Does anyone use PC optimizer software?

[Rob Williams]

As the title asks, does anyone here use any software that's used to "optimize" your Windows PC? CCleaner is one example, though there are other solutions that take things a bit further, such as Iolo's System Mechanic and Uniblue's PowerSuite and I'm sure a bunch of others.

Uniblue sent us a license for the latest version of its PowerSuite, so for the hell of it, I'm giving it a go. I don't think I need it, but a lot of people might (I am guessing most enthusiasts wouldn't need it so much). The key in testing it is making sure it doesn't break my system or cause any other issue that's rather in-your-face.

The program does it all... cleans up your junk files, defrags your hard drive, tells you if you need to update your drivers and so forth. I am not expecting anything amazing from it, but it'll be interesting nonetheless, and might be good for a quick review (we're a tech site after all, not just an enthusiast site ;-)).

Way, way back in the day, when madmat took a look at System Mechanic 6, it totally borked his rig, so I'm being safe here and keeping good backups of my OS before I install Uniblue's solution

[Psi*]

Don't you wonder where the H everyone is?!?!? Ok, it is summer. But what can people be thinking and seemingly dis their tech sites?You could almost think that they were on vacation + getting paid to drop off the grid!

For those of us that do not have a real life, I am very curious about anything that is an improvement over CCleaner + MS Sec. Essentials + built in system clean up & disk optimizing. Recently I was made aware of the frailties of old mainstays as spybot & adaware.

Curious minds await.

[Big Red Machine]

I used to run a whole suite of stuff, including CCleaner. Not anymore, though.

I think these days it's harder to detect any perceivable benefits of such programs because the hardware is just so much faster than necessary in most cases. Back in the days of 2GB of RAM and WinXP and mechanical HDDs, you could sometimes still get some benefits that you can feel at the keyboard level. These days, though, I certainly can't anymore.

[Doomsday]

Originally Posted by Psi*

Don't you wonder where the H everyone is?!?!? Ok, it is summer. But what can people be thinking and seemingly dis their tech sites?You could almost think that they were on vacation + getting paid to drop off the grid!

For those of us that do not have a real life, I am very curious about anything that is an improvement over CCleaner + MS Sec. Essentials + built in system clean up & disk optimizing. Recently I was made aware of the frailties of old mainstays as spybot & adaware.

Curious minds await.

I'm in a Galaxy far far away!

[Rob Williams]

Originally Posted by Psi*

Don't you wonder where the H everyone is?!?!? Ok, it is summer. But what can people be thinking and seemingly dis their tech sites?You could almost think that they were on vacation + getting paid to drop off the grid!

Tell me about it. I guess I haven't been quite as active as I should be, but damn, this place be dead (atm).

Originally Posted by Psi*

For those of us that do not have a real life, I am very curious about anything that is an improvement over CCleaner + MS Sec. Essentials + built in system clean up & disk optimizing. Recently I was made aware of the frailties of old mainstays as spybot & adaware.

What are the problems with Ad-aware and SpyBot? I don't use them, but generally when I build someone a new rig, I'll toss on a copy of Ad-Aware, though recently I've been installing something else (can't remember the name of it at the moment).

Originally Posted by Big Red Machine

I used to run a whole suite of stuff, including CCleaner. Not anymore, though.

I still use CCleaner, just because I like to keep on top of junk that lingers around the system. Cleaning up regularly might not improve performance much if at all, but there's just something in me that likes to keep things neat and tidy, especially the registry given how crowded and messed up it can be. I guess if gives me the idea of a smooth-running machine, even if Windows does plague me with a different major glitch every couple of weeks.

This format, I am being a little weary about over-using it, though. In the past bunch of Windows installs, various program icons would disappear; eg: instead of seeing pretty MS Office and Adobe Reader icons, I'd see default icons instead. But since the format, I've been doing a couple of things differently, such as -not- installing optional updates in Windows Update, and also not using CCleaner too frequently. If I do end up having this icon issue pop up again, I am going to restore my PC using Acronis to the fresh format date, uninstall CCleaner and then see if it ever creeps up.

Originally Posted by Big Red Machine

I think these days it's harder to detect any perceivable benefits of such programs because the hardware is just so much faster than necessary in most cases. Back in the days of 2GB of RAM and WinXP and mechanical HDDs, you could sometimes still get some benefits that you can feel at the keyboard level. These days, though, I certainly can't anymore.

I think it could depend on what you are doing, and how good your rig is. This program I'm testing has the ability to manage CPU processes and try to juggle them in such a way that everything seems smoother (let's be honest, Windows isn't the greatest at this). It also allows you to tweak a bunch of miscellaneous items which are small in the grand scheme but could result in a smoother-running system overall. I'm of course not too confident I'll see much of a difference given I am using an SSD and a capable CPU, but I'll give it a whirl nonetheless.

Originally Posted by Doomsday

I'm in a Galaxy far far away!

I am not sure if that means you're addicted to SWTOR or what ;-)

[madmat]

Ever since the Sys Mech 6 incident I've been too paranoid to try any of that stuff again. Once bitten twice shy.

[Tharic-Nar]

I use TCP Optimizer, it works, relatively safe, and it only affects the network stack. Anything else is largely snake oil laced with LSD - the feel good factor after you 'think' it fixed 320 million problems, only to reboot into a contorted reality that you may very well have just bricked your computer.

Ok, so that was a little bit harsh, but honestly, most of the fixes that are often applied are for pre-SP1 versions of Windows XP, that or it's the right fix for the wrong reason. The whole registry entry thing is just silly, removing entries to speed up boot times - never made a difference. Even after you scan the system once, reboot and scan again, it'll find more problems, every time you run it.

They're often good for option consolidation, but if you don't know what each option does, read up on it, then decide to use it, otherwise you can do more harm than good.

[Rob Williams]

Originally Posted by madmat

Ever since the Sys Mech 6 incident I've been too paranoid to try any of that stuff again. Once bitten twice shy.

Yeah... and if I recall correctly, you even reinstalled all of Windows at the time just to test it fresh, and it still gave issues.

Originally Posted by Tharic-Nar

Anything else is largely snake oil laced with LSD - the feel good factor after you 'think' it fixed 320 million problems, only to reboot into a contorted reality that you may very well have just bricked your computer.

I do agree for the most part. The humorous thing is that Windows should ship with these tweaks to begin with. What we're given from a fresh install is a configuration that errs on the side of caution, so for that reason I like that these tools exist.

Here's a couple of things this program tweaks that's a little notable:

Disable kernel paging
Enable large system cache
Tweak CPU scheduling
Enable the NIC onboard processor (funny it notices this because I have it disabled in BIOS)
Disable the QoS bandwidth limit
Enable boot defragmentation

It does do a couple of things I don't like. For example it'd split a pagefile across each drive in order to minimize the impact on each drive, but I don't want to have one at all (well, for failsafe I have a 16KB pagefile to start on a non-SSD).

It also has tweaks where if your computer is feeling sluggish, you can go to the "Unused Processes" section and close things that aren't being used, and in addition, it can stop "Unnecessary" processes from starting up at boot, and in its list is Adobe Updater, Google Updater and a personal favorite, the SearchIndexer.