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TuneUp Utilities 2011, Reviewed.

There are a few hard fast truths in life when it comes to computers. One such truth is that the more programs you install, the slower your system becomes. In fact, it's not just a law of computing - it's a big pain for PC users in every walk of life!

You can see evidence of this in late night television. Just pay attention to the number of late night infomercials for miracle software that will make your PC faster. In fact, one such piece of infomercial junkware is actually called My Faster PC! Other variations on this theme usually revolve around changing the order of the keywords or substituting similar terms... MyCleanPC or CleanMyPC etc.. you get the idea.

Those are nothing more than junk, sold to unsuspecting users in their moment of frustration and weakness.

A better solution to your slow PC problems is TuneUp Utilities 2011

Their motto is:

"Deactivation instead of installation"

Features

• Fixes software problems and speeds up you PC.

• Provides the tools to properly maintain up to 3 PCs.

• New program deactivator with programs-on-demand technology.

• Selectively turn off 70+ windows features that are not used on a daily basis.

• Turbo Mode helps you get your PC to maximum speed.

• User-friendly Start Center makes it easy to see your optimization status at a glance.

• Includes over 30 intuitive optimization tools.

Description

TuneUp Utilities 2011 is a comprehensive suite of tools designed to automatically optimize Windows and make your PC run like new again. TuneUp can help you free up disk space and increase performance by up to 60%. It will also help you clean up Windows and solve numerous problems or the many annoyances common with Windows.

TuneUp features an easy to follow Optimization Report which outlines the maintenance that should be performed as well as the problems it will fix.

All of this can be set to run when your PC is idle. That means TuneUp will be busy working on your system only when you're not - no interruption in your schedule!



System Requirements

• Windows XP (Service Pack 2 or higher), Windows Vista or Windows 7 (32- and 64-Bit)

• Processor with at least 300 MHz, 256 MB RAM

• Screen resolution at least 1024 x 600 pixels

• Online version: min. 80 MB free hard disk space

• CD version: min. 300 MB free hard disk space (and CD or DVD drive)

• Internet Explorer 6 or higher

Why I love this product.

There are dozens of utilities on the market and hundreds of freeware and shareware utilities on the web that do a lot of what TuneUp does, but TuneUp packages all those disparate features into one easy to use program.

But that's just a nice thing to have. What really sets TuneUp Utilities 2011 apart from this crowd is its ability to deactivate, or disable other programs instead of uninstalling them.

This is the first utility I've seen that enables the user to selectively choose which programs run and which do not without uninstalling them. This means that you can try out different scenarios before you commit to removing the applications.

All too often people uninstall programs in the hope of improving performance or fixing some sort of crash only to find that it didn't help and they would have continued to use that program if they knew it wasn't contributing to the problem.

Also, TuneUp lets you put your PC into Turbo Mode to maximize performance. This is unlikely to be a long term solution for most users, as it disables many windows features and applications that the user might actually use, but it provides a way to test out the PC in a stripped-down, lean and mean sort of setting. If your PC is slow in Turbo Mode, then it's likely you need to upgrade your hardware and simple software tweaks aren't going to be enough.

On the other hard, you may discover that your PC is much faster, and that you can adjust your style to use less of what you have installed. You may have a new computer without having to actually buy one, and how nice would that be?

Tuneup Utilities 3-User

LapLink PC Mover Reviewed.

It's a little known fact that only  14 of the 66 possible upgrade scenarios detailed by Microsoft are supported by Windows 7. Worse yet - upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 is not one of those 14 supported!

So what's a PC user to do?

PCmover Windows 7 Upgrade Assistant

PC mover Windows 7 Upgrade Assistant, by Laplink, steps in to fill this gap left by Microsoft.

Besides being one of the best and easiest ways to  upgrade from XP to Windows 7, it may be one of the only ways.

PCmover Windows 7 Upgrade Assistant provides an easy to follow process to upgrade or migrate your applications and settings from any version of Windows 2000 and up.

