The Productive .NET Programmer
Another Ultimate Tools List for .NET Developers.
A collection of programs, utilities and frameworks I use, have been using or are installed on my Dev machine.
Visual Studio
Team Suite provides testing, code analysis and code coverage tools on top of the VS IDE. It also includes the same features as the Database Edition. If you work with SQL Server, check out the Database Edition as it helps a lot with building, deploying and testing against a SQL databases.
Visual Studio Team System Suite
Visual Studio Team System Database Edition
ReSharper
ReSharper (aka R#) is a refactoring and productivity tool for Visual Studio. If you haven't tried it yet, I encourage you to download it and give it a go. The learning curve is a bit steep at the beginning but if you stick with it for at least a month I guarantee you will be converted. I have also listed below some great R# plug-ins. Check out Agent Smith. Among other goodies it will give you code comment spell checking with R#, nice! If you use StyleCop, don't forget to install the brilliant StyleCop for ReSharper plug-in for fixing StyleCop violations automatically. Links to other plug-ins can be found on the JetBrains web site. R# is one of these must-have tools and I simply can't code without it.
ReSharper
Agent Johnson R# plug-in
Agent Smith R# plug-in
StyleCop for ReSharper
TDD Productivity R# plug-in
VS Add-In
There are literally hundreds of VS extensions but I think only a few are really worth keeping. One of the best has to be GhostDoc which helps you generate xml comments. Although it is often abused and can lead to lazyness when writing code comments, it will literally save you hours and hours of typing. Other add-ins which I can't do without are Smart Paster for Visual Studio and the Visual Studio Powercommands.
Configuration Section Designer
Consolas Font Pack for Visual Studio
GhostDoc
ShortcutVisualizer
Smart Paster for Visual Studio
TytanNET Visual Studio Addin
Visual Studio Command Table PowerToy
Visual Studio Database Edition Power Tools
Visual Studio Powercommands
VS Command Shell
VSBuildStatus Addin
Xml Visualizer
Unit Testing
Another essential VS add-in is TestDriven.Net. This should really be one of the first you install on top of VS as it will make it so much easier for you to run your tests.
If your project is not using MSTest, check out Gallio, an automation platform that supports a multitude of unit testing frameworks.
Gallio Unit Test Platform
Machine Specifications (MSpec)
MSpec BDD framework installer
NUnit
TestDriven.Net
Code Analysis
Any self-respecting .NET Developer should have Reflector already installed on their machine. If not, why not? Reflector is a disassembler which lets you navigate through .NET assemblies. It's a great way to learn about how a piece of code works and can be invaluable when debugging too.
NDepend simplifies managing complex .NET code base and can help you analyse your source code; it can be used for reviews or for highlighting areas that might need to be refactored. It's a rather complex tool but offers some really unique features to improve your code base.
If you are starting a new C# project and you want to enforce style and consistency across your code base then make sure you (and your team) install StyleCop.
NDepend
Reflector
Reflector Addins
Reflector PowerCommands
StyleCop
Clone Detective for Visual Studio
SourceMonitor
LINQ
Simply brilliant for learning and testing LINQ queries.
LINQPad
Regular Expression
Regular expressions made easy with Expresso. I've tried many other regex tools but this is the only one I want.
Expresso
Text Editor
Don't use notepad use Notepad++ instead. It's a nice replacement for notepad and comes with loads of useful plug-ins. It also has syntax highlighting for a multitude of languages.
Notepad++
Vim
Viemu
XML / XPath
For XPath queries use SketchPath. It works well and it's another great learning tool.
SketchPath
XML Notepad
XMLPad
Code Gen
If you are into T4 templating, go now to Oleg Sych great blog on the subject and his T4 Toolbox. Also make sure that you download either Clarius or Tangible T4 Editor to get intellisense when working with T4 templates.
Clarius Visual T4 Editor
MyGeneration
Solution Factory for Vs.Net
T4 Toolbox
Tangible T4 Editor
Profiling and Monitoring
Some of these tools are really great and free!
