Allows you to manage compressed files like .zip, .rar., .arj, .7z
32-bit http://downloads.sourceforge.net/sevenzip/7z465.exe
64-bit http://downloads.sourceforge.net/sevenzip/7z465-x64.msi

Cross-platform runtime environment for building rich Internet applications using Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, HTML, or Ajax, that can be deployed as a desktop application. Basically, AIR lets you run cool programs others have written with Adobe tools.
http://get.adobe.com/air/

Good ol' Adobe reader for reading PDF files.
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

A secure, efficient and extensible Web server that provides HTTP services in sync with the current HTTP standards.
http://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/apache/httpd/binaries/win32/httpd-2.2.16-win32-x86-openssl-0.9.8o.msi
More download locations: http://www.apache.org/mirrors/

NOTE THE VERSION: Old version that allows drag-n-drop to the iPod and other features no longer supported by the current version of iTunes. If you set it to NOT auto-update this version will stay put...
http://www.oldversion.com/download.php?idlong=d700a60a81ab2e103a026d2692ba5621
Latest version http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

Quicktime Viewer.
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

Audiograbber is a program that copies music and stores it on your computers harddisk. Its main purpose is to copy music from CD's. This process copies the music digitally and thus you will get perfect copies. It includes functions to check that the copies made are true to the original.
http://www.audiograbber.org/downloads/agsetup

A digital audio editor application
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/latest/audacity-win/audacity-win-1.2.6.exe
LAME mp3 encoder: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=install&item=lame-mp3
Plug-ins for additional effects and filters: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/beta/ladspa/ladspa-0.4.15.exe

Good, solid, free anti-virus protection for personal, non-commercial use.
http://free.avg.com/us-en/download-free-antivirus

Generates COMPLETE hardware and software profile of your system. Used to come up with this software list.
http://www.belarc.com/Programs/advisor.exe

CDBurnerXP is a great CD/DVD burning tool.
http://cdburnerxp.se/downloadsetup.exe

A free sequential image viewer utility for Microsoft Windows used to view images one at a time in the style of a comic book.
http://cdisplay.techknight.com/setup.zip

Allows printing to a PDF file from any application; useful if you want to save a Web page as a PDF.
http://www.cutepdf.com/download/CuteWriter.exe Requires GPL Ghostscript 8.15: http://www.cutepdf.com/download/converter.exe

A much better text editor than Notepad; free for personal use. Notepad++ below may be a better choice
http://download.jgsoft.com/editpad/SetupEditPadLite.exe

Harddrive search utility locates files and folders by name instantly; uses NTFS native indexing, so it has no index of its own.
http://www.voidtools.com/Everything-1.2.1.371.exe

A free proprietary CD ripping program for Microsoft Windows.
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/eac-0.99pb5.exe

FLV Player is a program to play Adobe Flash Video (FLV and H.264 / MPEG-4) files with Windows 2000, XP and Vista, supports both local and internet streaming content, has full screen mode and it’s free.
http://flv-player.en.softonic.com/download

A multifunction media converter, converting between most popular video, audio, and image formats. Can reduce multimedia file sizes and supports iPhone and iPod multimedia file formats. Also acts as a DVD ripper, allowing transfer of DVD video to your hard drive.
http://format-factory.en.softonic.com/download

Allows remote command-line login and uploading/downloading files securely via the Internet from a remote location.
http://www.freesshd.com/freeSSHd.exe

Fast and easy Web browser from Google; seems to always let me watch YouTube when Firefox chokes.
http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html

DVD "ripper" allows you to copy DVDs to your harddrive; optimized for creating iPod compatible video
http://handbrake.fr/rotation.php?file=HandBrake-0.9.4-Win_GUI.exe

"Offline browser" allows you to download an entire Website to your local harddrive
http://download.httrack.com/cserv.php3?File=httrack.exe

ID3 TAG Editor for MP3-Files; downloads album information from online
http://www.audio-toolz.de/download.php?id=70001

