Re: System Mechanic?

Wow, thanks guys! Galen, I knew would share lots and Carey I am very
impressed. :o)

--

All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP)

Troubleshooting Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com



"Galen" <galennews@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:e8SQJRjhFHA.3012@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> In news:%23zRNyoihFHA.3448@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
> James <leushinonospam@xxxxxxxxx> had this to say:
>
> My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:
>
>> Kelly wrote:
>>> We want more, Galen. :o) Carey is the only other MVP that supports
>>> this tool. However, he is very limited in the word category and you
>>> aren't. Speak to us...... :o)
>>>
>> Okay... so there's more to this story? I'm all ears.
>
> I have used System Mechanic (from IOLO) for a rather long time now. Why?
> Because it's a fairly good generic product that does a generally good job.
> Here's what I do with it:
>
> I allow it to clean my cookies - it keeps the ones I selected it to keep
> and remembers those settings.
>
> It cleans my temp files but again allows me to select which ones I want to
> keep and remembers them. In fact it does find all sorts of temp and zero
> length files all over the place and does a pretty good job with it.
>
> I don't usually allow it to scan my registry but I have and it's never
> broken anything. I'm a bit old school with the whole registry thing. I do
> let it scan once in a while but then I delete the items manually after
> checking them. I've given it a go all on it's own and let it run fully and
> it did not break anything.
>
> I can uninstall software from within the application. I can also use it to
> delete duplicate files. What I don't suggest is that most people use it to
> delete duplicate files. You can, and probably will, break something. Some
> files are duplicates for a reason. They need to be checked. Today's
> version actually has a "holy crap" button where it keeps the files you
> deleted just in case and then deletes them when you do a cleanup again.
>
> Let's see... You can automatically fix broken shortcuts or delete them if
> the target is not found. The newer version even has an option to recover
> deleted data.
>
> The newest will check for spyware, it's not the best search and it hasn't
> found anything yet so I don't know how well it works. (I have MSAS running
> with it's real time protection activated.)
>
> It has a decent defrag utility. I don't know if they licensed that from
> someone else or if it was in-house. It even has boot-time defrag of the
> MFT, page file, and registry hives.
>
> You can manage your startup items and save alternate configurations. That
> has come in handy more than one time.
>
> I'd like to list all of the tweaks that it has in a tweaking section but
> that would take too long to type I'm afraid. It does have some nice ones
> and I've been known to use them before mostly because I like the idea of
> doing as much as I can with one application so that I know where I need to
> go to reverse it should it happen to have been a bad choice.
>
> Err... Well... It DOES have the RAM defrag option but we all know what I
> think about those probably so you can understand that that's not an option
> I use and wouldn't suggest anyone else bother with either.
>
> Anyhow, you can find loads more in the trial version. You can also opt to
> install a firewall and AV software with it. I never have and doubt I ever
> will. What I do like about this particular application is that the
> firewall and AV options are seperate. They don't run as a suite so if one
> goes down you're not entirely compromised. That's one of the reasons I try
> to recommend people looking for alternatives as opposed to full blown
> suite applications for security software.
>
> You can do things like scrub your drive and securely erase data. It's
> really rather nice and I've been using it for ages. I did end up buying
> their toolkit that they were selling from tigerdirect.com a couple of
> years ago. I've since abandoned it for ERD. I have the current version
> loaded on this system. It's 5.0 Professional. I would recommend the
> professional version over the regular version for the additional tools.
>
> Here's some additional information:
>
> http://www.iolo.com/sm/5pro/index.cfm
>
> On a scale of 1 to 10 I give the product an 8.7 and I think that I
> generally rate products pretty hard.
>
> Galen
> --
>
> "But there are always some lunatics about. It would be a dull world
> without them."
>
> Sherlock Holmes
>


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