Software developers need to work harder and harder to bring value to their development process in order to build high quality applications and remain competitive. Developers can accomplish this by improving their productivity, quickly solving problems, and writing better code.

A wealth of open source and free software tools are available for developers who want to improve the way they create, build, deploy, and use software. Tools, components, and frameworks exist to help developers at every point in the development process. Windows Developer Power Tools offers an encyclopedic guide to more than 170 of these free tools to help developers build top-notch Windows software from desktop applications to web services.

To help you choose the right tools for solving both common and uncommon problems you face each day, this book follows a unique task-oriented organization, laying out topics in the same order that you and your team are likely to encounter them as you work on a project. Each tool entry features a solid introduction -- a mini user's guide -- so you can get up to speed quickly and understand how to best use the tool in your environment. Inside, you'll find:

• A guide to more than 170 tools covering 24 unique aspects of Windows and .NET software development, with many descriptions contributed by the tools' authors
• Descriptions of freely available ASP.NET and Windows Forms controls, object relational mapping systems, testing frameworks, and build and continuous integration tools
• Articles on tools to help developers troubleshoot misbehaving applications
• Guides for utilities to boost productivity in the development environment as well as speeding up tasks in Windows itself
• "Quick pick" lists at the start of each chapter to help you find and choose the right tool for your task
• "At a Glance" and "In a Nutshell" summaries to help readers more quickly narrow their options
• References to an online book site to keep you up-to-date with new releases and features
• Forewords by Mike Gunderloy (Larkware) and Scott Hanselman (www.hanselman.com/tools), operators of the two most popular tools sites for Microsoft developers.

Also, plenty of links in each article point you to additional detail online if you wish to delve more deeply into features and functionality. This one-stop resource covers a wide range of open source and freeware tools to help you answer questions around planning, developing, testing, and rolling out great software. Best of all, they're free.