BELARC PC Inventory Program; the free download is here
    CPUID from HERE identifies Brain, memory type and maker etc.
    SPEEDFAN Hard Disk and machine temperatire and fan S.M.A.R.T. Troubleshooter
    WinDirStat gives statistics about your hard drive usage
    memtest86 gives info about the computers memory. (The machine has to be booted from 
                                separate media like a bootable CD, floppy or flash drive)

This section lists programs that will optimize the PC by cleaning defragmenting and otherwise improving things....

    CCLEANER - Venerable Cleaner of Crap off PCs! Removed temporary/scratch and cache 
     files that can accumulate over time and slow things down. Also has a REASONABLY good
     Registry Cleaner
    EUSING Registry Cleaner Trims entries in the single data file Windows uses called the
     Registry that are orphaned or are otherwise wrong..
    NTREGOPT  Optimizes the Registry by converging fragmented parts of the branches of the
     database and clearing empty entries. REBOOT after this one.  
    MYDEFRAG is a simple Disk Defragmenter that in default install mode provides an ingenious
     screen saving defragmentation routine
    Spybot AntiMal/Spyware Software
    AVG Free Anti Virus

    Thunderbird (email & Usenet client)
    Firefox (a web browser, many plugins, more basic interface)
    Opera (a web browser, some plugins, more user-friendly interface)
    UBUNTU Linux an alternative operating system
    Syncback Lite, a free backup program for the PC
    Blender is a suite free tools for 3d graphic creation

    Ad-Aware anti-spyware form Lavasoft
    Zone Alarm firewall (for those without XP + service pack 2)

    Audacity Audio editor The Audacity plug-in called Lame (for saving your work in mp3 format)
    Winamp plays audio files
    crucial.com gives info similar to mentest86

    Picassa a picture editing & managing 
    Paint Shop Pro is now a Corel product but earlier free versions can be found
             The version I got at this location seems to be working okay but USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
    Black Light Anti-Rootkit  (mentioned in show notes)

    Openoffice It's a great alternative to Microsoft office and handles many of its file types.
    Gmail is an web based email service; can be used as a POP & SMTP mail service.
    Google Docs is sort of like using Microsoft Office online