Greenshot

Irfanview

Audacity

OBS

Lab Chirp: simple but powerful sound effects generator

Stickies (zhorn software): Networkable sticky notes

Agent Ransack: File content search

Ddrescue

Hard to beat for working with dying drives, although it's a bit tricky to get it to just do used data areas instead of the whole drive.

Since you're saying "pieces of software" and not specifically apps I will mention Node.js, the programming framework for javascript apps that run outside of a browser. You can develop websites and services or standalone apps that just run locally. There's a whole universe of free packages people have created for it.

Pipewire

Notepad++ is also great for searching text strings in many documents and collating the results in a single window.

Krita

WinDirStat, Notepad++, Greenshot and Filelocator pro lite (aka agent ransack) are my default programs to install on windows machines.

It's a niche thing, but if you play electric guitar and need a virtual amplifier and effects, you'll like Guitarix very much. Just thinking that is a community project blows me away every time

Ninite.com

Actual - Accounting/budgeting/etc

Wrote up a python script or three to handle parsing my bank CSV export files into an actually usable form, with automatic categorization, and so now I just do a periodic export and sync, and have all my financial records all in one place with some nice visualization, categorization, and budgeting features from Actual. It saves everything to a local sqlite db, so I can always jump ship to a different system if needed, and also itself provides a CSV export option.

10/10 software, would recommend

OnShape for designing 3d objects. I've been using it for 3 or 4 years, after outgrowing TinkerCad (which is also good and beginner-friendly, but limited). It's an online app, nothing to download or install. The free version is fast and full-featured. The only difference between it and the paid version is that in the free version your designs are all public. So if I were doing 3d design for business I probably would use software that resides on my computer. But as a hobbyist IDGAF.

For keeping track of investments I recommend: Portfolio Performance

https://www.portfolio-performance.info/en/

Takes maybe 10min to learn the basics in the beginning, but it's worth it. Nice robust open source software which does its job flawless.

EarTrumpet, Borderless Gaming, ClickMonitorDDC, Lenovo Legion Toolkit, FanControl, PEACE + Equalizer APO, Everything, TreeSize

kate is similar to npp.

LibreELEC, which is a minimalist 'Just enough OS' Linux distribution for running Kodi. You can use it to turn almost any (mini) pc into a full fledged media center.

Notepad ++ is invaluable for writing code, I’ve used it for a long while now.

Also great is paint dot net which is a super advanced paint application that is borderline as good as photo shop, particularly when you add on all the community-created functionality.

Revo uninstaller is the first thing I put on a new machine before I delete all the bloatware that comes with a fresh install of windows. You would be surprised what is left over when you only use the built in ‘remove a program’ process.

Lastly, browser based but free and excellent, is sketch up, which is an architectural rendering application great for designing restaurants and retail spaces. A little bit of a learning curve but very smooth and functional once you get the hang of it.

Edit - VLC goes without saying right?

"agent ransack" for file searching in windows