Right here are a few little freeware gems not mentioned so far:

TaskZip - great little backup utility Has a bug that limits it to 2GB per backup session (love someone to fix this) even if you're NOT using the zip feature, but as long as you do a manual backup to start with this doesn't affect it at all.

If you don't use RAID and have a second hard drive for backup, this is the next best thing for keeping redundancy of key files. Backup favourite links, e-mail, latest retrodownloads , word docs etc with one click. Will only update new files or ones that have been recently modified - that's why the 2GB limit doesn't come in to play very often. Brilliant. Can even completely rebuild selected backup directories if you've deleted/renamed files but be careful not to go over the 2GB limit or it will crash.

If anyone has a similar freeware utility without a 2GB bug, please let me know. Tried loads of others, but they were crap.

CDcheck
Will compare two sources to see if they are the same. Also has the option to create CRC files. Great for checking your backup is 100% legit for those times when you don't save things in "CRC test" archives.

KMCS tools
Unlimited trial, so essentially freeware. Has a great registry compactor that will delete and unfragment all those registry entries marked "deleted" by registry cleaners like Easyclean, RegCleaner, jv16 Powertools but still actually take up space (and system memory).......

Ok that's enough for now. Perhaps we should just export our "software links" and place them here.

Ah. I've updated the entry so it points to the right place.

And what about this great, stable, fast and extremely simply to be used ( you can also use it without installing it ) windows shell replament , gpl licensed?

It's extremely similar to linux blackbox, and has fully customizable menus, keyboard shortcuts, themes ( if linux themes are really compatible, there are eons of them ), virtual desktops support ( extremely useful imo ) and plugins.

And a really good editor, written in java, gpl too: jedit: it's really feature filled and there are eons of plugins.