These forgotten Microsoft tools do what I used to pay for

At a glance:

• PowerToys’s FancyZones replaces paid window‑manager software like DisplayFusion
• Sysinternals suite (Process Explorer, Autoruns) offers free system‑monitoring capabilities that rival commercial tools
• Windows Terminal provides tabs, pane splitting and GPU rendering at no cost, eliminating the need for third‑party terminal emulators

PowerToys offers free window management and file‑renaming

Microsoft’s PowerToys bundle includes FancyZones, a grid‑based window‑snapping utility that lets users define custom zones for apps. The author previously paid for DisplayFusion to keep a text editor, terminal and browser in fixed positions across multiple monitors; FancyZones replicates that core feature without a license fee. In addition to FancyZones, PowerToys ships with PowerRename, a bulk‑renaming tool that supports regular expressions and find‑and‑replace, covering use‑cases that many paid file‑renamers target.

While some PowerToys components feel like work‑in‑progress, the combination of FancyZones and PowerRename alone provides enough value to justify installing the suite. The author notes that PowerToys also contains a variety of other utilities, meaning users often discover additional time‑savers beyond the two highlighted tools.

Sysinternals provides free system‑monitoring tools

The Sysinternals collection, acquired by Microsoft in 2006, bundles a set of advanced diagnostics utilities that are freely downloadable. Process Explorer, the flagship tool, offers far more detail than the built‑in Task Manager, showing loaded DLLs, open handles and parent‑process relationships. This granular view is essential when troubleshooting misbehaving applications, allowing administrators to pinpoint the exact cause rather than merely killing a process.

Autoruns, another Sysinternals utility, enumerates everything configured to run at startup—including scheduled tasks, shell extensions, browser add‑ons, drivers and services. Together, Process Explorer and Autoruns give administrators a “Task Manager on steroids,” eliminating the need for multiple paid monitoring solutions and streamlining startup‑time optimization.

Windows Terminal gives free advanced terminal features

Before Windows Terminal, the author cycled through PuTTY, SecureCRT, MobaXterm and other commercial emulators to get tabbed sessions, pane splitting and GPU‑accelerated text rendering. Windows Terminal now bundles all of those capabilities: native tabs, split panes, hardware‑accelerated rendering, and full customisation via JSON‑based profiles for colours, fonts and key bindings. The terminal can launch Command Prompt, PowerShell or WSL instances without leaving the application, making it a universal gateway for all Windows command‑line environments.

Because the configuration is stored in a portable JSON file, users can copy their customised setup to any new Windows machine, dramatically reducing the time required to provision a development workstation. The author concludes that Microsoft’s built‑in tools often outperform paid alternatives while remaining completely free.