Whether you're an official PC technician or a do–it–yourselfer, there are thousands of software tools out there that can help you troubleshoot and fix just about every computer issue. Some tools are straightforward and can be used by the average user, while some should only be used by professionals.

Here we'll review free utilities for the most popular issues. You can download the tools individually or use a boot CD (as discussed in the end of this article) that is preloaded with hundreds of tools.