Imagine buying a spanking new computer with all those frills-a high end processor and the latest graphics card ,gigabytes of RAM,a hard drive with tons of space,7.1 surround speakers,dual layer DVD burner,LCD monitor,wireless keyboard and mouse,but finally you will need an OS the obvious choice is WIN XP .
OS is not the only software by which you can enjoy the benifits of all these softwares.yes i agree that the OS has some basic softwares like Text editore,browser,media players but are these enough to control the monsters mentioned above
Even the most high end hardware is useless without the right software .For your easy reference i'll give a list of essential softwares without which one cannot enjoy the benefits of powerfull hardware.Understand that the HARDWARE is like a heart while the SOFTWARE is the brain.

PhotoEditing
Look for Xnview,IrfanView.They support nearly 400 formats and XnView is freeware i do not know about irfan

Browser
You know that the browser war going on b/w micro ang netscape
I would recomend Firefox for its tabbed browsing,security over IE

Burning Software
Go for Nero burning simply because it is the best
try out NTI Burning rom it is also good
Video PLayers and editing
Go for Pinnacle Studio
for DVD go for powerDvD
Indexing Service
Google,Copernicor Yahoo desktop search
Antivirus

Use Norton simply because
it iswhat to antivirus as Google is what to ads and SE

Also look out for many free softwares like shredder,antispyware,etc
Thank you for your patience & Sorry for any Spelling mistakes