Takeaway: From diagnostic tools to antivirus to backup utilities, this list of freebies will help you do more with less.

If you’re trying to stretch a thin IT budget, you probably can’t afford a lot of pricey tools. Luckily, a number of highly useful tools are available for free. Some of them even work better and are more efficient than their costlier alternatives.

1: ComboFix

When the standard antivirus/malware software can’t seem to find the problem, ComboFix almost always does. It also looks for and removes most rootkits and Trojans. To use this tool, you must completely disable all antivirus solutions (and you should completely remove AVG). Caution: If ComboFix is not used properly, it can wreak havoc on the machine you’re trying to fix.

2: ProduKey

ProduKey will help you get product keys from installed applications so that when you need to migrate to a new machine, you can continue using those costly licenses. ProduKey will recover keys from more than 1,000 software titles, including Microsoft Office, Adobe, and Symantec. When you use this tool, you will have both the product ID and the product key; the ID is important because it will tell you which version of the software is installed.

3: Hiren’s BootCD

Hiren’s BootCD is a one-stop-shop Linux boot disk that can help you pull off a number of small miracles. Its tools include Antivir, ClamWin, ComboFix, Clonedisk, Image for Windows, BIOS Cracker, 7-Zip, Bulk Rename, Mini Windows XP, CCleaner, and Notepad++, among others. This single bootable disk could easily be the only tool you need.

4: Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft Security Essentials is one of the better free antivirus tools available. Its tagline, “The anti-annoying, anti-expensive, anti-virus program,” is true. When the firm I work with was looking for a new free solution, we tested Microsoft Security Essentials against AVG Free and Avast Free and found Microsoft Security Essentials to be superior, less intrusive, and less resource intensive.

Note: Microsoft Security Essentials can be used for free for up to 10 PCs. Beyond that, you can purchase the business version, System Center Endpoint Protection.

5: WinDirStat

WinDirStat is the program you need when you must know what is taking up the space on a hard drive. When C drives begin to fill up, performance degrades rapidly. It’s essential to have a tool to help you discern what is gobbling up the precious space on a machine, and WinDirStat is the foremost app for getting this information quickly.

6: CCleaner

CCleaner gets rid of temporary files and Windows Registry problems faster than any other tool. When a machine is having problems, this is almost always the tool I use first. CCleaner also helps ensure privacy by getting rid of traces left behind (such as cookies) by Web browsers.

Note: It is legal to use CCleaner Free for business use. However, CCleaner Business Editioncomes with a few more features (including one-click cleaning) than the free version.

7: Defraggler

Defraggler blows away the defragmenting application in all Windows operating systems. It’s faster, more reliable, and more flexible than the built-in tools. With Defraggler, you can defrag a single file or an entire drive. Defraggler supports NTFS and FAT32 systems.

8: 7-Zip

7-Zip is the best file archiver/compression tool (outside of Linux command-line tools). It’s open source and works on multiple platforms. Once you install it, you will find 7-Zip has Explorer support and a simple GUI tool that any level of user can manage.

9: SyncBack

SyncBack is a reliable, easy-to-use backup utility. No, you won’t be recovering from bare metal, but you can save your precious data. SyncBack can synchronize data to the same drive, a different drive or medium (CDRW, CompactFlash, etc.), an FTP server, a network, or a zip archive.

10: FileZilla

FileZilla reminds you that the cloud has not made FTP useless. There are plenty of reasons you might need FTP, so why not use one of the best and most cost effective FTP clients? And if you need an easy-to-use FTP server to slap up on your Windows machines, FileZilla has one.

Summary: Technology will be embedded everywhere and disrupt traditional IT and the vendors and ecosystem that goes with it.

ORLANDO—Global technology spending will surpass the $4 trillion mark in 2016 and digitization of industries will ultimately force a rethink on what is IT overall, according to Gartner.

In other words, the technology pie is going to get a lot larger, but murkier.

The big theme: Cloud, mobile, social and big data will come together to create a technology boom with a bevy of challenges and disruption ahead.

“Every budget is an IT budget,” said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president of research at Gartner. “Technology is embedded in every product.”

His point: More technology spending will occur outside traditional procurement methods. Consumers will spend more disposable income on technologies. Industries traditionally thought to be non-tech will be digitized. And technology will be embedded into everything.

There will be chief digital officers in most companies. By 2015, 25 percent of companies will have a chief digital officer. The role: Digitize the business.

Gartner’s theme at its Symposium CIO powwow is that there’s a nexus of technologies that will revamp corporate technology, vendors and employment. Nexus is a word that will be beaten to death at this annual CIO leadership therapy session. The forces inside this nexus are all interdependent.

Some takeaways to ponder from Sondergaard’s talk:

• Big data is the killer application of the cloud.
• The cost savings of cloud haven’t been realized—subscriptions have trumped pay as you go.
• 80 percent of businesses are using SaaS.
• IT departments mostly use private clouds.
• Two versions of cloud are emerging—IT’s and everyone else.
• Business process services in the cloud will be a $145 billion market in 2016, doubling from today.
• Cloud will develop and transform with or without IT’s support.
• It’s the end of the beginning for corporate IT.
• Corporate IT needs to think mobile first in all designs.
• Big software vendors won’t be able to think mobile first.
• There will be more iPads in the enterprise than BlackBerries in two years.
• Enterprises will have to spend time monitoring physical assets and the data they spew.
• Social computing will become more important.
• 10 organizations in the U.S. will each spend more than $1 billion on social media in 2016.
• Automated and paid reviews will be common nefarious uses of social media.
• Continual stream of information will transform decision-making and industries.
• 85 percent of marketing organizations will outsource the analysis of big data.
• Companies will be judged based on the quality of their algorithms.
• CIOs will have to find new workers to do the big data jobs required.
• CIOs will have to think like entrepreneurs.

And the effects of this disruption:

• Consumers will spend more disposable income on technology spending. Consumer tech spending was 3% of disposable income in 2011. By 2015 will be 3.5 percent of spending.
• Security infrastructure will have to be rethought completely because it could hinder progress.
• Social and reputation wars will become an issue just like malware.
• The IT market will change. The large IT megavendors are being challenged by at least one of the forces in the nexus. “Are your vendors accelerating your march into the future or putting the brakes on your progress?” asked Sondergaard.
• Spending on technology outside the IT market will surpass levels inside.
• 1.9 million IT jobs will be created in the U.S.
• 6 million jobs in the U.S. created by information economy over the next 4 years.
• There isn’t enough talent to fill those jobs.