Freeware vector graphics/drawing program.
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/inkscape/Inkscape-0.48.0-1.exe
Manual (36 chapters!): http://en.flossmanuals.net/inkscape

Allows you to control multiple Windows systems using the keyboard/mouse attached to one computer; very handy if you set your notebook PC up next to your desktop.
http://www.inputdirector.com/downloads/InputDirector.v1.2.1.zip

Graphics viewer/converter/printer
http://www.software.com/irfanview-9337-1
Plug-ins: http://www.software.com/irfanview-plugins-9374-1

Quick and easy full-featured word processor built on top of Windows Wordpad
http://www.jarte.com/downloads/jarte_41_setup.exe

Provides for the creation of Hardlinks , Junctions , Volume Mountpoints , and Vista's Symbolic Links, (herein referred to collectively as Links) and a Folder Cloning process that utilises Hardlinks or Symbolic Links. LSE, as its name implies is implemented as a Shell extension and is accessed from Windows Explorer, or similar file/folder managers.
32-bit MS Runtimes & dlls (install first): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=200B2FD9-AE1A-4A14-984D-389C36F85647&displaylang=en
32-bit Link Shell Extension: http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/HardLinkShellExt_win32.exe
64-bit MS Runtimes & dlls (install first):http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=EB4EBE2D-33C0-4A47-9DD4-B9A6D7BD44DA&displaylang=en
64-bit Link Shell Extension: http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/HardLinkShellExt_X64.exe

Free anti-virus/anti-malware from Microsoft. May be the best choice for average-risk Windows users.
http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/3/8/A38FFBF2-1122-48B4-AF60-E44F6DC28BD8/mssefullinstall-x86fre-en-us-vista-win7.exe

Firefox Web browser.
http://www.mozilla.com/products/download.html?product=firefox-3.6.9&os=win&lang=en-US

A free, open source, cross-platform, full-featured POP and IMAP email and news client.
http://www.mozillamessaging.com/thunderbird/download/?product=thunderbird-3.1.3&os=win&lang=en-US

Video viewer providing access to many channels of online hi-definition video
http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/pculture.org/miro/win/Miro_Installer.exe

A cross-platform file manager that will run on any operating system which supports Java. It features a Norton Commander style interface to allow easy manipulation of files with many keyboard shortcuts. Also does FTP and SFTP.
http://www.mucommander.com/download/mucommander-0_8_5.exe

A much better text editor than Notepad; free and Open Source.
http://download.tuxfamily.org/notepadplus/5.7/npp.5.7.Installer.exe

Create and edit drawings, flow charts, and logos by using Draw.
Create and edit presentations for slideshows, meeting and Web pages by using Impress.
Create and edit scientific formulas and equations by using Math.
Create and edit text and graphics in letters, reports, documents and Web pages by using Writer.
Manage databases, create queries and reports to track and manage your information by using Base.
Perform calculation, analyze information and manage lists in spreadsheets by using Calc.
Open Microsoft Office files. Save everything as PDF files.
The Go-OO distribution of OpenOffice.org linked here is sponsored by Novell.
The Go-OO OpenOffice.org distribution includes the ability to edit PDF, OpenXML (MS Office 2007) and MS Works files; as well as full support for WordPerfect, SVG, and EMF graphics; Excel VBA macros; and embedded Visio diagrams.
http://go-oo.mirrorbrain.org/stable/win32/3.2.1/GoOo-3.2.1-11.exe

Reasonably full-featured FREE bitmap graphics/paint program.
Requires .NET framework: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ab99342f-5d1a-413d-8319-81da479ab0d7
http://www.dotpdn.com/files/Paint.NET.3.5.5.Install.zip

Adds some extra menu items to the windows control menu in addition to the standard "Close", "Maximize", etc options. The extra menus are: Always On Top, Transparency and Minimize To Tray; get to them by clicking the icon at the LEFT side of the top bar of a program.
http://www.abstractpath.com/powermenu/PowerMenuSetup_1_5_1.exe

