Description: I recently clean installed Windows XP on my laptop, and this meant that I had to re-install all the essential software that I use. It also presented an opportunity to write a posting about how you can outfit your computer with all the essential (and non-essential) software you need using strictly 100% freeware and/or open source titles.This posting could have been titled any of the following:
How to never use a paid program again (aside from Windows).
53 essential freeware programs that can take care of the majority of your computing needs.
I am writing this from the perspective of myself clean-installing Windows and re-installing all the software I find to be essential afterwards. This post took a long time to write, please Digg and/or Stumble it ;).
Pre-installation: before reformatting my hard drive, I used the following programs:
1. Gparted Live CD
2. Unstoppable Copier
3. Amic Email Backup
4. DriverMax:
5. Produkey
Post installation: now the fun begins.
6. PC Decrapifier
Notes from underground 
I’ve had great success using lots of free software for virtually everything I do. OpenOffice has a great Office Suite, OpenContacts is a good contact management program, PDF995 is a good PDF creator, the list goes on….
…I also use AVG Free for virus protection, Zone Alarm as a firewall, the GIMP as an equivalent to Photoshop, the list goes on…
Very interesting. I’m slowly shifting to open source, and I’m going to try and go completely MS free some time in the New Year – probably on a newly built machine first.