Here are some very useful and free utilities for Windows users:

• KeyNote - http://www.tranglos.com/free/index.html




• An outline editor with RichText Edit. Very good for keeping
  notes in heirarchical format.




• Programmer's Notepad - http://www.pnotepad.org




• A powerful text editor.




• 7 Zip - http://www.7-zip.org




• A Zip/Tar/Gzip/JAR/WAR/TAR archiver.