Allows you to paste text and elimate any formatting; same as copying it to notepad, then copying from there to the destination. Use it by pressing the Windows key and V insted of Control-V.
http://www.stevemiller.net/downloads/puretext20_x86.zip

A free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator. Allows login to remote hosts using SSH (Secure SHell)
http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/x86/putty-0.60-installer.exe

A desktop publisher. An open-source program that brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/Unix, MacOS X, OS/2 and Windows desktops with a combination of "press-ready" output and new approaches to page layout. Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/scribus/files/scribus-devel/1.3.8/scribus-1.3.8-win32-install.exe/download

Online videophone program. Call PC to PC for free worldwide.
http://www.skype.com/go/getskype

A treemapping tool for hard disks and file systems; a tool for keeping track of the free space on your computer. Displays files and folders as boxes, with sizes relative to space taken on disk.
http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/files/spacesniffer_1_1_2_0.zip

Full-featured virtual machine system; turns a PC into an easy-to-use virtualization platform. Free and open source software that runs on all major operating systems
32/64-bit: http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/3.2.8/VirtualBox-3.2.8-64453-Win.exe

If you feel you need more firewall than the Windows firewall or you're concerned about monitoring outgoing applications, this should work for you.
http://go.sunbeltsoftware.com/?linkid=440

Audio/video format converter: simple, yet very efficient tool to convert (encode) or play any Multimedia file. For some reason, they make it really, REALLY hard to download so you may want to see the Download Guide at http://www.erightsoft.com/dlhelp.html
http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

The best-tested anti-spyware software out there.
http://downloads.superantispyware.com/downloads/SUPERAntiSpyware.exe

Adds more choices when you right-click on a file; lets you change the date & time on a file, for example.
32-bit: http://www.sw4you.de/download/swshell32_.exe
64-bit: http://www.sw4you.de/download/swshell64_.exe

Easy to use, customizable application helps you copy, move, rename, delete, and synchronize files between folders and computers.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52&DisplayLang=en

A Tweak UI for Windows 7 & Vista. Lets you set ALL kinds of things in Windows 7 & Vista.
http://download.cnet.com/Ultimate-Windows-Tweaker/3000-2094_4-10915128.html

VLC media player - better and more powerful than ever. The only media player you ever need.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vlc/files/1.1.4/win32/vlc-1.1.4-win32.exe/download

Allows running of VMware Virtual Machines; Server allows creation of VMs as well. Requires registration for download (Sun VirtualBox does not...)
Server: http://www.vmware.com/go/getserver
Player: http://www.vmware.com/go/downloadplayer/

Full-featured GUI FTP/SFTP client.
http://winscp.net/download/winscp428setup.exe

Drag-n-drop audio file converter. Converts to/from ANY digital audio format. Fully functional no-time-limit demo.
http://xrecode.com/setup_xrecode2_1.0.0.92_full.exe

Not a program but an INSTALL BUILDER that lets you pick your favorite freeware programs and creates a run-once installer that fetches and installs all your selected programs. Remarkable, convenient and just plain cool.
Here's a preconfigured Ninite installer with our selected software:
7-Zip, Audacity, CDBurnerXP, Chrome, Firefox, Flash, Flash.IE, GoogleEarth, Hulu, IrfanView, Java, Microsoft .Net framework, Microsoft Security Essentials, Notepad++, Paint.Net, PuTTY, Skype, Thunderbird, uTorrent, VLC, WinSCP
http://ninite.com/installer/0275e38d20c77f8801831b1979be86f606793fb3

Map your SSH server as a Windows drive letter over SFTP with ExpanDrive. Your SFTP drive is a mapped network drive or network file system that gives all you full normal Windows access to the files.
$39.00

Powerful, general purpose editor for plain text files. Best. Text. Editor. EVER.
Single user TextPad license 16.50GBPounds (About $24.20)