My favourite customizations for Microsoft Windows desktop machines

• Replace default Notepad with Notepad2-mod (http://xhmikosr.github.io/notepad2-mod/).
• 7zip file archiver with a high compression ratio to replace Windows inbuilt archiever  (http://www.7-zip.org/).
• Microsoft Calculator Plus as replacement for Windows Calculator application (http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx?id=21622).
• VLC media player as default media player application (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/).
• Picasa Image organizer and viewer (http://picasa.google.co.in/)
• Google Chrome to print any file as PDF (https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/beta.html)
• Google Chrome (default) and Firefox (I use both) as web browsers. (Chrome: https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/beta.html and Firefox: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/).