Compared to my co-workers, I install a pretty large set of programs on a new Windows XP/Vista computer or a hard drive that needs to be reformatted and the OS reinstalled.  Below is a list of the free applications that I always install.

• Adobe Flash Player
• Adobe Reader
• Adobe Shockwave Player
• Firefox
• iTunes
• Java
• QuickTime
• RealPlayer
• Spybot - Search and Destroy
• Thunderbird

I install all of these programs because my clients just want their computer to work.  They don’t want to have to browse the web and find all of the tools that they normally need to get their computer up and running.

Every Tuesday, I download the newest version of all the these programs and put them on a USB flash drive so I don’t have to download it them every time I work on a computer.  This evening as I was checking available versions, I noticed that Adobe has allow users to download “Adobe Reader 9.” 
“Adobe Acrobat 9,” the program that lets you make PDFs ,was released a couple of weeks ago but “Adobe Reader 9,” the program that lets you open PDFs, wasn’t released until today.

For most people the biggest difference between “Adobe Acrobat/Reader 8″ and “Adobe Acrobat/Reader 9″ is the ability to embed Flash content into a PDF.  This is huge because user manuals and other documentation resources can now have Flash Video content.  This means that PDFs will probably get a little larger but this is a huge deal in my book.

Just like previous versions, “Adobe Reader 9″ is available to download for free.  The URL is below.

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2_allversions.html

What other free programs do you install on a computer for your clients?