Stardock: Object Dock (4/5) Get the Apple-alike navigation bar on yourt PC. Rolling icons growing tall & small. Easy navigation.

Samurize (4/5) A desktop enhancement tool (hosted by Stardock) with hundreds of plugins.

Avedesk (4/5)
Installs Apple-like desklets like a clock, the time and more. Read More.

Desktop X (4/5) helps you customize your Windows Desktop.

Wincustomize.com (4/5) Setup the looks of your windows the way you like it.

Mozilla Firefox (5/5)
The standard in open source webbrowsing.
With a lot++ of extra features for users and webdeveloppers*. (* custom installation).

+ Texturizer (4.5/5) Firefox Extensions & help.

+ Tune your Mozilla browser with Firetune (5/5) from Total Idea.
This tool does a lot more with Firefox than speed it up... Firetuning on the rocks!!!

Avant Browser (4.5/5)
Internet Explorer shell, supports RoboForm, Flash filter, pop-up stopper, multi window browsing, full screen mode, records cleaner, skins, translations,...
Other IE shells are:
 Crazy Browser (4/5)
 MyIE2 Browser (4/5)

Opera Software (4.5/5) offers a brilliant free browser that is faster & more stable than IE. The free version is adware. I recommend this as a second browser. In case you need to go to Microsoft to download IE again after corruption ;-)

WebReaper (5/5) (Website ripper)
Rips an entire website to your HD for off line browsing. Supports flash, drag and drop, filters, explorer style interface.

HT Tracker (5/4,5)
Another great Website Ripper that will allow you to read a website offline.

For safe surfing, go to other pages: Antivirus & firewall, anti-spyware, anti-spam, registry & system cleaner.

Netscape (AOL) (4/5)
Now a Mozilla clone... once it was the other way around ;-) They offer tabbed browsing but also a whitelist and a blacklist of sites that push spyware. Once you enter a whitelisted site, it will use the Internet Explorer engine.

AbiWord (4/5)
Open source text editor with spelling control, standard .abw extention but exportable to doc. Imports trf and simple doc files. Has plug-ins to support wpf (Wordperfect) files.

ACF Text editor (4/5)
For ‘Alt Comp Freeware’ freaks a small and simple plain text editor.

Avery (Brochure maker) (4/5)
<MightyKitten>You cannot add your own label definitions to it but if you use Avery compatible labels, knock yourself out. </MightyKitten><Poko>They have many free templates from which you can make a brochure among other things </Poko>

Budgie (Office) (4/5)
Low resources office packet

Charts & plots (Excel alike) (4/5)
TeeChart’s powerful Excel competitor.

Digita Tax Organizer (PIM) (4/5) Replaces your Filofax®.

Easy Noter (PIM) (4.5/5)
PIM looks like real agenda

Encrypto Deluxe (4/5)
Encrypt multiply files at once

Flow Charts (TeeTree) (4.5/5)
Add animation, collapse and expand nodes, import trees from dbases.

Free Agent (news) (5/5)
An honest news reader. Trialware scales down to free version after 30 days.

HTML Calendar Generator (4.5/5)
from www.dbhsoftware.com
With built in FPT client. Screenshot.

I Carbon (copy) (4.5/5)
Transform your scanner into a copy machine. Runs on all twain compatible scanners.

Info Angel (PIM) (4.5/5)
PIM & stuff

Jellybean dictionary (dbase)
Linked to server dbase. (4/5)

KeyNote (pim) (4/5)
PIM looks like word processor

Mozilla Thunderbird (Mailclient) (5/5)
If you allready use Mozilla Firefox (see above) as a browser (what you should).
It has full potential.

Open Office (5/5) if no MS office user.
Does it all for free - well known.

Restoration (undelete) (4/5)
File undelete utility. Scan for files that may be recovered after deletion. Wipe files beyond simple recovery. FAT, NTSF & camera card compatible.

Shirusu Pad (5/5)
Awesome mix of a post-it and a notepad. Transparent on your screen,... for quick notes during work. Better that a post-it. Right click on the tray icon, it’s fully customizable. A must have imho.

Stickies (4.5/5)
Is a simple alternative or supplement for Shirusu Pad. These are real post-its on your screen. It’s small and stand alone.

Time Stamp (clock) (4/5)
Track invested time in project
I think i will not install this...

Word Web (dictionary) (4.5/5)
Free English thesaurus and dictionary.

