, much better as Eclipse when you need to create Java application with Swing (this is my opinion ;o) ).

Multimedia

Foobar 2000: A powerful media player. But needs a lot of configuration...
XnView: A powerful image viewer. Also offers lot of conversion controls.

Internet

Mozilla Firefox: THE browser.
Mozilla Thunderbird: A really good email reader.
Trillian, Koolim, Pidgin (ex Gaim), Meebo (online): Instant Messenger tool.

Firefox plugin

Colorzilla: A color picker, to find out the color code of any part of the current page.
Download statusbar: A download manager.
Firebug: An extension for Javascript or CSS debugging. An extension for Internet Explorer that does almost the same thing: IE Developer Toolbar.
IE Tab: View pages with the Internet Explorer engine.
Measure It: A ruler to measure web components of a page.
PDF download: A PDF manager.
Sage: A RSS Viewer.
Stop or reload: Stop and Reload buttons are now located on the same button.
Tab mix plus: Options for tabs management.
Web developer: Lot of tools for web development.

Edited to add links, as requested.

Solution 2:

7zip
cygwin
gvim
sysinternals esp. process monitor

Solution 3:

Don't forget an anti-virus (fox example Avast) and a PDF reader...

By the way, if you're only reading PDF, do not install Acrobat Reader but a lighter PDF reader like Foxit reader. You will gain a lot of time while opening PDF !

Solution 4:

I would just add

Total Commander - excellent file manager, also works as ftp client and more

Solution 5:

In addition to some of those mentioned above: MagicDisk. It mounts ISO images in Windows so it isn't necessary to burn a bunch of CDs/DVDs. And it's freeware.