5 replies to this topic

[Beta9]

Ok here we go.

I've made this list for people using WINDOWS XP SP 2 (many of these applications will not work with Vista). Included in this list are free programs that are all easy to use and powerful.

A PC can slow up due to fragmentation of the hard drive, 'clogged' up RAM, too much junk files, a bloated registry, too many running startup programs, etc. These programs are all designed to help speed up your PC.

Again, I use many of these programs on my PC and I have tested all of them.

Note: Download.com is a very good site to get PC downloads ... just ignore the editors' ratings (... of course companies bribe them) and just read the user ratings when looking for software.

1. Auslogics Disk Defrag (http://auslogics.com...efrag/index.php)

2. Tweak and Tune (http://www.download....tml?tag=lst-3-8)

3. Tune XP (http://www.download....tml?tag=lst-3-3) <--- this is a very POWERFUL application, if you are a novice PC user, I highly recommend reading the manual or ask for help on the forum when selecting which optimizations you want to run.

4. CCleaner (http://www.download....tml?tag=lst-3-3)

5. RAMBooster (http://www.download....tml?tag=lst-3-4)

6. PC Pal (http://www.download....tml?tag=lst-3-8)

7. Advanced WindowsCare Personal Edition (http://www.download....tml?tag=lst-3-9)

8. Instant Memory Cleaner (http://www.download....tml?tag=lst-3-6)

9. Wise Registry Cleaner (http://www.download....tml?tag=lst-3-6)

10. Wise Disk Cleaner (http://www.download....ml?tag=lst-3-10)

11. Iobit Smart Defrag (http://www.iobit.com...martdefrag.html)



Hope this saves you guys some time and cash when it comes to PC optimization. Remember to run these programs at least once a month to ensure that your PC is running at its optimal speed.

Please be aware, many of these programs are very powerful and can mess up your PC if you dont know how to use them.

Edited by Beta9, 26 August 2007 - 17:09.

[Liliana]

Everything that's somehow related to optimization in some way, even though the connection is obscure, is stuffed into one category. I'll try to organize them a bit:

Defragmenting: Windows has a built-in defragmenter (with the famous exception being NT up to version 4) but I don't believe in it (also, it doesnt give any information). For that I use shareware defragmenters, currently Diskeeper, which works nicely.
Disk cleaners: If you know the basic locations where useless stuff is stored then these applications are rendered useless. For those who don't, these applications may be useful though.
RAM optimizers: I don't believe in these either. The best thing to clean up RAM is a restart.
Registry cleaners: I'm neutral on this but currently don't use a registry cleaner because I fail to see the advantage of a cleaned up registry. Maybe if you deleted an application directly for whatever reason these might be useful, but that's it.
Registry tweakers: The XP PowerToys contain TweakUI which should fit the needs of the average user. Experienced users utilize regedit.exe and a reference chart.

I didn't find any startup cleaners in the list but there's msconfig.exe which fills that role quite nicely.

[logical2u]

Reg cleaning seems to just help make things tidier. If it keeps Windows from trying to reference them at certain times I can see an advantage, but other than that I only use Reg cleaning to make sure uninstalled stuff is truly gone, not for trying to speed up windows. There is no point to Windows referencing them at start up, so I don't imagine it actually DOES reference them, so I see no way for deletion of registry values (Other than those in the startup "key folders") to speed up Windows.

To do that I disable services/start up things. Just recently I disabled a dozen iPod services that the crap software known as iTunes installs. Oh, and Terminal Services again.

Spybot actually has a disk cleaner and Startup cleaner in it.

Tune-up utilities (Which is free for 30 days, but upon uninstalling all the changes you made to the reg, startup, etc, remain.) has all of the above in it. Until I figured out how to do my own optimization by hand I used it for startup changes, reg cleaning, reg tweaking, disk cleaning, etc. It also did Ram optimizing, but it seemed to drain a lot of resources.

[Beta9]

Prince Kassad, on 27 Aug 2007, 9:49, said:

I didn't find any startup cleaners in the list but there's msconfig.exe which fills that role quite nicely.

CCleaner has a built in start up manager. (Start it up -> Tools -> Startup)

Yes, you're right logical2u, TuneUp Utilities is a superb system cleaning suite along with Ashampoo WinOptimizer 4. Also, they both have free trial periods.

It's important to keep a clean registry because it will get bloated and its rather common sense, the more registry values there are, the longer it will take for your pc to access the relevant ones to the program you're running.

[Prophet of the Pimps]

best startup manager is startup.cpl. Tuning manually is the best thing to do. these auto tuners have a tendency of breaking your system.

[laserjet]

Here is another free software that works wonders in speeding up your internet connection and also downloads of music , games etc. It's called TCP Optimizer. Here is the link, http://www.downloads...4-10488572.html