Windows has plenty of tools in its base. Most of them are critical to day-day-activities and few of them are not up to the market standard or they lost their share to competitor applications. Below are my list of applications that I use everyday instead of Windows apps.

• Google desktop search (GDS) is more efficient and faster than Windows XP’s search facility. In fact, I dont remember when I last opened Windows Search application for searching something( Even if I open Windows search, it hangs!). I am not sure about the Vista’s Live search facility. GDS comes with a sidebar too! As I am not running Vista, Googe sidebar is very handy.
• Launchy - a small application launcher. Comes with skinnable interface and easily customizable. Its a calculator too. After started using Launchy, I rarely open my Start menu/Windows Explorer/Calculator.
• Firefox - No need to explain why I am using it. Inseperable in my web development activities. Though Firefox 3 has some issues, I love it.
• Notepad++ - light in weight as Notepad, great in features as MS Word. Supports syntax highlighitng for more than 30 languages (including SQL). Very fast and a great application.
• Winamp / Media player classic - the media players I use in my home for songs and movies. Windows Mediay player eats lots of resources from my poor PC and I can’t offord it running, with Eclipse and Tomcat server side by side.

Those are my list. would you like to add anything more?