I’ve used System Mechanic in the past, and I’ve thought about buying it, or Fix it Utilities but for now I’m using a bunch of freeware programs and am wondering if they are doing as good a job as if I were to buy one of the commercial bundles. I use the following freeware programs:
[ul]
[li]CCleaner - Clean out junk files.[/li][li]Eusing Free Registry Cleaner[/li][li]Free Registry Defrag[/li][li]Orphansremover - Fix or remove broken shortcuts.[/li][li]TCPOptimizer - Speed up network connection.[/li][li]Antivirus & spyware programs[/li][li]SpywareBlaster - Real time protections[/li][li]SuperAntiSpyware Free Edition[/li][li]Defrag programs[/li][li]Power Defragmenter[/li][li]Smart Defrag[/li][li]PageDfg - Defrag the page file.[/li][/ul]
Should I keep using these, or would I get better results buying commercial software?
a) What OS?
b) I can’t say as the average person, with a properly protected PC (Virus Scanner) would need ANY kind of ‘maintenance’ suite. It’s a scam.
If we’re talking Windows XP, it includes a Defragger (right click the disk, select properties, select the tools tab). It includes a backup utility. There are several FREE virus scanners, most reciently, Microsoft’s own Security Essentials (http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/) has reviewed well.
Keep your machine automatically patched. It updated Microsoft’s malicious software removal tool.
Lastly, there’s something to be said for having the media available for a clean reinstallation, and a tested backup method to make sure your data IS backed up.
There are a number of encrypted offsite backup functions that would be even better as they protect from things like fire or complete system theft. (carbonite.com backs up an unlimited amount of data for, like, $4.50 a month)
Heck, I don’t even use a virus scanner (aside from windows defender, which I’m not sure is even included in Windows 7). I just use common sense when using my computer. It seems like the more of a novice are, the better chance of you getting a virus. NO, you do NOT have to install the codec that the website is asking you to install. NO, that banner ad saying that your computer is infected is not true, but click it and it WILL become infected. Always check the .nfo file before downloading warez (chances are, if it’s a virus there won’t even be a .nfo), and if it’s a BT, the comments. If there’s a virus/spyware, you’ll be warned.
I’m using Windows 7 and I do keep it up-to-date with regular updates. I’m not worried about viruses, just in keeping my computer running fast and smooth.
Then use nothing more than Microsoft’s Security Essentials and leave it. I’ve had family member’s computer get all gunked up more from the competing ‘health maintenance’ apps than anything virulent.
If you installed and removed software repeatedly (e.g. a software developer) I could see the registry bloating, if you ran a lot of video on and off the machine, I could see fragmentation being an issue. You can defrag with utilities included in the OS, and I doubt you’re in a position to gunk up the registry.
I’d not worry about it.
ETA: Windows 7 is new do you honestly expect the ‘tune up folks’ know how to get it running ‘fast and smooth’?
Except where it isn’t. The biggest problem I have with your list of applications is things like TCPOptimizer. Know what it does? IT changes the the Max Transmission Unit setting in the registry. One. Little. Setting. Which doesn’t affect much for the VAST majority of people out there. The other options it lets you change will DRASTICALLY, HARMFULLY, affect your throughput. MTU is the only one that marginally affects things, and only if you’re in the one or two rare situations where the Computer wants to sent 1500 byte packets and your Dial-up prefers 982. That was a problem in XP, pre service pack 1.
Microsoft purchased Sysinternals, Sysinternals has, for free, a registry defragmenter. Use it if ya want, I guess.
The reality is: unless you’re moving video around, some fragmentation of the files on the system are expected, and don’t affect much. Registry Hives or otherwise, there will be some fragmentation. Disk Caches and an aggressive pre-fetch obviate some of the performance hit.
How much RAM do ya have? If you have enough, then the system will use the page file much less. That will speed things up a heckuva lot more than defragging the page file. Disk is roughly 1000x slower than RAM. Keeping the system out of RAM starvation will do more for your perceived performance than anything you can do by sorting data around on the drive.
The biggest problem I have with your list of applications is things like TCPOptimizer. Know what it does? IT changes the the Max Transmission Unit setting in the registry. One. Little. Setting. Which doesn’t affect much for the VAST majority of people out there. The other options it lets you change will DRASTICALLY, HARMFULLY, affect your throughput. MTU is the only one that marginally affects things, and only if you’re in the one or two rare situations where the Computer wants to sent 1500 byte packets and your Dial-up prefers 982. That was a problem in XP, pre service pack 1.