This is historical information.
In the past I did not provide executables for the tools so other people produced some (which are also useful even if you are using Windows). Vu The Huy (who also works on PDOS) from Vietnam has independently created executables which can be found here. I ran my 6144-byte (if you don't have a hex dump utility already, then at least verify this size when you download it) md5 "AD7DF06D7519EDD95AC902ACB6077C92" (and hexdump output is here) utility (but note that it is probably technically incorrect, because it doesn't produce the same value as seen here when run on those files) on pdwdev.zip and it produced an ID of "8BFF6BB095F5536307CB6CBC6792699E". I unzipped it using mvsunzip "249FDD9305AAD039998156A9882047C8" ("mvsunzip pdwdev.zip binary"). Both of those utilities come from OZPD and if you aren't running normal Windows (e.g. you are running Freedos + HX) you may need my own version of msvcrt.dll. The executables are basically identical (just timestamp differences I think) when a binary compare is done, but because ldwin embeds the executable name, and Huy changed windows.mak, to reproduce the results you also need to change gcc-new.exe to gccwin.exe/gcc386.exe. If you want total integrity, do not rely on any executables that you didn't build yourself from source. Not sure what you can use as a reliable starting point though. If you trust either Open Watcom or Borland C++, you can build gccwin using those tools (see the *.mak files in the GCC distribution I provide). Visual Studio can also be used to do the build, but for some reason the resultant executable isn't reliable enough to allow gccwin to rebuild itself. Hopefully Huy will also create a complete Freedos disk image and I will link to that if he is successful, so you will have a complete standalone build environment.
The PDOS/386 disk image I ship used to contain only public domain material. However, there is lots of other useful software out there that is freeware, just not public domain. I let other people build that and you can download that and copy it onto the disk yourself. Or they may provide complete disk images for your convenience. I will update this as more people report having built something useful.
Emy Grace Alday from the Philippines has compiled a modified (by me) Micro-Emacs 4.00 (a text editor, just like "notepad" is a text editor, except notepad is GUI-based while micro-emacs is a text mode application) and made it available here. I compared the e.exe, MD5 "0309E15406EF4BB869D75E14C17F44A8", and it is identical to the one I built on my own system. Not even timestamp differences, because this is an a.out executable which doesn't embed timestamps. Note that a.out executables ONLY work on PDOS/386. A version that works on both normal Windows and PDOS/386 will hopefully be produced in the future. Useful keystrokes are ctrl-x, ctrl-s to save, ctrl-x, ctrl-c to exit. ctrl-g a couple of times if you make a mistake. Put the emacs.rc in the same location as the e.exe.
Huy has built Micro-Emacs for Windows (should run on everything since Win95 plus Freedos+HX, but not PDOS/386) and it is available here. I compared the e.exe, MD5 "13C0F06BE476C6F5F3EAC14B67E1C663", and it is just 6 bytes different from the one I built, due to the usual timestamp differences. Also he has built bwbasic here. bwbasic.exe has MD5 of "6CC6C29991DC6EA06FEDBE38022D17B3" and renum.exe has MD5 of "2C8347CA01E0556FBBF89BEAA48338DE". 9 bytes and 8 bytes different to mine respectively.
Chabbie from the Philippines has built "rm" and made it available here with MD5 "1A54F4F9E78FF7F11257472202D0EC52" and it passed my usual checks (6 bytes of timestamp differences). Note that if you download any packages that say "use pdmake", the makefiles often have "rm" in them to delete files, but without rm available, pdmake will stop. Unless you specify "-i" to ignore errors, but that ignores all errors, so it is not a good option. So this is an important utility to have. The source code is available in the "ozpd" link. Note that it was built by renaming rm.c to pdptest.c and running "pdmake -i -f makefile.msv" so you will need to do that if you wish to reproduce the exact executable.
Included here is a Windows VHD image that can be mounted by going to a command prompt and typing "diskmgmt.msc". You can then add your own things to it, dismount it, and boot it under Bochs. You should really replace the MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM too, but the IO.SYS is a bit tricky to replace. A VHD can also be burned to USB stick with Win32 Disk Imager if you select "all files" instead of "*.img", so that you can have a standalone system. It can also be used with Oracle VM Virtualbox meaning that PDOS runs at full native speed.
Some old distributions were produced independently of me.
Chabbie has created her own distribution here called Chabbie/386 which includes bwbasic and micro-emacs plus the programming tutorial so you may be able to learn how to do programming using just this.
Red has created his own distribution here called Red/386. You'll have to download it yourself to see what it contains.