TuneUp Utilities 2008 goes Vietnam: The ultimate test

I have just returned from an adventurous vacation in Vietnam, a fabulous country. But what does this have to do with the new TuneUp Utilities 2008, which have just been released? The answer is here: In Saigon, the new suite presented me with an almost hopeless situation! [By Sandro Villinger]

Communication in Vietnam works surprisingly well when you consider that there weren't even any roads until 10-15 years ago. You can find internet lounges on every corner and our hotels were also equipped with 2-3 PCs. So we could always post pictures and experiences on the blog straight away... In Saigon (at the bottom of the south), however, our hotel had two computers. A Pentium III with 550 Mhz, 64 MB RAM and a 20 GB hard disk, of which exactly 3 MB were still free...

This terribly slow box became my guinea pig without further ado. The computer's performance was absolutely abysmal. Just opening Internet Explorer and loading a website took a whopping 15 seconds. As I was working with large (10 megapixel) photos from our series, copying, opening or even rotating images was a task that took an entire evening. At some point it was too much for me as I didn't have the time. And so I came up with the idea: "Hey, why don't I use TuneUp Utilities 2008 and get my computer up and running!".

Is TuneUp Utilities 2008 a match for these computers?

Nobody here definitely cares how much data junk accumulates and virus scanners have not yet caught on here either. After an extensive virus scan, which eliminated over 50 viruses and 23 Trojans, the computer was already 10-20% faster. So TuneUp Utilities 2008 probably faced its biggest enemy: A computer that had been running for 5-6 years is littered daily by locals and tourists and has NEVER had a shred of maintenance. Read the result of the clean-up operation here in a somewhat different test report...

Step 1 - Defragment the hard disk

The speed of a hard disk defines the overall working speed of the computer: how quickly Windows starts, how quickly programs open and how quickly data is loaded. A fragmented hard disk has a VERY negative effect on these factors. That's why I started the program "TuneUp Drive Defrag", which rearranges the structure of the hard disk so that the read/write head has significantly less effort when reading files.

Shocking: This hard disk was fragmented to 84%. A catastrophic value that can reduce read and write performance by 50-100%. TuneUp Utilities 2008 mastered this task much better than the Windows defragmentation and was able to reduce the fragmentation level to 0.00%. And that after only around 35 minutes.

Step 2 - Disable autostart programs

Cheeky as I am, I immediately got to work and edited the autostart programs of the lobby computer.

Here, too, the shock was great: over two dozen autostart programs extended the computer's startup time by a whopping 2-3 minutes, as in addition to viruses and spyware, a lot of useless software was installed, most of which was only installed briefly by tourists. The column "Rating", in which trustworthy and legitimate processes are highlighted. You can usually leave these processes active. If a "Unknown", you may need to do some research on the Internet.

On the left-hand side, you will find an explanation for an astonishing number of autostart entries. This makes it very easy to decide what is necessary and what is not.

After deactivating around 20 autostart entries, I restarted the tortured computer. Remarkable: Instead of a boot time of around 7 minutes, the 550 Mhz computer only needed 3 minutes to boot up completely and establish an Internet connection (a sign that most of the operating system is loaded). Another nice feature is the fact that unknown autostart entries can also be reported via TuneUp, so that you can help other users with your knowledge of an entry straight away.

Step 3 - Optimize the most important system settings

I was particularly curious here: the Windows settings were at the absolute standard level. So in the evening I started the "TuneUp System Optimizer", which first gives some good tips on how to fundamentally improve computer speed. This includes, for example, uninstalling applications (as around 140 applications were installed on the computer) and terminating extremely memory-hungry processes. From here you can also go directly to the "TuneUp Process Manager" and shut down the process. It seems that there was a spyware program left that was constantly taking up 40-50% of CPU power under the name "explorerxp.exe". After terminating the process, the system ran noticeably faster.

I immediately switched to the "System optimization" and was very excited. Under "Visual effects" I decided on "Maximum power", as nobody looks at the appearance on public computers anyway and speed is definitely the priority. With "Use of the computer" I chose "Computer with network and Internet connection". After all the recommended optimizations had been carried out, a restart was due. And again I was surprised: the system responded much faster. Of course, I optimized with the help of the "Internet optimization" can also be used to control the connection so that Internet Explorer can, for example, make significantly more connections to a server.

