Microsoft I.C.E.

It a free program that allows Microsoft to create panoramic pictures with ease. And it fully automatic (though the pictures should be numbered correctly), and requires no special effort or knowledge by the user.
And with wonderful preview, which gives you a pretty good idea of the final result. The quality of the resulting panoramic picture is excellent, only sin that in some cases (at least among the tests I did) there was some slight burr in one of the junctions between the pictures (while the preview was absolutely perfect).
Overall, the program is very good, especially for beginners.

Microsoft I.C.E.

Microangelo Toolset, Toolsets editor (shareware)

For the past few years is considered one of the best if not the best program for creating/editing icons, even desktop icons to replace the OS with those chosen by us (including executables, Windows does not do that). It has all the options that you can imagine for the design of desktop icons, including the possibility of setting the opacity, or precision instruments (lines, fill, etc.).
It is not easy to use, but not especially difficult. Additional features that have free programs compared to competitors (which are easier already) need a little time to be mastered.

Microangelo Toolset

Icons from file, extract icons

This program is able to extract icons from any executable we choose, and allows us to save them in various formats (bmp, jpg, ico).
The initial impact, because even the thin interface is not the most favorable and we must use it for a few minutes before realizing that it is very good at what he does, and we can appreciate the best.
Overall, if you want to take the icon from any exe file (or even more of an icon, if they are present in the executable itself), is a good choice.

Icons from file

Toolbox pixels

While IcoFX is more oriented towards changing the icons, Pixel Toolbox is towards the creation of icons (or mouse cursors) from scratch, or resizing an image ready (.jpg, .bmp, .png, etc.). You can create icons of different sizes, from 16x16 to 64x64. At the end you can save your work in a file .ico (.cur if instead we created a mouse cursor).
The graphic interface is intuitive and colorful, for a program that is simple to use and understand (at least for its main functions). Very, very nice.

Toolbox pixels

InkScape, streamlined interface

Operation is very simple, and following the tutorials available on the Inkscape can learn very quickly, to use (such as fast as with competitors charge, which surely have more features, but require a greater effort to be mastered).
The program is nice and easy to understand. Even those who have never used a vector graphics program, you may be able to draw in a few minutes of simple shapes vector.
Overall, another of those free programs for very high quality.

InkScape