Compuvision

This is just a partial list.  Programs listed here were chosen because of their relatively low cost and high value, as well as their relatively low overhead.

If you are running Windows XP, then at least four of the PowerToys are essential:

Google Pack is a collection of a bunch of programs.  Here's what to select:

Here are some optional programs:

Sorry, now it's time to install:

You also MIGHT want to install:

I have Nero 7 Ultra edition running on all of my Windows XP and Windows 7 machines.  I turn off Nero Scout.  I don't use Nero's Media Player, but I think that it may install a number of useful codecs, including the ones to enable creating MP3 files and playing QuickTime files.  I haven't tried the newer versions of Nero, but I hear second-hand that it's Product Activation doesn't understand multi-boot machines.  Remember, in all cases you must buy one copy of Ahead Nero per machine.

SysInternals was a small company started by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell that produced a bunch of really good utilites.  They are now a part of Microsoft and are continuing the good work.  I haven't installed the full suite before (it's a new bundle), but these are the parts that I was going to individually suggest:
    Process Explorer and Process Monitor - To let you really know what's going on inside your computer.
    Rootkit Revealer - To help you find the worst malware.
    Autoruns - To help you debug the startup process.

The important thing that this program gives us is a cascading All Programs menu for those of us who figured out how to organize our Start Menus!  The old name for using the Windows Vista style search option to find the program that you are looking for was called the DOS Prompt.  The sad thing is that there was no reason for Microsoft to make it harder for organized people to use their Start Menu in order to enable the psuedo-DOS Prompt for for people who were clueless about menu organization.

There are a lot of "Classic Start menu" type programs for Windows 7 for those of us who just said no to Vista.  This is the best one.  Classic Shell is an open-source project hosted on SourceForge.net.  It has a really good help file. The options to enable right away is Cascade All Programs in the Windows start menu and the ones to turn off right away are Replace Folder Conflict Dialog and Replace File Conflict Dialog in Windows Explorer mode.  Beyond that, I simply have the Classic Start Menu only come up when I Shift-Click the Start Button (or press Shift-Windows Key).

There is an alternative approach to enabling this on your taskbar that took me a long time to piece together.  At some point, I'll write it up as an option for people who can't load new programs on the machine that they are using.

CryptaPix - Useful but getting expensive.  I wonder if there's a free alternative?
SnagIt - a really good video screen capture utility.
Corel Designer - Formerly Micrografx Designer.  This is my preferred vector graphic drawing program.  It's now pretty expensive, but very good.  Micrografx Designer is part of the ABC Graphics Suite, originally designed for Windows 95 yet still runs just fine on Windows XP and is often available for under $50, but I haven't tried it yet on Windows 7 (or Windows Vista).

Micrografx Designer started on Windows 2.0 and evolved into a "Microsoft Office Compatible" program by 1995.  The "Microsoft Office Compatible" initiative, which I was a part of when I worked for Microsoft, encouraged third-party software developers to create programs that looked and worked like Microsoft Office in order to make it easier for users to move from one program to another.  "Microsoft Office Compatible" programs even had the option, at a small price, of using VBA as their scripting languages.  The most sucessful "Microsoft Office Compatible" program was Visio, which ultimately was aquired by Microsoft.  By contrast with that happy story, Micrografx Designer was constantly fighting against CorelDraw.  CorelDraw always claimed to be a little bit better, but it's success came from the unbelievable amount of free Fonts, Clipart and additional programs that were included with it.  That alone justified it's price, even for Microsoft Designer users.  Eventually, Micrografx put all of their programs in a single package in order to compete and thus we have the ABC Graphics Suite.  Ironically enough, when Micrografx's stock price got low enough, the entire company was purchased by their most serious rival, Corel, and Corel started selling Designer as a high-end 2D technical illustration program against programs like AutoCAD.

Install and run KeyFinder.  It will show the Product Keys for many of your installed programs.  Save the results to a text file and then eMail them to yourself at a web-based, keep-it-forever eMail account.  (i.e. GMail, HotMail, etc.)  Now, keep that message forever on the web.  If you ever need to reinstall your products again in the future, you probably can get a copy of the installation programs/CDs again.  You probably cannot just use someone else's Product Key.

This step has really been made necessary by the whole Product Activation mess.  Product Activation does not prevent real piracy.  All it does is get in the way of someone like myself trying to help out someone else by installing a copy of something that I know that they legitimately purchased on their machine.  When someone is told "I'm sorry that your computer crashed, but if you can't find your original Microsoft Office Product CD and Product Key, you'll just have to pay for it again to reinstall it", they don't run right out and buy a second (or third) copy of Microsoft Office - they get mad and start to investigate alternatives.

One other thing to watch out for - if a computer was bought with some products pre-installed, the Product Keys on the machine probably won't match the ones that came with the installation discs and probably will only work with OEM versions of the products.  Just in case, scan or photograph all of the Product Keys on any original discs or license cards that came with the computer and eMail them to yourself, as described above.