Whether it's from one PC to another or on a single PC before and after a Windows 7 Upgrade, your programs, files and settings are transferred from your previous installation of Windows to your Windows 7 installation.


The only path to Windows 7 from XP.
As mentioned above, users who want to upgrade their existing Windows XP to Windows 7 really have no other way to do so without reinstalling (and re-registering and configuring) everything afterwards.

Take a look at this chart, detailing the supported upgrade paths from Microsoft

As you can see, the only way to upgrade from XP to Windows 7 without reinstalling everything is with a program like PCmover.

PCmover allows you to migrate your programs, settings and registration info in one easy to follow process without the original installation CDs  and serial numbers.

Why Microsoft chose to not support the most common upgrade paths like XP to Windows 7, Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional and Vista 32-bit to Windows 7 64-bit is beyond me, but PCMover handles all of these.

Features.

PCmover Windows 7 Upgrade Assistant makes upgrading from any version of Windows (2000 and later) to Windows 7 easy.

Easy to follow process:

1. Simply choose which applications you want to move to your upgraded PC
2. Choose which folders you want and uncheck any file types that you don't want
3. Follow the simple wizard to perform the upgrade
4. All programs, files and settings remain as they were in your old operating system with one easy step

You choose the applications you want to have on your upgraded PC.You choose the folders and files to carry forward. You don't have to register, reinstall or re-enter serial numbers when you're done!

Pros

Laplink has a history of quality and reliability. PCmover Windows 7 Upgrade Assistant continues this history.

If instructions and precautions are observed, PCmover really will migrate your data from your old machine to your new, Windows 7 machine. It can save you hours of reinstalling hassle!

PCmover's user interface is simple and easy to follow, with familiar metaphors like Moving Van graphics and indicators to help make things easier to understand.

Cons

As easy as PCMover makes the process of migrating your existing applications and data to Windows 7, it's still a very complicated process. Here are a few tips to help you avoid some of the situations commonly at the heart of some of the bad reviews on the web:

• Be sure to backup your data before running PCMover.

• Read the manual before completing the process.

It's especially important to follow those 2 steps when doing an in-place upgrade to Windows 7 using PCmover. This is when you're upgrading your existing version of Windows on a single machine. It's a much more complex process and inherently more prone to problems. Observing all the instructions will reduce if not eliminate these problems.

It's also important to note that there are some programs that may not be compatible with the new hardware or with Windows 7. PCMover cannot correct this problem, and you will need to contact the company that produces the old program and see if there is a newer version that's compatible with your hardware.

Additionally, files with Digital Rights Management (DRM) such as music files and programs that require keys or serial numbers with a hardware fingerprint may require reactivation.

Lastly, PCMover is an upgrade only solution - it does not integrate applications and setting from Windows 7 down to XP or Vista or any other version of Windows older than 7.

Free Antivirus Recommendations (Protect Yourself Online With FreeAntiVirus Software).

I got tired of shelling out $40+ a year for antivirus protection long ago. Aside form the price, what really bugged me was the bloat! It became more and more difficult to find a simple antivirus or rootkit scanner, without system tuning, performance monitoring and benchmarking bloat that the big guys were packaging with their virus scanner.

The great thing is - with all the free antivirus programs available today, you don't need to shell out any money and most are simply virus protection without the bloat.

Free Antivirus Recommendations

There are many free antivirus programs on the Internet today. I've been looking for the best for my home PC, and to that end I examined ClamWin, Avast!, AVG, Antivir. Here are my thoughts on each:

ClamWin.

PROS:
ClamWin has an simple user interface, and is available in a portable version that can run on a USB thumb drive.

CONS:

Doesn't include an on-access, real-time scanner. This means it's basically relegated to an "after the fact" scanner - only worthwhile if you suspect you have an infection. This is enough to disqualify it from the running for my purpose, though I do use it on my thumb drive. I might come in handy if I need to diagnose a friend's PC problem someday, (which actually happens quite a bit to me!)

