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Software Review: Ace Optimizer Utilities 3.0.0.4037| Category | | | Summary | | Ace Optimizer Utilities by AceLogix Software has really caught on with Microsoft Windows users, as is evident from a quick look at various popular download sites like Download.com and SnapFiles.com. In one sentence, it is an all-in-one Windows system clea |
| | Body | Ace Optimizer Utilities by AceLogix Software has really caught on with Microsoft Windows users, as is evident from a quick look at various popular download sites like Download.com and SnapFiles.com. In one sentence, it is an all-in-one Windows system cleaning, fixing, and optimizing utility toolkit.
One of the first things that catches your eye is that it has a small file size (approx 2.14 MB) when compared to some of the other rather heavy utility suites. Even after installation it's only around 7 MB in size, which is excellent considering the number of features it offers. Installation is easy, as in the case of every Win32 program (well, almost). All it requires is running a setup.exe file and following the steps. No external configuration is necessary. Once you fire up the main program, you get a clean-looking white-blue user interface which is pretty easy to understand while still not being too cluttered. The interface consists of three frames, a top horizontal main toolbar, a vertical toolbar, and the main information window that shows the features in the current vertical tab. The main information window also has a small part at the bottom that shows useful descriptions of the button or feature you are currently pointing at.
The top-horizontal toolbar consists of the Menu, Options, Wizard, and Restore buttons. The Menu button leads to a drop down menu of links to the developer's site, the Help option, the About Dialog Box, and the like. Clicking the Options button will take you to a window where you can set the general settings of the program, as well as settings for the individual features. The third button, and this is really the cream, is the Wizard, which allows you, with only a single click, to clean up and fix problems with your computer. You just specify everything to clean up, like History files and invalid Registry data, and the program will perform the maintenance tasks with the settings you specified in the Options tab. The final button is Restore, which lists all the backups and allows you to restore the changes done by any of the cleanup tools, in case a conflict occurs.
Now the vertical toolbar will show the tabs CleanUp, Optimize, Protect, Miscellaneous, and Exit. The CleanUp tab will show four tools in the main information window:
- Remove Junk Files: This will clean temporary windows folders and list junk files in hard drives based upon their extensions. Common extensions which are safe to clean up are *.old, *.temp, etc. You can choose which particular extensions you want to check for in the Options menu.
- Clean System Registry: This cleans up unnecessary registry entries that are often left by uninstalled programs, thus enhancing the system performance. It also has an Ignore List Manager, just in case you need some entries untouched.
- Erase Your History: This will remove traces of your activity on the system, like clearing the browser history. A nifty touch is the tool's support of Firefox and Opera.
- Fix Invalid Shortcuts: this removes any invalid shortcuts in the Start Menu or on the Desktop.
The CleanUp tab forms the biggest part of the utility of the software. The Optimize tab includes an Auto Start Manager to disable programs that start up when Windows boots, a Duplicate File Finder that is effective since it uses a lot of checking parameters, but should still be used with caution, and an Uninstall Manager that allows you to uninstall Windows programs, even those which are not usually listed in the Add/Remove List like Windows updates.
The Protect tab contains features to securely erase your data so that it can't be recovered by various 'undelete' tools available. This option is also available in the Windows Explorer right-click menu, which is handy but not used very often unless you really work on important and confidential data. The Miscellaneous tab contains an empty-folder-finding utility to avoid clutter in your Windows folder, a Disk Analysis feature which shows the disk usage in a friendly graphical way and is really useful for finding hidden files and folders that are not detected by cleanup programs but still belong in the junk. Finally you have a Scheduled System Maintenance utility which allows you to run certain cleanup features at a specific time or regular intervals automatically. I really don't think I need to explain what the Exit button does.
The help file bundled with the software is really comprehensive and easy to understand thought not really needed much by anyone who has used such software before. Even a newbie will do just fine just reading the tips and descriptions that show up in the bottom part of the main window. The software is available on a 30 Day trial basis, and continued use requires you to pay up $29.95, which is really fair considering the features it offers. Looking at everything above, I have absolutely no hesitation in rating this software as top notch, and giving it a 4.5/5 (0.5 points cut for being outside my software budget for this month).
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This article was imported from zZine. (original author: Rae)
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