Even after this optimization it was clear: Windows works faster! Opening the desktop, displaying images, surfing websites. In short: after just these few steps, the stressed PC breathed a sigh of relief!

Step 4 - Now it's time for the registry...

The Windows registry database ("registry" for short) is the central hub of Windows. Almost every click in Windows involves accessing the registry. It is therefore all the more important that the registry is as small and tidy as possible. This is precisely the task of "TuneUp Registry Defrag".

Here the computer received a horrified shake of the head: Almost 40 MByte (!) of this PC's registry was superfluous. I didn't really trust TuneUp Utilities 2008 here....that can't be that much. So I first created a backup of the registry, which was done with the "Rescue Center" a lightness. I then carried out the optimization with an uneasy feeling. After the required restart (which was again shortened by 30 seconds), I tested Windows and all programs. Miracle: everything still worked perfectly! And once again, a significant step forward in terms of performance... TuneUp 2008 really impressed me here.

Step 5 - Spring cleaning in Vietnam...

The Swap file in Windows is used when the computer runs out of RAM. And on this PC, with only 64 MB of RAM, this happens very quickly. Deleting files is therefore an important step towards performance, as the swap file can grow dynamically.

The category "Gain storage space" was able to delete around 2 GB of data (e.g. browser cache, logs, backups, thumbnails). This took ages (around 10 minutes), but the hard disk activity was noticeably reduced afterwards. The swap file now had room to expand and the speed no longer dropped too much when the RAM was running low. TuneUp Utilities 2008 also offers the option of activating the "Idle state" to be switched off. Although this only uses 64 MByte of RAM, every little bit helps. On modern computers with 2 GBytes, this can also save a whopping 2 GBytes on the hard disk if you do not need hibernation.

Step 6 - Houston, we have a problem...

After many years of constant use, not only the software but also the hardware suffers. So I very curiously started the "TuneUp Disk Doctor" to eliminate possible hard disk errors. And there were! No question about it! I decided to use the "Intensive testing" and restarted the PC at the request of TuneUp. Hundreds (!) of errors were actually found at startup, which were reliably fixed by TuneUp.

We continued with the "TuneUp Repair Wizard", which recognizes and corrects dozens of known errors or misunderstandings (e.g. the "Run" command in the Start menu is not displayed - in Vista). In this way, many missing shortcuts (e.g. My Computer, Internet Explorer) can also be restored, font folders corrected, preview images repaired or problems with views in Explorer rectified.

Conclusion - 200-400% more power

Does that sound utopian? At first glance, yes! But my measurements (I spent a total of 4 hours in front of the computer testing...) blew me away. TuneUp Utilities 2008 was able to reduce the startup time from an unbearable 7 minutes to 3-4 minutes. It was able to double and sometimes quadruple the overall performance of the computer in most cases. I think it's interesting to see how effective TuneUp is, especially on completely cluttered and unmaintained computers, like this one PC in Saigon, Vietnam. But take a look at my measurements for yourself:

Of course, such results are really only to be expected on very cluttered computers. However, PCs that have been used by many people (e.g. in a large family) for 1-2 years are usually in a very similar condition. Under constant full load, even a 2.66 Core 2 Duo processor suddenly turns into a 1.4 Ghz snail. But TuneUp 2008 was also fully convincing on my computers and notebooks here at home: EVERYTHING runs noticeably faster and the system crashes less often.

Incidentally, the hotel owners must have often wondered what I was doing with the poor computer. The next morning I was also asked about it and I explained that I had used TuneUp 08 to speed up the computer. Of course, some of the hotel staff immediately sat down and were amazed: "Wow, the Internet starts up SO quick - how did you do that?".

I will of course be reporting more - especially on how TuneUp Utilities 2008 performs on more modern computers and notebooks. But this small field test abroad alone showed how effective this product can be.

My personal opinion of TuneUp Utilities 2008

This may come as a surprise to many readers: But unfortunately I often don't have the time to tune every computer and notebook to maximum performance after every new installation (and that happens very often in my job). That's why I use TuneUp Utilities on every PC, where it performs the most important measures for initial optimization and further maintenance with the utmost reliability.

Sincerely,
Yours, Sandro Villinger