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If you are a Windows XP user, refer to this older list which compensates for programs that are not part of Windows 7 or do not work in Windows XP. I used some notations,

* - No installation required or can Can be manually dropped into the system without installation.
an installer and can be made portable (not reliant on the Windows registry).
~ - Semi-portable. Can be setup without installer but will set itself in the Windows registry.
64-bit - 64-bit version exists.

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1. HoeKey* - Make use of that Windows key and many other key combos. Here are my keys combinations.
2. PureText* (Strips away formating when you paste using Winkey-V) As there is no install,
   1. Copy to the directory of your choice
   2. Start the program and it will appear as a PT icon on your system tray
   3. Right click the icon and choose options
   4. Check the box to "Automatically run PureText each time...."
3. Araxis Merge 64-bit - Best diff tool I have ever found. (disable Ribbon Interface, check do not show splash window, add folder filter to ignore .svn folders and make the default encoding UTF-8 No BOM). DetalWalker looks promising and cheaper.
4. Metapad* - almost as tiny and fast as notepad but with unlimited undo's and a couple of other nice features
5. Quick SFV 64-bit (use md5 or sfv files to ensure integrity during transport of files)
6. EMEditor (good with distinguishing and using UTF-8, ISO sect.. fast, light with text highlighting)
7. WinRar 64-bit - better than winzip (does all the same stuff with zip files) plus allows you to create self-extracting splittable files and has a superior compression format called rar.
8. Erase - with a right-click you can securely delete or move confidential file
   1. Disable running of scheduled tasks
9. VMWare Workstation - allows you to virtualize operating systems. If you do not know what this means you are missing out.
10. Any Password - centralize your passwords. Now I am looking at an open source alternative called KeePass which I can hopefully hook up to an application server and make online. Even more ideal, I can perhaps hook up KeePass with a java web app with 2-Factor authentication.
11. AntiVirus I use different ones on different computers. As a power user I disable the on the fly scanning to conserve cpu and memory.
    1. Avira Personal Edition - has highest detection rate but has pop-up advertisement. Though it can be disabled, I actually recommend buying a license.
    2. Avast Home Edition - Recommended by Dickson. Very good but I don't like having to renew my keys every once in a while.
    3. AVG - Free version does not check for malware.
12. Telnet - you actually have to go into Windows 7 and install this manually.
13. KeePass* - a central place to keep your important data with one master password.

Communication Utilities

1. Kitty* - Takes the actual Putty code base and improves the interface with the following key features. For a quick setup you can download my personalized kitty setup which contains a configuration file and adjustments to the defaults per my note on Putty. Here are the details of my personal configuration file,
   1. Portable option - instead of Windows Registry saves to local file in the directory
   2. Transparent Windows (CTRL-Up Arror and CTRL-Down Arrow)
   3. CTRL-F7 Pin Window to always be on top (useful with Transparency and especially with second or third monitor)
   4. Improved sizeable session manager, but still not as good as Putty Connection Manager
2. Putty* - I find this to be the most reliable compatible and universal. However, the interface is dated and Kitty is much better. I now package this as part of Putty Connection Manager. Generally I adjust the defaults to:
   1. Window - Columns = 100, Lines of scrollback to 2000
   2. Window, Translation - Received data assumed to be in which character set: UTF-8
3. Putty Connection Manager* - An updated tabbed and tree based listing interface to Putty (no install, though it does use the registry consider talking to this developers about not doing this)
   1. For convenience I create a manual package. Just download the manual package and unzip to a directory of your choice and then execute puttycm.exe.
4. ExpandDrive (create a map drive over SSH for easy development)
5. BitVise Tunnelier
   1. No Putty Integration (console included is not as universally compatible)
   2. GUI for tunneling
   3. Hides in System tray
   4. Does not support drag and drop from desktop
6. Firefox US version for compatibility + plugins, 
   1. Highlighter by Terry Yen - My favourite highlighter but it no longer works with Firefox 3.6.3. Update, the latest working version is now at http://netticat.ath.cx/MyAddons/MyAddons.htm
   2. Highlighter TexMarker Go - The simplest alternative I found (I don't like the other ones that might slow down my system
   3. MM3-ProxySwitch - Simple UI for switching proxies but still a bit too complicated for novices.
      1. After install Right click on white space beside the help and choose Customize
      2. Scroll down and look for the mm3 icon
      3. Drag icon to where you want on the browser, I put it on the right of my address bar
   4. Spell checking in forms will only be enabled unless if you have a dictionary. Right-click on a form field and Add Dictionaries...
   5. Disable anti-virus scanning on downloads
      1. about:config
      2. browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone
   6. New Tab Homepage - show homepage on new tab create.
   7. English Canadian dictionary or whatever dictionary you want and change it to the default.
7. TCP View (Systernal utility to watch all open connections, good for network troubleshooting).
8. Proxy Switcher Lite - only free decent utility to quickly proxy switch in IE.

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