Our overseas adventures begin in September. As I will be working while abroad, I wish to compile a collection of essential Windows tools to bring along on CD. (I'm hoping that the majority of these tools will be freeware.) Along with this CD, I will bring The Ultimate Boot CD, (as well as this Windows-based boot CD.)

What freeware/shareware applications do you consider essential? Submit your list as a comment.

Please forward the permalink for this post to your friends, so that they can contribute as well.

Here is the preliminary tools list:

• Text / Document Editors
• Notetab Light - Notepad replacement. [freeware]
• EditPad Lite - Notepad replacement. [freeware]
• Crimson Editor - Source code editor. [freeware]
• AbiWord - MS Word replacement. [freeware]
• Compilers / Interpreters
• Processing - Java-based sketching language. [beta freeware]
• NewLISP - LISP-based scripting language. [freeware]
• Compression Tools
• 7 - Zip - WinZip/WinRar replacement. [freeware]
• ZipGenius - WinZip/WinRar replacement. [freeware]
• Virus / Spyware Tools
• AVG Anti-Virus - Virus scanner. [freeware]
• Spybot - Search & Destroy - Spyware scanner. [freeware]
• Ad - Aware - Spyware scanner. [freeware]
• HijackThis - Homepage hijacker remover. [freeware]
• CWShredde - Homepage hijackers remover. [freeware]
• Productivity Tools
• ATnotes - Sticky notes. [freeware]
• Treesize - Hard drive mapper. [freeware]
• Music Tools
• Winamp - Digital audio player. [freeware]
• dBpowerAmp - Digital audio conversion. [freeware]
• Design Tools
• PDF995 - PDF distiller. [freeware]
• Color Set - Colour scheme selector. [freeware]
• XnView - Image file format conversion. [freeware]
• Screen Calipers - On-screen measurement tool. [freeware]
• Net Tools
• FireFox - Web browser. [freeware]
• SmartFTP - FTP client. [freeware]
• PuTTY - Telnet/SSH client [freeware]
• TightVNC - Remote control software package. [freeware]
• Adobe Reader - PDF viewer. [freeware]