Setting up surface pro 2 (and wishing it was a 3)

So the surface pro 3 is out and it looks fantastic.  Microsoft have tweaked the design to add all the features I thought were missing from the 2  (in particular I love the look of the bigger screen, better "lapability" and improved stylus).  I think the surface pro has really come of age.  Unfortunately due to being at the ends of the earth and having to order through preferred supplies, rather than unboxing a 3, I'm opening up my new surface pro 2 (which took a VERY long time to acquire). 

As I run through setup, I'm reminded of a few things I found tricky when setting up my initial surface pro and also just how many additional apps I install.

Here's a brief list of apps I think are worth having

Helping to get things done
 - Classic shell (makes windows 8 MUCH more usable by creating a "start" button).  Install this FIRST as it makes configuring windows to your liking much easier.
- Wunderlist  is the software I use for tracking todos, which in the past has worked reasonably well across multiple platforms (I have used it on windows, osx, ios and android devices).  The 3rd version just came out for several platforms but is not yet available for windows 8 so I'm making do with the chrome browser extension.
 
Web browsing
- Internet Explorer comes standard so you don't need to install it (you actually get two versions, as the one launched from the charms area is different and works better if navigating by finger)
- Chrome is worth installing as google stuff works better with it but be aware the fonts will look fuzzy on a surface.  This is easy to fix if you find the right setting (which took me a LONG time to track down the first time).  You have to disable display scaling on high DPI settings for chrome, the instructions on how to do this are here: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/fonts-appear-blurred-windows-8
- Firefox is still a favourite and I find some sites just work better in firefox.  If fonts look fuzzy try the same trick for fixing as described above for Chrome.

Mail
 - Outlook (I've switched to the dark side) although I really miss some Thunderbird features, I've found Thunderbird buggy of late (but Outlook isn't much better)

Media
 - itunes is particularly handy if you have an apple device but also helpful for managing media even if you don't
 - doubleTwist  is helpful for syncing music from an iTunes library to an android device
 - Quicktime  is handy for playing quick time movies and other media files
 - VLC player is still the best free media player out there
 - BBflashback player and recorder is the software I use this for screen capture (with audio) - Handbrake is great for optimising video files
 - Dropbox is handy if you have a dropbox account

 Office documents
 - Open office if I'm looking for a free solution, otherwise the MS office suite
 
 PDF creation
 - pdf machine merge  is handy for emailing personalised pdfs but it costs a bit of money, does a good job though and can save HEAPS of time.
 - pdf annotator is very good but again costs money
 - Adobe acrobat reader is an industry standard (although I find this can be a bit buggy)
 - Cute pdf editor (I sometimes use this to create pdfs if adobe products fail to work)

Technical
 - Matlab (ain't cheap)
 - Octave (free!)
 - Visual studio (for C++)
 - Tex works
 - Tex studio

Charms bar apps
Don't use these much as I tend to use other devices for touch based apps 
 - Kindle (for reading ebooks)