Essential software, I have no clue if your laptop is internet connected, but for me it's.....
General Utilities (The Bear Necessities)
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WinRAR - for expanding file archives
Internet
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mIRC - for Internet Relay Chat
Trillian or GAIM - Instant Messaging
MSIE 5.5 or Netscape Communicator 6
If I'm using Dial-Up, my ISP's dial-up program, or I equate it if possible using the built in Win95 dialer.
That's about all I need there....then there's games....
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Duke Nukem 3-D
The Ultima Collection (or at least VI-VIII)
Microsoft Golf 3.0
NASCAR 2
Monkey Island 1 & 2
Sim City 2000
Tank Wars
And some Emulation
NESticle x.xx - NES
Z26 - 2600
ZSNES - (Amazingly it runs quite well on a 100 MHz 486, not perfect, but playable enough)