IE for browser
hotmail so IE for email too (Try Eudora if you dont like Outlook).
chat: ICQ. MSN is faster and everything but its microsoft and theres something about it that annoys me - it just wont damn well go away EVER.
compression: WinZip, most people scream WinRAR so much better but WinZIP just fine for me thanks.
Graphics: Paint Shop Pro is easily the best value for money and probably easiest to use. I Have CorelDraw 9 also, powerful but i it smentality, if you know what i mean
Windows Tweaking: Get TweakUI1.33, superb program and ive no idea why the hell it doesnt ship with windows, does LOADS of stuff for you, like get rid of the damned windows startup splash screen and gets rid of teh irritating login screen by doing it automatically for you.
Utilities: Norton Utilities: accept no substitute. even runs off the CD for those "OH SH!T WHAT HAVE I JUST DONE" moments. Its worth it for Undelete and speed disk alone.
AntiVirus: Norton 2001 (the alternative is McAffee).
DVD Movies: WinDVD came with my drive, PowerDVD equally as good. hardly any difference between them.
CD Burning: Nero. CloneCD seems to be installed on a lot of peoples comp's too, for the things Nero wont copy. Ive not had clonecd long but its never helped yet, i havent even burned a single cd with it. however clonecd is free, nero (tho loads better) is not.
Officy stuff: not really any choice but MS Office. StarOffice a free alternative, and whilst surprisingly good, just not the same. I'd reccomend StarOffice though if you dont need to do much officy stuff frequently.
MP3: WinAmp.
MP3 Converting: er i think Nero does this now... several free alternatives including MusicMatch Jukebox
Firewall: dont have but ZoneAlarm reccomended by virtually consensus. Tiny Personal Firewall also.
For games, RtCWolfenstein multiplay is fantastic, team based thing. Operation Flashpoint great also if you like a more realistic shooter, thats a cool 1 player game actually, lot sof people call it a simulation game rather than FPS

. if you get it theres loads of extras people have made too. i think
www.comcept-5.com/ofp/ a good resource, tho ive not been playing/visiting for a while.
its actually pretty amazing just how much stuff you can (legitimately) get for free, even of the above I paid for very few: Nero, Norton AV, WinDVD all came free with hardware. I got a cheap upgrade for Norton Utilities by getting a free older version in a wesite launch giveaway (not that the install looked or asked for it, hmm). i think its perfectly feasable to have a multi-purpose computer where all you pay for is the hardware and Windows (you could always download Linux, but to be honest, for most people you have to have windows).
I like
www.pcplus.co.uk downloads section, always a reasonable number of good downloads.