AQtime
CLR Profiler
EQATEC Profiler
EQATEC Tracer
Fiddler
Hawkeye
Managed Stack Explorer
ManagedSpy
Microsoft Service Trace Viewer
Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL)
Snoop
Visual Round Trip Analyzer
WPFPerf
Build and Deployment
All good but if you use TFS then you have to have the TFS Power Tools for checking files in or out of source control within Windows Explorer. For personal projects, I am now using Git.
Cruise Control
Git
Git Extensions (incl. MSysGit)
NAnt
SQLCLRProject
Subversion
Team Foundation Server
Tortoise SVN
TFS Power Tools
Miscellaneous Dev Tools
An all time favourite, the Sysinternals suite includes Autoruns, Process Monitor, ProcessExplorer and a lot more...
.NET 2.0 Tools
Dependency Walker
ILMerge
svchost viewer
Sysinternals
URLProtocolView
Windows SDK Tools
WinHex
Frameworks and Libraries
These are not tools or utilities but they are definitely worth listing here as they will make you more productive if you develop on the .NET platform... and I wanted to store the links somewhere on the site.
Castle Windsor
log4net
FileHelpers
Merlin Wizard Framework
Microsoft Enterprise Library
NHibernate
Rhino Mocks
WCF and Web Services
All related to well... WCF and Web Services.
Exception Handling WCF Proxy Generator
WSCF.blue
WADL - RESTful WCF Services Client Code Generation Utility
STORM
MockingBird
Accelerators
Neal Ford in his book The Productive Programmer talks about the mechanics of productivity and covers accelerators as tools, utilities, shortcuts and anything else that help speed up how you interact with your computer. When I setup my system the first accelerator I install is FARR. There are many other launchers around (e.g. Enso, Executor) and Launchy has been my favorite for many years, but FARR now suits me best. It's fast, easy to master and you'll never have to click on "Start > All Programs" ever again!
I also strongly recommend you install AutoHotkey. Thanks to this 'free keyboard macro program' you can regain total control over your keyboard and shortcuts, and do a lot more.
AutoHotkey
CLCL Clipboard Manager
Ditto Clipboard Manager
Console
Everything Search Tool
Excel
Find and Run Robot (FARR)
Launchy
Texter
File Merge and Comparison
I use WinMerge as a replacement for the standard VS merge tool but use ExamDiff for any other file comparison and KDiff3 when using Git Extensions. Not sure why but I do :)
DiffMerge
KDiff3
ExamDiff
WinMerge
PowerShell
The best PowerShell IDE has to be PowerShell Plus but for most of your scripting tasks all you need is PowerGUI. It's got a lot of features including script debugging, intellisense and most of all it's free.
PoshConsole
PowerShell Community Extensions
PowerShellPack
PowerShell Plus
PowerShell Scriptomactic
PowerGUI
Windows PowerShell
Windows PowerShell SDK
Ruby
It might seem strange to find Ruby in a list targeted at .NET Developers but I do believe that it is important for programmers to explore new ideas and paradigm outside their programming language of choice. Of course I could have chosen any other languages (F# is another one I'd like to learn), but I think Ruby has a lot to offer to C# Developers. In my quest to be more than just a C# programmer but a Polyglot Programmer, I will be using RubyMine as a learning tool for Ruby.
RubyMine
Ruby One-Click Installer for Windows
RSpec
Cucumber
BitNami Ruby Stack
Ruby on Rails
Database
I used SQL Scripter in the past to generate insert statements and liked it a lot but since it is no longer free I have switched over to SSMS Tools Pack instead.
ClearTrace
Oracle Error Code Lookup (Firefox search provider add-on)
Oracle SQL Reference (Firefox search provider add-on)
Internals Viewer
SQL Server Management Studio
SQL Scripter
SQLiteSQLite Administrator
Sqliteman
SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio) Tools Pack
VistaDB
Networking
Wireshark is an open source and powerful tool for monitoring and capturing network traffic.
