Maintain, optimise and clean your PC with this all-in-one performance tool
Each successive release of Windows has done more to ensure your OS operates as smoothly as possible with the minimum amount of input from you. But over time, your Windows installation starts to lose its fizz and pop as detritus builds up, settings are set conservatively and minor bugs start to appear.
The appeal of a tool like Ashampoo WinOptimizer is that it promises to fix these problems quickly and easily, delivering a much needed performance boost alongside increased stability. Better still, it promises to then sit in the background keeping an eye on your PC for you, ensuring any problems or clutter are dealt with quickly and easily.
You could build a collection of free tools to do most of what WinOptimizer offers, but that involves installing a number of programs and potentially remembering to run each one at set intervals to keep on top of your PC’s maintenance.
WinOptimizer offers everything in a single tool wrapped up in a pleasant interface. Once installed, activated and loaded, you can quickly search for problems, switch on the various auto-tuning tools or wade into the program’s many options and tools to tweak things yourself – both beginners and experts are catered for here.
Sceptical about what the program can do? It contains its own benchmarking tool so you can perform a “before and after” test of your system. You’ll also find a number of useful file utilities for wiping, encrypting, splitting and undeleting too, plus tools for checking your hard drives and tweaking various parts of your system.
Version 9.0 introduces two new components – Registry defrag and HDD inspector – plus promises updated algorithms of existing tools for better performance and results. There’s also a revamped user interface, and support for the forthcoming Windows 8.
Note that the WinOptimizer 9 trial you can test here will work for 10 days initially and 30 if you obtain a trial serial code.
Review by Nick Peers.
