I read a review of this software on infopackets and it was glowing. Also ran the free trial software and it looks like a bang up job, but where it was the trial, it didnt fix the problems it found.

Just curious if anyone has used this software and what their thoughts on it are?

Would like a few more reviews then make the decision to purchase it.

Snake oil, just stick with freeware apps.

any reccomendations?

Hi speytone, I've never used this program, so can't comment on it, but we can probably give you some advice if you let us no what sort of stuff you already run on your pc.

Do you use CCleaner "cleaning" and "issues" features for example, do you run an AntiSpyware program, do you have any other registry cleaners?

Do you carry out an occassional defrag. Is your pc running noticeably slower?

You can do a lot of optimizing yourself, with a little advice. But I'd be wary of programs that find a lot of stuff, especially in the Registry, if you don't know too much about what they are actually finding.

Hope this helps.

thanks;

I do use CCleaner and i love it. Cleaning and Issues all of it. And i have bailed on Ad-aware and use Super Anti Spyware, ill use Ad-Aware on really nasty jobs. Defrags i do routinely. weather they need to be done or not. And for the most part all the PCs im responsible for and my home ones run really well with just doing these few steps.

this lap top id love to have the start time improved upon if you got any pointers on that. I need alot of advice on that. HA

Im a bit leary of other registry cleaners. I heard alot of good things about CCleaner. but some free software im a bit iffy on.

Hi speytone, you seem to be doing a good job of optimizing yourself.

If you're happy as you say, just run with what you've got.

As far as startup goes, you can run something like StartupLite from malwarebytes.org, but maybe first you should take a screen shot of everything in your startup and post it for someone to check out.

I'm not too versed in what should and shouldn't be in a startup, but I'm sure one of the guys would help out.

where would i look to see whats programs run on start up. I used the CCleaner start up entry program and deleted a bunch of stuff out of there, yet i beleive my laptop should be starting up alot faster then what it is now.

Ill take a screen shot when i get home!

A program a lot of people on here use is WhatsRunning 2.2.

Link:

But as I mentioned, I can't really tell you what you can and can't get rid of, as we all have different stuff running, but someone else may be able to advise on that.

PC Pitstop Optimzer 1.5 is old and crummy not effective free apps work way better

I second that. Its old and crappy. My AGP X800 3ghz hted northwood craptastic machine gets reported as a fast modern one....pffffftt.

If you have a good antimalware program like Kaspersky Internet Security, all the other administrative tools you need are already provided in windows. IMHO all you need is Vista, CCleaner and KIS to properly manage the typical home scenario with a few machines running a private network.

Many of these third party free apps arent as well tested and stable as MS supplied native tools. In the case of CCleaner I use it cos MS does not have a sufficiently featured alternative.

I've used the PCPitstop program before, but only the free version, and was able to manually alter/delete a lot of the stuff it said it found, which seemed to make some slight difference. I wouldn't call it crappy, but with a bit of research it's easy to do better for free.
To see what's running at startup have a look at the startup tab in msconfig. Most everything there (except security) can be disabled from starting.
I've tweaked a little bit, if you can call it tweaking, just by disabling services I don't need (eg error reporting, network help) in accordance with the very well laid out and thorough BlackViper This speeds the startup a bit, and the computer runs a bit slicker. It's a good idea to keep a text or note somewhere to remind yourself what you've done, though, so when you need to troubleshoot something a month or 4 down the track you can easily find out why process x isn't working. Unless you're engaged enough with all the processes to know what's disabled/set to manual/running normally. (That implies a superior quality of geekdom to me.)
Other freebise I've tried and found ok to good are Advanced Windows Care by Iobit, TuneXP by Driverheaven, JKDefrag or Auslogics Defragger. (I prefer the former.)