Zip Genius (5/5)
Zip, unzip more than 20 compressed formats. Darg and drop support. 5 compression levels. Integration in Windows Explorer. <Bob> Does also many things that are unrelated to archiving. It is big, complex and a really good archiver. </Bob>
Other nice (up-)zippers:
 zipcentral.iscool.net (Zip Central) (4.5/5)
 izsoft.dir.bg/izarc.htm (Izarc) (4/5)

Futuris Imager (4/5)
Includes printing & scanning from imager, editing filters, slideshow & screen capture.

IrfanVieuw (5/5)
A powerful lightweight player
With a lot of plug-ins.

Koolplaya (4/5)
Does all MS Media Player does

Avid Free DV (4/5)
Basic free version of a payware professional tool.

Camstudio (4/5)
Screen registration into AVI

SSMM (4/5)
create AVI FROM JPEG 1 BMP

Winmorph (4/5)
Morph images into another

Zwei Stein (4/5)
Video compositing & editing

Cute pdf (4/5)
Well known. Does a fairly good job.

Open Office (4.5/5)
Has an integrated pdf exporter. Remind that you need to install the Office suite. The pdf-convertor is not stand-alone.

Primo pdf (4/5)
Print to pdf from any application

Sourceforge PDF creator (4.5/5)
For Windows application using windows printer

<S.Suikkanen>Besides those, it is also possible to print from application with PostScript -printer driver to .ps -PostScript file and then open it to GSview / AFPL Ghostscript combination, which enables to use more refined optimizations for resulting PDF file creation. The settings can be selected from GSview menu, or by editing settings files. The AFPL Ghostscript is more advanced than GNU Ghostcript, which some packaged solutions have mostly used as a part of the package. </S.Suikkanen>
www.ghostscript.com
www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost

db Power Amp (5/5)
<website> Rip digitally sound from Audio CDs and store in a multitude of formats. Convert from one format to another, just about every audio type is supported. </website>

CD Burner XP Pro (4/5)
Burn CD’s & DVD’s

CD Doctor (4/5)
Burn audio from MP3 & WAV

CD n GO (4/5)
Burn, compress & rip audio

DB Power Amp (4/5)
(Scores (5/5) as audio convertor)

Jet Audio (4/5)
Burn & Rip audio

IBeat (4/5)
8 track loop generator

Quartz audiomaster (4/5)
4 track record, edit, mix.

MP3Tag (4.5/5)
Finds mp3 and allows tag editing

geocities.com/ian_l_williams (5/5)
Check MP3 files for corruptions with MP3 Checker. You can check up to 800 MP3 files in one single movement and delete the corruptes files. No installation required, only open the zip-archive :

<Cris - Canada wrote> Check out http://www.mediamonkey.com (4/5)
Its a cool library tool for mp3s and even has an automatic audio adjustment to keep mp3s playing at the same volume. </Chris>

... about streaming music

3D Canvas from Amabilis (4/5)
Real-time 3D modeling and animation tool that incorporates an intuitive drag-and-drop approach.

Blender (4/5)
Open source 3D modelling, animation, rendering & playback.

Exposed (Red Dragon) (4/5)
Display forgotten internet images. Find those long forgotten pictures.

Gimp (4.5/5)
Full photo editing software.

JAlbum (4/5) Web Album generator,...
Hint:
Use this setup for watermarking:
4th tabpage (advanced)
User defined variables:
Filter 1 class=WatermarkFilter strengthPercent=50 text=" © myname"
color=#aaffaa face="Verdana" style=bold size=10 antialias=true valign=bottom
margin=5 closeups

Jpeg cleaner (4.5/5)
Removes all additional date from a jpeg that is not picture related.

Jpegcrop (4.5/5)
Brilliant but Spartan. You’ll have to make a map and a link yourself to this fully stand-alone prog. All it does is allow to cut out jpeg images without any loss of quality... hot technology for free.

Oriens (4/5)
image enhancer.

Paint.NET.(5/5)
The Washington State University gave Microsoft a helping hand in developping the old Paint software. Consider it an upgrade of your Windows.

Pixia (4/5)
Japanese painting & retouch image software. English version available. Supports masks, layers, and more... read more.

Photofiltre.com (4/5)
A complete immage retouching programm with loads of interesting plug-ins. Great tool for webmasters.

PrintScreen (screen capture) (5/5)
A perfect screen capture utility. Define a hotkey. (1 Mb HD-space for full install)

Rahmanlmanager (4.5/5)
A fully blown immage processor end minipulator with layer support, filters, effects, tools, optimizers, aso... A free replacement for complex and expensive editors like Photoshop, Corel,...

Safe MailTo from XDenser (5/5)
allows you to create an immage with adaptable disruption to avoid spybots from finding your sensible information when you place it online. Ideal for mail but also for phone numbers and addresses.

