Exceptional PC tweaks

Hi,
I use for all of this Tuneup. Its an all in on solution.

 

WinXP Manager for XP OS, there's also Vista Manager..

Only a 14 day trial, then you have to pay for it, but I've been using it for a long time without paying for it. Also, the trial has full functionality and it is not crippled.

It has all the registry cleaner/defrager capabilities the others have but also has a 'Smart Uninstaller' where it will look for files related to the program just uninstalled that stay on the PC and take up space. I use it to remove adware that installs itself even after it tells you you've successfully uninstalled it.

It also looks for Junk Files that Disk Cleanup will not pick up and send them to the recycle bin. It basically scours the hard drive, and mainly the temp folder and lists files no longer being used.

 

I prefer MVRegClean instead of RegCleaner Standard
http://www.velasco.com.br/mvregclean_en_informations.php

It has won several awards, http://www.velasco.com.br/mvregclean_premio.php

I also use CCleaner. And Spybot + HijackThis give me all info and ability to edit the boot

 

Tweak UI is a pretty nice tool too
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

 

Isnt that kinda the same that using msconfig?

 

CPUz. Displays components of motherboard/CPU in detail.
CPUID: http://www.cpuid.com/

Good move. Give spyware doctor a try.

 

How would you guys rate system mechanic? I had that on my PC for a long time, and I don't know if it did much good, but its memory defragment section saved me some memory.

Can anyone recommend a good freeware memory defragmenter? I'm talking about RAM in case you were wondering, I didn't get RAM and system space mixed up like some other people do.:thumbsup:

 

RamActive was pretty good, but I havent used it in ages.

I mean, back then I only had 256MBs of RAM so I had to be careful, but now that 1GB is even sub-standard theres little use for these apps.

BTW, has anyone here tried GameGain? it says it helps game performance but I couldnt notice any improvements on my games.

 

I remember using an app called EndItAll about 2001-2002, with it you could end almost all services with a single click and restore them back clicking again.

Anyway like Shadow said above, in these days with memory being so cheap this is not a trouble anymore, unless you're trying to run Vista with 512 MB of RAM or something like that

 

Even running XP with 512MB is kinda risky...

Anyway, is Shadowlayer. No big deal but I dont want to be confussed with certain lame, gun-totting hedgehog;-)

 

Sorry mate, sometimes I'm just not in the mood to type a lot and start to abrev. without noticing.

About XP with 512 MB I know what're you talking about. Right now I'm using Vista with 1GB and I'm really short, I hope I can get a 2 GB memory next month.

 

DONT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE AGAIN, YA HEAR?

Joking, it isnt such a big deal anyway.

About Vista, the only reason to use it is if you have a gaming rig and therefore you cant have compatibility issues.

But in your case (you were making a budget PC right?) I'll say stick with XP and when 7 comes around build a new machine.

 

Wanna bet :dance: I run XP with 350MB without a single problem. I shit you not :nod:

Yakumo

 

350MB you say Yakumo, thats not fair...lol i was running 512MB with xp and found it to be a pain more often than not but once i added a 1GB stick of ram along side the 512 it was runnung perfect.

 

Well, to be honest it's a little more than that but not by much. Here's a screen grab of my PC'S memory. Pretty sad by almost everyone's standard on this board I'd say.



Yakumo

 

My PC even struggled with 512 MB at times, but I think that was only when I was trying to play games or view animated GIFs or something.

I put 1 gig in and I noticed an increase, but not as much as when I put 4 gb in my current machine. Of course my old CPU was a piece of crap, too.

 

I don't play games on my PC though apart from emulation so I guess that's why 390MB works just fine. It's not super fast as you can guess but works well.

Yakumo

 

I'm running XP on one of my PCs, the one that is in the living room, which only my mother uses to check her e-mails. And that PC consists of a 400 Mhz Celeron, 160 MB RAM, used to have a 40 gig HDD but swapped it for one of my XBOXs drives when I modded it, 16 MB AGP :dance:

It runs XP without a single problem, although you can't do much stuff of course, but when friends come over I can even use it to play Starcraft or Age of Empires over LAN and running Roger Wilco at the same time :katamari:

 

Shadow Layer works well.