List of Tools for Every Windows (ASP.NET) Developer

I'm an ASP.NET developer since a few years. As ASP.NET developers, we have a lot of cool tools at our disposal. By far, my favourite is Visual Studio, I can't work without that IDE. There are lots of tools which make my life a lot easier. Many tools on this list aren't directly related to ASP.NET development, but included anyway because they are very useful.

Note

Many of these tools are available through Chocolatey. If you haven't installed Chocolatey, I highly suggest you to do that. It's like apt-get for Windows; you can install software through the command line. If a tool is available through Chocolatey, I also include the command to install it.

IDEs / Editors

Visual Studio 2013 Community Edition

Microsoft's full featured ASP.NET development IDE. The community edition is basically the Professional edition and can be used for both free, school, open source and paid projects (if you don't work in an enterprise).

choco install visualstudiocommunity2013 -y

Notepad++

Windows Notepad on steroids; something I can't live without anymore. It has code highlighting, autocomplete, a file explorer, FTP support, etc.

choco install notepadplusplus -y

Dev Tools

XAMPP

XAMPP is a combination of Apache, MySQL and PHP. I'm still developing and maintaining PHP sites, so this is the right tool for me. It also includes phpMyAdmin, a decent MySQL management tool.

https://www.apachefriends.org/index.html

SQLyog

This is my favourite MySQL management tool for Windows.

choco install sqlyog -y

io.js / Node.js

io.js (a popular fork of Node.js) incorporates Google's V8 JavaScript engine, available for every major OS. Many tools and frameworks (like Grunt and Gulp for automated tasks, Bower for client side package management, LESS for flexible CSS, and the TypeScript parser) require io.js to be installed. Besides that, I think it's very nice to open a console and just make some quick calculations using nothing more than JavaScript.

choco install io.js -y

Oracle VirtualBox

One of the most (if not the most) popular virtual machines. It's very easy to plug in an ISO to install Windows Server or Ubuntu (or any other OS you can think of).

Modern.ie is a site which offers free images (also for VirtualBox) with every OS from Windows XP to Windows 10 with all popular versions of Internet Explorer. I use these images for testing my sites on different Internet Explorer versions, but also for tasks for which you need a clean Windows. The images contain trial versions of Windows for 90 days.

choco install virtualbox -y

dotPeek

dotPeek is a tool which converts the intermediate language of assemblies (DLLs and EXEs) to readable C# code. Lost your source or interested in the code of another tool written in .NET? This is exactly what you need.

choco install dotpeek -y

Fiddler4

Fiddler4 is a desktop application which monitors all HTTP(S) traffic to and from your PC.

choco install fiddler4 -y

WinHTTrack Website Copier

If I find a website with a lot of useful content (like API documentation), I like to download it to my PC. I use WinHTTrack for that purpose.

http://www.httrack.com/page/2/

LINQPad 4

This little tool is able to connect to a database (MySQL, SQLServer etc.) and query that database using nothing more than C# Linq syntax. I love it!

choco install linqpad4 -y

putty

putty is my favourite tool for connecting to SSH (e.g. Ubuntu Server).

choco install putty -y

Google Chrome & Mozilla Firefox

I think these 2 need no introduction anymore. I always use Firefox because I love the FireBug and Developer Toolbar extensions.

choco install googlechrome -y

choco install firefox -y

Cmder

Cmder is like Windows Commandline on steroids. It supports tabs, a better (and configurable) colour scheme and is a lot nicer to look at.

choco install cmder -y

Remote Desktop Connection Manager

This tool lets you manage your RDP connections in a nice tree folder structure.

choco install rdcman -y

FileZilla

This is by far my favourite FTP client, and somewhat of an industry standard.

choco install filezilla -y

GitHub

The official GitHub client for Windows. Use this tool to manage your GitHub repo's and clone others.

choco install github -y

TortoiseSVN & TortoiseGIT

In my opinion, these are the best tools if you are developing a project and if you're using SVN or GIT.

choco install tortoisesvn -y

choco install tortoisegit -y

Office Apps

KeePass

My favourite tool for managing my passwords.

choco install keepass-classic -y

Mozilla ThunderBird

I may be a bit oldschool, but I like getting my mail directly onto my desktop. ThunderBird is my favourite mailing tool.

choco install thunderbird -y

LibreOffice

In my opinion, not as good as Microsoft Office, but it gets the job done almost everytime.

choco install libreoffice -y

Desktop Tools

Skype

Nothing better than Skype for quickly talking to your coworkers or send a link or file.

choco install skype -y

Recuva

Recuva is a tool which helps you get lost files from any hard drive, USB drive or memory card.

choco install recuva -y

SyncToy

SyncToy is a freeware application developed by Microsoft for easy file synchronization between different drives and folders.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15155

DeepBurner

Something I haven't done in ages, but still handy in some occasions. This tool lets you burn CDs and DVDs.

http://deepburner.com/download/DeepBurner1.exe

MagicISO

This old timer is still very popular today. It lets you open, edit and burn ISOs.

http://www.magiciso.com/Setup_MagicISO.exe

CCleaner

Another tool which probably doesn't require any introduction; CCleaner cleans your hard drive.

choco install ccleaner -y

WinDirStat

WinDirStat is a nice tool which scans your hard drive and locates where every file is located. A map is created so you can see all different types of file and which files are very large.

choco install windirstat -y

NimbleText

NimbleText allows you to do repitive typing tasks without using regular expressions. This is a very nice tool.

choco install nimbletext -y

7-zip

7-zip is the only zip tool you need.

choco install 7zip -y

Dropbox

Dropbox is my favourite cloud storage provider. This download is the Windows client for Dropbox.

choco install dropbox -y

Total Commander

This is a nice Windows Explorer replacement with two panes.

choco install totalcommander -y

Greenshot

This is my favourite screen capture tool. It enables you to quickly take screenshots using a crosshair.

choco install greenshot -y

Multimedia

Foobar2000

Foobar2000, not the most beautiful music player, but in my opinion by far the best. It has a very clean interface and is completely pluggable.

choco install foobar2000 -y

The Gimp

The Gimp is an open source PhotoShop. I use it and love it for years, although I'm not very charmed by the flexible interface.

IrfanView + Plugins

IrfanView is by far my favourite image viewer.

choco install irfanview -y

choco install irfanviewplugins -y

Paint.NET

MSPaint + 100. It isn't as advanced as The Gimp, but it does a fine job at replacing MSPaint, and it has a very nice interface.

choco install paint.net -y

ColorPic

ColorPic is a tool which lets you pick colors on your current screens. It contains a magnifying glass so you can carefully select your colour.

choco install colorpic -y

CodeProject