Application Recommendations Part 2 - General Windows Programs

It can be hard to find good software for Windows. Because it has the largest install base by far, it also has the largest software library. Unfortunately most of it is crapware. For the most part good Windows software comes from the open source community. As a side note: All the programs I will list in these entries will be free.

• Zune Theme is my Windows XP theme of choice.
• Filigree for windows is my screen saver of choice.
• Gmail Notifier helps you keep track of your Gmail.
  
• CCleaner is a brilliant application that everyone should have. It combines a very thorough cache cleaner, registry cleaner and startup items manager. I've seen it clean out up to 8GB of temporary files on very old computers.
  
• Defraggler is a nice defragmenter by the developers of CCleaner. I find it defragments more thoroughly then the default windows Disk Defragmenter. It allows you to defrag freespace to help prevent future fragmentation, check the hard drive for errors and defrag individual folders/files.
• Recuva, again by the developers of CCleaner, allows you to recover deleted files. The program is well designed and has many features including the ability to recover files from external sources such as digital camera memory cards.
• Eraser is a very thorough and feature rich program to securely delete files/folders or whole drives.
  
• ImgBurn is a program for creating and working many types of disk images and burning CDs, Audio CDs, DVDs, HD DVDs and even Blu Ray discs.
• 7-Zip will not only uncompress almost anything but it will also compress into a number of high compression ratio formats.
• MediaCoder is a "free universal batch media transcoder" designed to convert almost anything to anything else.
• MagicISO/MagicDisc is a small little program for mounting different types of disk images. (don't forget to disable it's startup item with CCleaner)
  
• Sumatra PDF is an extremely lightweight PDF viewer that will most likely meet your needs. However if you need some extra features Foxit Reader is recommended. I would strongly recommended against using Adobe Reader to view PDFs, it is the definition of bloated and intrusive software.
• CutePDF is a small and free program for converting documents to PDF.
• DriveImage XML can create/restore/view drive image backups of hard drives.
• Digsby is a pretty and customizable Instant Messaging Metaclient (multiple IM networks at once, such as AIM and MSN concurrently) it also includes E-mail and Social Networking support.
• CCCP+MCP thats the Combined Community Codec Pack and Media Player Classic. This suite will play any type of movie file you could want. VLC is also notable for having the ability to open almost anything you can throw at it. Including half downloaded or corrupted files, although it's subtitle support is lacking.
  
• uTorrent is a nice and lightweight bit torrent client.
• Combofix is an excellent virus removal tool. However you really shouldn't use it unless you really know what your doing.
• and of course FireFox, which I cover in more detail on my first post.

Edit: Added November 22, 2008

• FreeCommander is a free replacement for Window's Explorer. It has an impressive feature list that can be viewed on it's website. I find FreeCommander is useful to use if Explorer.exe is corrupted, broken, infected or otherwise borked.
  
• Process Explorer is a more advanced version of the Task Manager already in Windows. It is an essential tool for diagnosing performance issues or tracking down viruses and other malicious software.

In fact Process Explorer was created by the now legendary Sysinternals team and all of their software are highly recommended for those who are technicaly minded.

Software developed by Piriform (CCleaner, Defraggler, Recuva), Sysinternals and Sumatra PDF are all self contained .exe files. Which means they can easily be stored and run from USB sticks.
If your looking for more "portable" programs then PortableApps is a good resource.
More advanced customization of the Windows interface can be found here.