While it's easy to throw together a vast list of "recommended" software, I decided what would be most useful to share is the software I actually use.  Most software here I will have mentioned in a post at some point, but this is an easy resource, arranged by function, to what I'm currently using myself. Which is the best recommendation I can give.

The primary OS on all my machines is now Windows 7 64-bit, so all software here will run on it. Expect backwards compatibility at least as far as Vista, and potentially XP.

Antivirus – NOD32 – £30/yr
While free options like AVG and Avast! are okay, security is something worth paying for. Lightweight NOD32 won't slow your system to a crawl and routinely aces "in the wild" tests. Coupled with intelligent use, of course, I honestly can't remember the last virus infection I had.

Application Launcher – Launchy – free
Speedy command-line launcher. Press Alt+Space to bring up a box and type the name of the program or document you want to load. It creates an index so can intelligently guess even if you miss letters.

Application Launcher – ObjectDock – free
Attractive docks of icons aren't just for Macs, and Stardock's offering remains the best for Windows.

Backup – Genie Timeline – free/£26
Similar to Time Machine for Macs, this automates continuous backups of specified folders and lets you scroll back through historic views.

CD Ripping – Exact Audio Copy – free
Sacrifices speed for excellent, high-quality rips. Since I now buy fewer physical CDs, I certainly don't mind the extra time on the occasions I do pick one up.

CD/DVD Burning – ImgBurn – free
Nowhere near as powerful as the big daddy, Nero, but these days I burn fewer discs and the expensive, bloated suite is unnecessary.

Cloud Storage/Sync – Dropbox – free
Syncs a folder on your PC to the cloud and any other machines on which you have it installed.

Firewall – Outpost Firewall Pro – £25 lifetime licence
As above, despite free options like Comodo, good security is worth paying for, and Outpost couples strong protection with an unobtrusive system after you "train" it to your use over the first few weeks. They're selling cheap lifetime licences at the moment too.

Internet Media Player – Spotify – free (invite only), £10/mo
I like owning a library of music but free streaming music from a (seriously) vast library could bring about a paradigm shift. Sadly the ad-supported free version requires now requires elusive invites, but £10 a month lets you stream to mobile devices too.

Mail Client – Inbox2 – free
Combining your email with social networks sounds like a procrastination nightmare (and it is) but I like using this first thing in the morning to check everything at once. I don't think it's a replacement for a standard mail client.

Mail Client – Microsoft Outlook – bundled with MS Office
Despite being a fan of free open source, and a Thunderbird user for a few years, Outlook is still the daddy when it comes to mail and calendar integration and is aided by the fact virtually everything will synchronise with it.

Media Center Scraper – Media Browser – free
For visitors the biggest wow-factor in my entertainment setup tends to come from this, an add-in for Media Center that transforms your library of Films and TV shows with HD images and episode summaries from the web. Works streaming to Extenders including the Xbox360, and supports video podcasts.

Music Management – MediaMonkey – free/£18
Somewhat controversially I rather like Windows Media Player for playback and network sharing. However MediaMonkey is the best tool I've found for tagging and organising music, with powerful automatic renaming tools and the ability to autotag from Amazon (including high-res cover art).

Note Management – Evernote – free
Evernote is often described as a "digital brain", storing and indexing any info you come across. Browser plugins and phone apps let you grab pages or snap pictures from anywhere and its optical character recognition will make any text inside searchable.

Partitioning – Paragon Partition Manager – £25
The first thing I do with a new laptop is partition the hard drive to separate the system files from my data, which can maintain high speed and lets me reinstall the operating system without losing a thing. I'd recommend keeping an eye out for discounts though.

Photo Album – Picasa – free
Digital photography often means people take more photos but view them less. Organising and tagging them with Picasa is easy and the recent addition of facial recognition technology was a huge feature.

Portable Applications – PortableApps – free
Running software from a USB thumb drive has a lot of applications whether at work or travelling. I carry a whole suite around on mine, though a portable browser, replete with my usual extensions, is by the far the most useful.

Video Fixing – DivFix++ – free
A small tool for fixing corrupted AVI files; strips out indexes and rebuilds them.

Virtualisation – VirtualBox – free
Running another operating system (Windows or Linux) inside your current one is now easy and free, courtesy of Oracle. Great for safely testing out a piece of software or as an intro to Linux.

Web Browser – Mozilla Firefox – free
While it may be challenged by Opera and Chrome for speed, Firefox's customisation is what keeps me from looking anywhere else.

Web Browser – Opera Mini / Mobile – free
That said, when it comes to mobile browsing, Opera is on top. At least until Fennec from Mozilla arrives.

Zip Archive Manager – 7-Zip – free
Lightweight, fast and handles virtually all common compression types, including .zip, .rar and .7z.