Here we present the top most must have tools for windows 2000, XP and Vista.
The software categories must be Cost Efficient (Open Source, Free software) user friendly and purpose built. Please remember to contribute to the developers either by support, donations or just sending them a thank you note. All tools reviewed and ranked have been considered for Cost, Efficiency, Simplicity and User Friendliness.
Why are these software free or opensourced? Most software in this category can be legally used for personal functions. The software are still written by professionals and i mean many professionals. They all contribute to develop softwares for the public. These softwares as software written for the public by the public. What you can do to help the development can be many ranging from testing, hands on programming, distributing, promoting it or money donations to the development consortium.

Office Products

Movie Players

Recommended – VLC Player / MediaPlayerClassic

a movie player, plays most major movie files out there. if its Real or Quicktime. You should refer to quickalternative or realalternative from freecodecs [ http://www.free-codecs.com/ ] website.

Zip Tools

Recommended – Peazip
an zip archiving software that supports all major zip files like rar, zip, 7z and many more.
Alternatives: Tugzip, 7-zip, Winzip, Winrar, Winace

Antivirus / Protection

Recommended – Avast Antivirus Home Edition
Free personal edition of antivirus which provides decent protection.
Alternatives: Avg Antivirus

Music Players

Recommended – SongBird
A good mp3 music player by the developers of GPL Firefox Mozilla
Alternatives: ITunes, Winamp

CD / Dvd Burners

Misc Others

Recommended – Google Chinese Input Chinese input method from google. Its like MS pinyin but more cleverer.