AVG.

I then moved on to AVG. I have used (and still use today on my laptop) AVG 7.5 for over a year now with no complaints. When I saw they had a new version (8.0), with a slick new interface and a scan engine revamped for speed I figured I'd upgrade to 8.0 and be loving life.

Not so much.

AVG 8.0 would not work when installed on my 2000 desktop. It installed, but would not scan. Neither would it save any settings. There was no error message, it just behaved as though I never issued a command. In short, it blew me off. So I blew it off, and when back to 7.5.

PROS:
The AVG 7.5 interface is simple, not slick but effective. It gets the job done, and uses minimal system resources to do it and that's a plus in my book. AVG free offers email protection (inbound and outbound) as well as protection against worms, viruses, and Trojans.

CONS:
AVG makes a rootkit detector and anti-phishing software, but offers both of these as separate programs. This might not bother some users, but it does provide a feature gap between its paid for counterparts like Symantec and McAfee.

Perhaps the biggest drawback to AVG 7.5 free is the scheduler. The user can schedule a full computer scan and daily definition updates, but they cannot choose the exact time of each. Instead, the interface offers a time range to choose from. For example, the user can select to have the definition updates downloaded between 6 am - 8 am, and the program will select a random time within that range. This is an annoyance, but could be problematic for users who shutdown their PCs at night.

AntiVir

Since the latest AVG interface was problematic on my older computer, I started my search again for a better option. Next I tried Avira Antivir Free. At first, this was a serious contender offering robust coverage of various types of attack. Then I noticed a serious flaw - no email scanner! Couple that with an obnoxious ad window, and it was on to the next candidate.

PROS:
While AVG offers rootkit detection as a separate product, Antivir includes rootkit detection, as well as protection against worms, viruses, and Trojans. Antivir also includes protection against phishing.

CONS:
Avira Antivir Free does not have an email scanner. This is something that is included with the other packages reviewed here, and it seems like a pretty big gap since email is a major entry point for virus infection. One of the biggest downsides, IMO, is an in-your-face very LARGE ad window that crops up daily. With the other options out there in the free antivirus market, this is enough to make me take a pass on AntiVir

Avast! 4 Home Edition.

The last free antivirus program I tried was Avast! 4 Home Edition. Quite frankly, it's the last one I tried because it was the best.

PROS:
Avast! includes Anti-spyware and Anti-rootkit built-in. Each is implemented in separate processes for scanning web, mail, P2P, IM, network and on access traffic. Each one of these processes can be stopped, started or disabled so if you don't have P2P or IM software - you can disable it. This is quite handy on older PCs with less available resources. It also offers Automatic updates, Virus Chest and System integration. The UI is excellent (especially for a free app) and it supports 64-bit Windows and Internationalization.

CONS:

I honestly haven't noticed any real problems with Avast!. If I had to choose something, I suppose I'd say that it is a bit more heavy on the RAM usage than some of the others, but given the completeness of the features, I don't think it's excessive. Besides, the modular scanner architecture allows you to shut down or disable unneeded services.

Free Firewall Recommendations (Protect Yourself Online With These FreeFirewalls)

If your home computer is connected to the internet, or to other computers that are connected to the internet - you need a firewall. It's as simple as that.

Hackers and hacker software are constantly probing the internet for computers without a firewall. When such a computer (A.K.A. "victim") is found, it is targeted with spyware, viruses, trojans, key stroke loggers and anything else a deviant mind can devise. If you don't want to be a victim, then you need to protect yourself.

How not to be a victim.

Here are 2 really great personal firewall programs that are absolutely free for personal use.

Comodo

Comodo is free for home use. You may be wondering why a company would give away a program for free that is sold for $40 and more by other companies. This thought alone is often enough for many computer owners to skip the free alternative and shell out the money for the "internet protection" software suites.

