Visit download.com, PCMag, Pcworld and you’ll still see a lot of software authors peddling their tune-up utilities. They come in an amazing variety with functions that’d make you gawk. Boil them down into general featureset and you can classify them loosely into three major categories. These would include:
The Disk Defragmenters…
Immediately Norton Speedisk, PerfectDisk and Diskeeper come to mind. They’ve been around since ’99 and increase speed by shuffling bits and bytes into contiguous areas. By minimizing disk head movement, OS response is improved.
Those Registry Optimizers…
Run the software and they offer an array of options which remove bloat from the multimegabyte registry by eliminating redundant, obsolete and faulty entries. Ashampoo and Regclean prove crowd favorites in this arena.
… and the much lauded System Tweaks…
Norton System Works and Ashampoo WinOptimizer let the user tweak system settings such as cache prioritization or menu timing. I’ve used this software extensively- till 2003.
The big question is: are they still relevant today?
Look back. PCs have gotten faster components. Dual Cores are on their way out. Quadcores and 8 core processors are taking their place. In the realm of hard drives, spindle speeds above 7000 rpm are the norm, with SSDs getting cheaper and cheaper.
I’ve tried running these optimizers on average systems of today and found that they’re now largely irrelevant.
You can apply all the tweaks. Get rid of the extra bloat in the registry. Increase menu speed. Reduce graphic load. Keep the disk clusters contiguous. Sure. Do they boost overall experience and responsiveness? HELL NO. Even the most defragmented SSD does not need a disk defragmenter because data is accessed not via a moving spindle- they’re read through solid state switches. That makes me wonder whether those companies selling SSD optimizers are scammers.
Then we have those tweakers that offer to deactivate all the services, graphic eye candy and whistles. These likewise do not make sense. With PCs so fast, and cores so many, you can have Photoshop, CorelDraw,AutoCAD running simultaneously without nary a hiccup on the average 2.2 Dualcore. Do you think turning off cascading menus or Aero would make a difference? That’s small fry next to AutoCad. Take my word for it. I’m an architect by profession and I run heavy design software on a regular basis.
Then get rid of the registry bloat and and clean out the temp file. Think that will make your coreduo behave like a speedy quadcore (as these vendors like to make you believe)? On the contrary. Those cached internet files are necessary to keep your PC from redownloading the same thing.
Do you have any PC over 2005? With at least 2 cores and 1 GB of RAM? If you do, don’t bother with optimization software. I’ve tried them on various configurations with those specs as the bottomline. They don’t increase your speed. They only boost your debt levels!