Network Monitor
Wireshark
Windows Utilities
A mixed bag of Windows utilities but all very useful to have installed on your machine.
1 Hour Software
7-Zip
Agent Ransack
Auslogics Disk Defrag
Auslogics Registry Defrag
CCleaner
CPU-Z
Console Calculator
Daemon Tools
Defraggler
FileMenu Tools
FileZilla
FreeCommander
FreeDownloadManager
Microsoft Security Essentials
Rename
Revo Uninstaller
ShellRunas
Space Sniffer
Stop Wach
SyncToy
TweakUAC
UNetbootin
Unlocker
WhosLocking
WinDirStat
Windows 7 in a Box
Windows 7 Logon Background Changer
Windows Installer Cleanup Utility
File Management
If you want to copy files quickly, try FastCopy. You can also use TeraCopy as an alternative but I prefer FastCopy's minimalist interface and the context menu. For a richer UI, use RichCopy.
FastCopy
RichCopy
Desktop Management
The combination of FARR and RocketDock is all I need for fast access to my applications while working... and a bunch of other desktop management apps.
DisplayFusion
Ghoster
HideDesktop
RocketDock
Synergy (connect keyboard and mouse to multiple monitors)
Sysinternals Desktops
VistaSwitcher
WinSplit Revolution
Keyboard Tweaking
Download Key Jedi and see how long you can live without reaching for the mouse. This is probably the best way to learn shortcuts and get computer rage! The other software listed below are key mappers but my preference these days would be to use AutoHotkey whenever possible.
Key Jedi
HotKeyBind
KeyTweak
SharpKeys
Virtualization, Emulators and Remote Desktop
Go for VMware Workstation if you want more features than just running virtual machines.
Disk2vhd
DOSBox
DOSBox AmpShell front-end
Microsoft Virtual PC
visionapp Remote Desktop
VMware Workstation
Windows Image to Virtual Hard Disk (wim2vhd)
Design and Creative
I've used SnagIt, a screen capture application, from version 3 and it's got better and better. Also check out Camtasia, another software from Techsmith, for recording screencasts.
Audacity
Camtasia
IcoFX
JRuler
Microsoft Expression
SnagIt
Windows Media Encoder
Browsers and Extensions
So many features, so many add-ons. Firefox IS the best browser around... but I do like Google Chrome as well :)
Chrome
Firefox
iMacros for Firefox
Mouseless Browsing
Snagit Firefox Extension
TwitterFox
Google Analytics
Google Speed Tracer
IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit
Personal
While it is often the case that Development teams will setup a project Wiki, I think that Developers should also maintain their own personal Wiki to store and manage information. In the past I have used TiddlyWiki and WikiPad to do that but I am now totally fanatical about OneNote. This is a really amazing app which now serves as my sole repository for every piece of personal or work related data I want to keep.
I have now joined the Twitter revolution and use Twhirl but mainly TwInbox to follow others.
OneNote
Attensa for Outlook RSS Reader
Dark Room
Dropbox
FreeMind
Juice
Microsoft Office
Ninite Easy PC Setup
Pidgin
PortableApps
Skype
Spotify
Twitter
TwInbox
Seesmic
VLC Media Player
Windows Live Writer
XMind
Other Tools Lists and Sites
AlternativeTo
Confessions of a freeware junkie
CSharp-Source.Net
HornGet
Portable64
Scott Hanselman's Ultimate Tools List
SharpToolbox
Software Development Tools Directory
Start64!
The Ruby Toolbox
thefreecountry.com
Visual Studio Gallery
Windows Developer Power Tools
On The Back Burner
Interesting projects, tools and frameworks to try out someday... when the occasion presents itself.
JavaScript Lint
Microsoft Application Diagnostics
Microsoft Distributed Cache (Velocity) Admin Tool
Microsoft Log Parser
Moq
PostSharp
nullsoft scriptable install system
Resource Refactoring Tool
Script#
SQLite2009 Pro Enterprise Manager
Wix EDIT