Recommended Software

Here is a list of the software that I use frequently:

Notepad Plus (free) http://sourceforge.net/projects/notepad-plus/ Nice text editor.
Paint.net (free) http://www.getpaint.net/index.html Image and picture editing.
UltraVNC (free) http://www.uvnc.com/ Remote PC controlling for those w/o Remote Desktop.
Fiddler (free) http://fiddler2.com/fiddler2/ This is a must have for any web developer or QA expert. Fiddler is a web proxy that logs all of your web traffic. Very nice for debugging.
Beyond Compare ($30) http://www.scootersoftware.com/ This is another must have application. I absolutely love this tool. I use it for comparing file contents, directories, and even use it to deploy updates using the build in FTP functionality. The FTP functionality also allows you to run a comparison between folders on my machine and those on my FTP site. Well worth the $30 if you are like myself and find the constant need to run comparisons.
Filezilla FTP client (free) http://www.scootersoftware.com/ A basic ftp client that does everything I need.
TeamViewer (free) http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx A remote desktop viewer/controller. I use this all the time for helping friends fix computer problems without having to be there.
ZoomIt (free) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434.aspx A screen zoom tool for presentations.
7-Zip (free) http://www.7-zip.org/ Free compression/archiving tools.

Other nice to have utilities:

bginfo (free) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897557.aspx - This utility updates your desktop background to show all kinds of cool info from the OS version to free space. Extremely light weight. Even good for servers. Free from MS.

VHD utilities:

iReboot (free) 1.1.1 http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=11 (mirror) A taskbar utility to change the boot device prior to rebooting. Nice if you switch boot partitions often.
VHDResizer (free) http://www.brothersoft.com/publisher/xcarab-inc.html (mirror) A utility for changing the size of any vhd file.