A friend of mine at work and I were chatting about Windows 7, and he asked me if I had any thoughts on good utilities and apps to install after Windows is applied to a new system. I rattled off a couple of suggestions, but here they are in written form anyway – they’re all free, too.

1. Firefox – of course, and it probably doesn’t even need to be listed because it’s so obvious. IE is used once on every system build, to access “www.getfirefox.com”. Here’s my list of recommended add-ons.
2. AVG Free Anti-Virus – the second thing I install after FireFox.
3. ImgBurn – great Image (ISO) burner.
4. WinAmp – I know there are other opinions on media players, but I’ve grown (very) used to WinAmp over the years, and it does everything I want it to do. It’s a surprisingly full-featured app. And, yes, it works with last.fm. Windows Media player has supposedly gotten better, but I’m sold on WinAmp.
5. IoBit Disk Defrag – I know the native options have gotten better, but I still prefer this tool.
6. Thunderbird (if needed) – I’ve completed my transition to gmail, but if you need a good thick-client mail app, this is a good one. (I know some people like Zimbra, too)
7. Open Office – another “gotta have it” product. Just install this and forget that bloated nightmare-of-a-UI mess that Microsoft released a few years ago.
8. Google Earth – mapping, directions, trip-planning, sky watching, etc. I <3 this app.
9. PDFCreator – handy if you need it.
10. GIMP – I’m lucky enough to have all of the Adobe CS4 products installed, but if you don’t, this is a very powerful alternative to Photoshop.
11. Inkscape – Open Source Vector Graphics editor. Again, if you’ve already got something that works for you, stick with it.
12. Audacity – nice little sound editor.

Any suggestions?