A lot of the programs and utilities which come as part of the Windows setup are very basic in their functional
and good be greatly improved in the way they work and their reliability. Here is a list of Windows programs
with a suggested alternative which can be downloaded for free.

Notepad
Windows Notepad: It's  very necessary  to have a text editor but Windows notepad is very basic in it's functionality.
 

Alternatives:  CPad     Edit Pad Lite 

Calculator

Explorer
Windows explorer has many basic feature from the original file manager of Windows 3.1 missing.
Feature like being able to have 2 directory open within and being able to drag and drop files between
the two. Also being able to filter the file list down by using wildcards such as *.mp3 etc.

Alternatives:  Free Commander  Ac Browser Plus

Sound recorder
The Windows Sound recorder is restricted to only a few minutes of recording and cannot record an mp3
format.

Alternative: Audacity

Paint

Alternative: Gimp

Regedit

Add / Remove programs

Alternative: My Uninstaller

Task manager

Alternative: Process Explorer

IExpress

Alternative: Inno Setup

My Computer
Basic in it's functionality and sometime slow. It can be difficult to know which drive is which letter when you
have many different drives.

Alternative: Drive Manager

FTP

Alternative: FileZilla

Internet explorer

Windows Media Player

Alternatives: Windows Media Classic

Outlook Express