It's amazing the amount of tools out there that some of us developers don't know about, as for me I have a set tools that I live by and I simply can't do without them - well I can but it will be a very painful day. This list is by no means a completed list, I'll update them as I use, test and love new or old tools. Majority of these tools are free..

 

Development Environments (IDE)

Microsoft Visual Web Developer

Microsoft C# Express

Microsoft Sql Server Management Studio Express

 

Databases

Sql Server 2005 Express - SQL Server 2005 Express Edition is the next version of MSDE and is a free, easy-to-use, lightweight, and embeddable version of SQL Server 2005. Free to download, free to redistribute, free to embed, and easy for new developers to use immediately, SQL Server Express includes powerful features such as SQL Server Management Studio Express, for easily managing a database. Continue reading to learn more about the benefits of SQL Server Express Edition and to download SQL Server Management Studio.

 

Build tools

ASPNETCompiler - (West Wind)

 

Database Tools

SubSonic - (ActionPack) SubSonic is a toolset that helps a website build itself. At it's core it's:

  • A Data Access Layer (DAL) builder that requires no code on your part, it builds itself at compile-time with a full object layer and strongly-typed collections
  • A complete utility toolset, complete with Rails-like scaffolding, migrations (DB Versioning), and code generators
  • A dynamic query tool, that lets you use SQL Server and the Enterprise Library without having to know SQL
  • An OR Mapper that extends to views and stored procedures so you're not locked into the OR/M thing

 

Deployment Tools

Unleash It - Unleash It, formerly known as WebDeploy, is a utility built with web developers in mind. It started as a simple application that would allow you to transfer files from one directory to another based on their file extension. Due to the growing nature of successful applications, and the need for more options, Unleash It grew to being able to transfer files based on a source directory or a Visual Studio Project to a destination directory, FTP site, or zip file.

 

Custom Controls

coming soon.

 

Custom Libraries

Newtonsoft Json.NET - The Json.NET librarys allows the simple and safe reading and writing of JSON objects from .NET.

 

Error Management & Testing

NUnit - NUnit brings xUnit-style unit-testing to all .Net languages. Initially ported from JUnit, the current version has been re-written to take advantage of .NET language features.

 

Documentation

NDoc - NDoc generates class library documentation from .NET assemblies and the XML documentation files generated by the C# compiler (or with an add-on tool for VB.NET).

 

Other Tools

Reflector - Reflector is the class browser, explorer, analyzer and documentation viewer for .NET. Reflector allows to easily view, navigate, search, decompile and analyze .NET assemblies in C#, Visual Basic and IL.

FxCop - FxCop is a code analysis tool that checks .NET managed code assemblies for conformance to the Microsoft .Net Framework Design Guidelines.

Notepad2 - Notepad2 is an open-source text editor for Microsoft Windows, released under a BSD software license. It is written by Florian Balmer using the Scintilla editor component, and was first publicly released in April 2004. Balmer based Notepad2 on the principle of Microsoft Notepad: small, fast and without frills.