Recommended software comprising 1 operating system, 2 suites and 43 programs. Free software is in red. My personal favourites here are uTorrent and foobar2000. Basics Operating system – Windows 7 Browser – Firefox with Adblock Plus and Image Zoom add-ons Audio – foobar2000 [screenshot] Video – VLC media player Antivirus – ESET NOD32 Instant messenging – Windows Live Messenger BitTorrent – uTorrent Create / extract archives – WinRAR Audio If you have a Plextor drive, the first four can be done with PleXTools Professional XL. Make audio CDs – Easy CD-DA Extractor Rip exact copies – Exact Audio Copy [guide] Copy CDs – Nero Micro Burn cue sheets – Burrrn Stream music – Spotify Download rare songs – Soulseek Convert FLAC to MP3 – foobar2000 with LAME encoder Rename – foobar2000 Tag – MusicBrainz Picard Edit – Audition (lightweight alternative: Audacity) Record – PolderbitS Sound Recorder Capture – Net Transport Suites Adobe Creative Suite Design Premium: Graphics – Photoshop (lightweight alternative: Photoshop Micro) Vector graphics – Illustrator Desktop publishing – InDesign Create PDFs – Acrobat (lightweight alternative: Foxit Phantom) Create Flash – Flash Create websites – Dreamweaver Microsoft Office Standard: Word processing – Word Spreadsheets – Excel Presentations – PowerPoint Email – Outlook Protocols FTP / SFTP – FlashFXP with Notepad++ as editor SSH – PuTTY IRC – mIRC (techie alternative: screen & irssi through PuTTY [screenshot]) NNTP – NewsLeecher RFB – TigerVNC DVD Play – PowerDVD Ultra 3D Copy – DVDFab Platinum (defunct) Burn AVI to DVD – ConvertXtoDVD Rip DVD to AVI – DVDFab Platinum Disk images Mount – DAEMON Tools Pro Advanced Burn – Alcohol 120% Extract – IsoBuster Create – MagicISO Back up hard disk – Super Flexible File Synchronizer Manage partitions – Partition Wizard Home Edition Miscellaneous Free calls – Skype Programming / view .nfo files – Notepad++ LAN sharing – Squeeril (defunct) Edit video – VirtualDub with TextSub and Xvid, DivX & LAME codecs Change IP address – Tor Browser Bundle (techie alternative: SSH tunnelling) Take a screenshot – Bilderman Friends' suggestions Firewall – ESET Smart Security Registry cleaner – CCleaner Icon editor – Microangelo Toolset File manager – Directory Opus File verification – QuickSFV Retouching – Portrait Professional An addendum for non-software things. Audio Headphones – Grado SR225i Portable media player – Meizu M6 Miniplayer SL Sound card – M-Audio Audiophile 2496 Computer speakers – Audioengine A2 Blank CDs – Taiyo Yuden Hi-fi system – Grahams Internet PC – Design Tech Systems Router – Netgear DG834G Broadband – O2 Domain registration – UKreg Web hosting – eUKhost (cheap alternative: AceShells) Web design – Ben Baker BitTorrent sites Music and software – What.CD with WhatBox TV – BitMeTV British TV – TheBox Films – TehConnection Arty films – KaraGarga Magic – Art of Misdirection