This is a very normal concern, but here are some things to consider that will probably alleviate those worries.

1). Take a look at those Internet protection suites and see what's included.
Often times, it's not just a firewall but anti spyware, anti virus, web filters, system tuning and maintenance - in other words, the kitchen sink! This is because the makers of the all-inclusive software suites know that each piece isn't worth the full price alone, or they would charge for each piece. So they package them all together and charge one price hoping you'll need at least one of those products enough to buy the whole suite.

2). Most free alternatives offer a slim feature set in the free version, but increased features for the professional version. Also, the free version is often times only free for indiviual use, not businesses. So the company or developer makes money from business use.

That being said, the free versions of Comodo and Zonealarm are more than enough for most home users.

Comodo Features (courtesy of the Comodo website):

• Complete protection from Hackers, Spyware, Trojans and Identity theft
• Host Intrusion Prevention System stops malware from being installed
• Free Download. No charges or license fees ever
• Powerful and intuitive Security Rules Interface
• 'Smart' Popup Alerts
• Application Behavior Analysis
• Automatic 'Firewall Training' mode
• Windows Security Center Integration
• Self Protection against Critical Process Termination
• Application Recognition Database
• Automatic Updates
• Improved Firewall Event Logging
• Submit Suspicious Files to Comodo

System Requirements (version 3.9)

• Windows XP - 32 and 64 bit versions
• Windows Vista - 32 and 64 bit versions
• 64 Mb RAM
• 50 Mb free disk space

You can read more about the benefits Comodo Firewall here.
You can download Comodo Personal Firewall here.

ZoneAlarm

ZoneAlarm started as a free only firewall, but experienced significant success and rapidly evolved into a Pro verison. I have used ZoneAlarm on my personal computers for years, with great results. When gathering links for this article, I realized it's become pretty difficult to find the free for persoanla use version. It seems that ZoneLabs (the maker of ZoneAlarm) has gotten aggressive in promoting their professional (read: not-free) version. so far, the actual software has remained ad free, so I can't complain too much.

Features:

• Systematically identifies hackers and blocks access attempts
• Automatically makes your computer invisible to anyone on the Internet (Stealth Mode)
• Intrusion Blocking systematically identifies hackers and blocks access attempts.
• Stealth Mode automatically makes your computer invisible to anyone on the Internet.
• Automatic Program Configuration provides safety and simplicity by automatically configuring programs. Automatically decides whether to allow or deny Internet access to individual programs.
• Expert Controls give savvy users precise control over security settings.

You can download ZoneAlarm Free here.

Conclusion

As I said, I've used ZoneAlarm for years and love it. I have only been using Comodo for a little over a year on my laptop and have had no problems with it.

The only downside to both is that the learning mode can be confusing for inexperienced users. Often times a popup will display asking the user if they want to allow application XYZ to act as a server. Most inexperienced users don't know what the hell that means and can get flustered. What I've done is after installing the firewall, I run all known internet user apps (browser, IM chat, anti-virus update, email, etc...) to "teach" the firewall that these are certified apps. After that, I tell the user (usually a relative or close friend) if it prompts you in the future click "no" or call me.

Comodo advertises "Comodo Firewall offers the highest levels of perimeter security against inbound and outbound threats" I tend to believe them only because I've found that comodo prompts me WAY more than Zonealarm. It seems that Comodo distinguishes how a url was requested by a browser. For example, if the user clicks a link from a word doc, then Comodo will interrupt and inform the user that another application has requested the browser load ".. www.abc.com..." This is great for experienced users, but will definitely be too much for the inexperenced grandma looking to chat with the grand kids... In that situation, I would recommend ZoneAlarm.

Are Free Antivirus and Firewall Products Really Any Good?

There was a time in my life when I used security and protection suites like Norton and McAfee, but after a while I grew unsatisfied with them.