XN Vieuw (4/5)
image convertor.

GenesisII free !!!
From www.geomantics.com

Terragen !!!
From Planetside

Bryce !!! (= Payware - 30 days trial.) <MightyKitten> Once magazinware. The last known owner of the software is Corel. but they don't do any developing for it anymore. </MightyKitten>

Amabilis Canvas (4/5)
basic 3d modeling

More 3D free stuff:
www.3dcafe.com (4/5)

Powerbullet (4/5)
works like a word editor

VCDEasy (4.5/5)
Transfer picture, video, auto to dvd

The Open CD
The opensource and freeware programs directly on your CD for distribution. They also ship CD’s for a small fee.
 

Pablo Commander (5/5)
For those - like Nondisputandum - who crave for Norton Commanders dual pane vieuw under a Win 3.xx Explorer look alike shell for Windows XP that only weights 0,3 Meg... this is it. A stand alone exe file, stable a rock,... looks good,... feels good,... works good. A must have! Also has build in FTP transfer. Check also some other soft from the developer Pablo Vandermeer.

Xplorer²
Feels like the Windows explorer but a lot more powerfull.
.

Microsoft’s Baseline Security Analyzer (5/5)
Check what needs to be updated.
I trust this piece of software. Don’t worry,... it was developed by non MS engeneers www.shavlik.com ;-)

More security information:
Read the Basic Advice page.

Aida32 (4.5/5)
The very best diagnosis tool that stopped it’s development... a pity!
Free alternative are:
www.lavalys.com (4.5/5) (Home edition)
www.freshdiagnose.com (4.5/5)

Emsa Bandwidth Monitor (testing)
Emsa Bandwidth Monitor allows monitoring your inernet connection speed, total traffic, average download/upload speed, etc. It is very simple to use, runs as system tray icon and shows a small, transparent-able, repositionable window that you can place on your desktop. It also allow viewing extended Net adapter interface settings, like MAC address, speed, etc. It allows viewing traffic data per interface or as a whole.

Belarc (4.5/5)
Another systemdiagnosis, MS hotfixes,... shows in browser window.

Bigfix !(4.5/5)
Keep your system updated !!!
Finds software that needs to be updated & gives the download url. Old but gold soft!

Chipset Identification (Intel) (4.5/5)
See what processor you have,... if it is overclocked.

Clone Maxx (4/5)
Copy your HD

CPU-Z (5/5)
This small but powerfull tool fro cpuid.com gives you all the info about your processor, clockspeed, motherboard, memory, dual-channel modus and more...

Free Ram XP Pro (4/5)
Free that ram memory. The best soft for this use that I found. Upgrading ram is better ;-) So no need to use this soft on a high end PC running on 2 gig ram.

freshdevices.com (4/5)
Tweak & download software
FreshDiagnose is an overall good diagnosis & benchmark tool, but they use your e.-mail address to send you weekly “special offers”. Use it with a temporary mailaddress.

Motherboard Monitor (5/5)
Find out if your pc is overheating.
Home: http://mbm.livewiredev.c om/

OEM Logo stamper (4/5)
Put your logo & info on the windows system properties dialogue box.

Process Explorer (4/5)
shows information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.

Smart Recovery (4/5)
Recover lost or deleted data

TClockEx (5/5)
changes the taskbar clock, and adds many features to it, as well. Change the font size and color of your clock; display available memory and system resources; use the program to copy the date to your Clipboard; kalendar function and so much more.

Tight VNC (4/5)
Remote controll package

Tracker V3 (4/5)
Advanced file system explorer does much more than Windows explorer: File info, html preview, instant mp3 & ID tag editing, file info tips, mp3 info tips, file find, reports in xls, file vieuw, preview, time stamping, icon extraction, drivers listing.

Tweak UI (5/5) (Powe Toys)
<website> Free yourself from the tyranny of ordinary Windows with  this extra set of tools (also called Power Toys) created by Microsoft developers. </website>

codeforge.co.uk/tweakall (4/5)
Tweak your internet connection

WinGuard (4/5)
Lock programs & files

WinKeyFinder (4,5/5)
Offers several tools fo finds your lost windows XP - Windows 2000, Windows 2003 Product keys from DOS.
 

Qlock (4/5)
Synchronizer

Dimention4 (Thinkman) (4/5)
Synchronizer

Whisper (4/5)
Simple & straight.

Roboform (4/5)
Allows 8 profiles/users.

Be Aware,...
The Internet is swarmed with tools that say to be password managers.

See the Whois page