Vim - http://vim.sf.net/

A decent database, may I suggest MySQL - http://www.mysql.com. Then get the Python db module - http://sourceforge.net/projects/mysql-python and SQLObject - http://www.sqlobject.org/

I can't seem to survive without command line goodness, so Cygwin - http://www.cygwin.com is a must.

I'm rather fond of the Pinball theme for Firebird - http://texturizer.net/firebird/themes/#Pinball

Quixote for web malarkey - http://www.mems-exchange.org/software/quixote/

Oh, and don't forget Vim - http://vim.sf.net/

Tortoise CVS http://www.tortoisecvs.org/
ExamDiff http://www.prestosoft.com/ps.asp?page=edp_examdiff
DirKey http://www.protonfx.com/dirkey/ (but I'm still using version 1.something)
TreeSize http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml
Unxutils http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/ (lighter weight than Cygwin if all you want is some of the command line tools)
Putty http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
alot from http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/utilities.shtml

plus a whole lot of other stuff that i'm forgetting.

An embarrassment of riches here.

Yup, a database is essential. I’ve never had a bash at mysql. Now would be a good time.

Cygwin is a job for another day. I do use the unxutils as suggested by j, though – it would only have been a little while ‘till I’d noticed them missing.

My company use VSS rather than CVS. I don’t like it, but there you are. So, I need the VSS plugin, but not any of the CVS tools.

The Pinball theme is nice, but I still prefer Modern. Can’t seem to install it under Firebird 0.7, though, nor some of my essential plugins. I may revert to 6.1 until the plugins catch up.

DirKey and TreeSize both look useful – thanks for those, j. But jEdit’s Jdiff plugin covers all my visual diff tool needs.

Hmm, yes, jEdit, a text editor. Any editors you’d like to recomment, Andy? EMACS, perhaps? ;-)

Simon,
You are the one who told me about DirKey. (I think). Another one I forgot is TrayIt.
I have JEdit installed but I have a dual-head monitor setup at work and JEdit _never_ remembers the monitor it is supposed to be on and I got tired of moving it everytime it started up. I've never used the diff feature of JEdit but ExamDiff is very fast and has lots of nice features.

VSS, huh. I feel for you.

Some tools that I use:

Total Commander - http://www.ghisler.com/
Aqua Data Studio - http://www.aquafold.com/
Opera - http://www.opera.com/
IrfanView - http://www.irfanview.com/
MinGW + MSYS (lighter alternative to Cygwin) - http://www.mingw.org/
PowerArchiver 6.11 (older, freeware version, google for it)
SciTE (very good for light text editing) - http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html
Dave's Quick Search Toolbar - http://notesbydave.com/toolbar/doc.htm
Netcat - http://www.atstake.com/research/tools/network_utilities/
cURL - http://curl.haxx.se/
AllNetic Working Time Tracker - http://www.allnetic.com/working-time-tracker/
FontViewer - http://go.to/ampsoft
LogParser - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=8cde4028-e247-45be-bab9-ac851fc166a4&DisplayLang=en (or http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=56FC92EE-A71A-4C73-B628-ADE629C89499&displaylang=en for version 2.1)

dump your pc and get a mac! http://www.apple.com/macosx/overview/ or even better a macquarium http://www.applefritter.com/hacks/macquarium/showoff/index.html

You are going to take an image of that hard disk drive when you're done aren't you?

Now *that*, Alan, is a *very* good point. ;-)

Know any good software for the job?

For hard disk imaging, if you don't mind booting up in to some flavor GNU/Linux, you could try partimage:

http://www.partimage.org/

In the past, I've even been able to do backups and restores over the network w/ this.

IIRC, there is support for this in KNOPPIX, so I believe you wouldn't have to install anything on your hard disk to give this a try (just boot from the KNOPPIX livecd):

http://www.knoppix.net/

Getting KNOPPIX running might consist of:

-downloading an ISO (~700MB [1])

-burning the ISO

-booting the ISO

[1] FTP/HTTP Mirrors listed at:

http://www.knoppix.net/get.php

Also via BitTorrent:

http://www.boegenielsen.dk/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V3.3-2003-11-03-EN.iso.torrent

I noticed you mentioned NSIS -- I wrote an installer with this once, only to replace it w/ one written in Inno Setup Compiler (and ISTool).

I found NSIS to be quite powerful, but I found working w/ the latest beta and the macros to be too much for my feeble brain -- especially from a maintenance perspective.

Inno Setup Compiler, particularly used along w/ ISTool was much easier -- at least for what I had to do.