"But Norton and McAfee are giants in the industry that pack every last bit of there software with features users never dreamed of! What more could you want?", I hear you ask.

Well, that's kind of the point. Over the years, software suites like these just continued full speed down the road to bloatware. They kept accumulating features like a snowball rolling down hill. They've got features and functionality I never used, and don't really need quite frankly. Often times the system tuning and performance components just sat idle, using my system's increasingly valuable and every more rare RAM.

I did what most people do, I suppose. I bitched incessantly about paying for features I didn't use, didn't want, and worst of all had to actively work at removing from my system! Most times that wasn't even an option, since everything threaded together in a tight knot, with system failure at every turn so that you couldn't pick and choose the features you needed without having all the needless bloat to go along with it.

Then I realized that some other bright people were experiencing the same headaches and were in a position to do something about it. What they did was create their own programs to solve each discrete problem. In other words my friends, say farewell to bloatware!

So now I assemble a patch work of software products that do what I need. They do one thing, and do it well. I use one free program for firewall protection, another free program for virus protection, and various other applications for system tuning and performance, spyware, etc....

I admit, I was hesitant at first. I had questions about how safe and effect these products were. I thought that they couldn't be that good if they were free. Why would someone (or a company) produce software for free if other companies could make $40+ selling it?

Well, the answer is pretty simple. Makers of Comodo, and ZoneAlarm (my firewall products) as well as AVG Antivirus make money on the professional versions of their software as well as business users.

The general idea is that they offer a fully functional version free for personal use, and a different version with more features for a price. So far, with Comodo, ZoneAlarm, and AVG Antivirus I have been very satisfied with the performance and feature set of the free versions.

How To Control Disk Thrash From ccmexec.exe (SMS Agent).

Today started like any other day at work. I sat down, logged into my PC and was greeted by the thrashing sound of my hard drive. I've come to realize that the bottleneck in my work PC is by far the hard drive. I don't need any bench marking software, I simple try to access a file or two. Sometimes, I simply open windows explorer and wait.

I finally got so disgusted I fired up procman and dug through the activity to find the culprit.

I had to scroll down to the bottom of a couple thousand lines of activity before I saw a clear pattern, but lo and behold what I saw was incredible!

There were literally thousands of disk writes to my pagefile - and all I had done was log in!

The bizarre part was that the files being read and written to the swap file were files I was not touching.

I saw that the process performing all this thrashing was something called "ccmexec.exe". I'd actually never heard of this process, but after some quick googling I discovered its the exe for the SMS Agent service.

This service (the  Systems Management Server service) performs an indexing or cataloging of all the files on the disk so that windows update will have the latest info on versions of OS files that may need patching. Sounds great, but I'm not sure it's worth the cost considering the downtime and aggravation I experience waiting for this thing to chew through my 150GB drive.

My first instinct was to disable the service in the services control panel applet, but I figured that the corporate IT staff would eventually get a tad upset when they realized my system didn't have the latest patches installed because I disabled the service.

So, I was faced with my own kobayashi maru scenario : I was ineffective while this thing chewed threw my file system, but I couldn't disable the service without sending up corporate red flags that I was a bad citizen.

Then I hit on a solution - a scheduled task to ensure the service did run, just not when I was busy working. I actually used two batch files, one for each task of starting and stopping the service.

Open up notepad (or your text editor of choice), and type the following:

net start CcmExec

save the file as "SMS Agent start.bat"


Now, start a new text file and enter:

net stop CcmExec

save the file as "SMS Agent stop.bat"

Note: you can also replace "net" with "sc", to use the newer Service Control manager command line tool.

Then, set the startup type of the SMS Agent Host service to "Manual" in the services control panel applet.

Next, create a scheduled task to run after hours that runs the "SMS Agent start.bat" file, and another task that runs the  "SMS Agent stop.bat" before you get into the office.

The best of both worlds - you remain productive and a good corporate citizen (after hours)!