Some essential freeware pocketpc apps:

magic button:

makes the X button actually close things and if you tap and hold the X it turns the top bar into a taskbar of runing apps

Calander+ and Task+

displays tasks on the today screen and gives much more options

DevState Device status on today screen

hard to find nowadays as i thin kits now japanese only but the english version is stil lgoing about. gives you a quick launch bar and a memory. battery bar on the today screen. highly customisable

Microsoft Money 2005 Pocket

Syncs with PC and shows your balances on the today screen which is nice, bad point is it cant delete transactions

PocketRAR (Free)

Does both zips and rars which is good if you dont have a pc as much PDA software is zipped/rared .cab files

.NET Compat Franework

Needed for some apps but a big memory hog

Adobe Reader

Slow but in reality, the only PDF reader you will ever need

Microsoft Theme Generator

DO NOT LET THIS INSTALL THE POCKETPC APP IT WANTS TO AS IT WILL CRASH THE TODAY SCREEN OF NON WM2002 DEVICES, otherwise good except it doesnt let you cahnge the start menu colour

PocketPC Safemode

gives you the option to boot into safemode on the owner scren after a soft reset - safe mode is god as it disables all startup software, plugins and services so you cn fix problems and stops the loadin of additionall fonts etc.. too

Sompy Media Player

Has mpeg support, huge level of customisation

PocketShutXP

XP style reset/suspend/hard reset taskbar applet

TenGO

good and fast predictive input system but takes a bit of getting used to although it includes an excelent interactive tutorial.

.NET VNC and Pocketputty

Much better than terminal services

SPB Extended theme generator

Much better than the MS version (Installs over it)