Do Real Men (Women) run Utilities?

[MikeG]

Utilities such as Norton & First Aid slow your system down and seem to often cause other problems. Do you "computer experts" run them on your computers, or do you just use the Windows built-in utilities? I have been loading First Aid, using it for whatever purpose, then unloading it from my hard drive. A lot of trouble, yes, but . . .

What do you do?

[kwai]

oh yes, i'm not going to use microsofts system monitor, and you gotta have info to act on.

just install the bare minimum that you need -- with norton utils i've gotten it down to a few % of system resources and not much memory. i cleaned out nu sys doctor to the important stuff too (die windoctor die!).

[socalgal]

I used to run the complete NU3, a separate NAV, and First Aid. Since I reformatted now I just use NU3 Speed Disk, System Info and Unerase Wizard (not enabled and still protects). No more crash guards and no more First Aid.

I use SiSoft SANDRA for diagnosing and benchmarking. Since I have gotten rid of these resource hogs, I have a faster system and nary a crash. I think the crash guards cause crashes.

CMonster was right when he advised me to get rid of these "utilities". In this matter, for me anyway, less is more. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[MikeG]

SoCalGal, could you tell me a little about SANDRA? Also, which programs were you referring to when you mentioned "resource hogs"?

I would sure like to see some more users opinions on this topic.

Thanks, everyone!

[suzan]

I also used to run the full Nortons Utility Suite-NAV-Norton Crash Guard-CyberMedia Guard Dog-Oil Change-McAfee's Safe and Sound.
Most of it is a waste of money and a big drain on resources. I found Nortons Utilities caused more problems than it fixed.It had a nasty habit of 'fixing" my date stamps to read -01-04-80. The crash guard read normal system functions as crashes and actually caused crashes. Needless to say I dumped most of them. I kept
Nortons Speed Disc-NAV- and I am still hanging on to Safe and Sound-only because it
loads well in safe mode-so it has gotten me out of some jams.

My advice-keep it simple-but don't try to do without a good virus scan thats regularly updated.

[ANTONIO E GUERRA]

It sounds like a joke: My brother in law has so many anti-crash software (First Aid, Norton, Nuts and Bolts) and antivirus (Norton, Macafee and f-prot) that his computer crashed. Try to install a general diagnostic software like Checkit Pro. Utilities that change the system registry are very harmful. I think First Aid is the most dangerous of all. Hope it helps you

[Pushrod]

I used First Aid a lot the first few months when I bought my first computer 9 mos ago. I would just click the FIX button and off it goes. It helped me a lot. I'm familiar with my hardware setup now and I hardly use FA anymore but i still use it when I'm having problems just to see what it finds.

I also have Nuts&Bolts with its great toolbox of tricks.

Norton Uninstaller does 99% of my uninstallation except for some programs I've learned are better left for Windows to uninstall. Norton does a superior job otherwise, I think.


All the above are permanent residents on my hard drive.All programs are loaded in full but not all are enabled under Startup in the System Configuration utility.

I have the McAfee AV that came with the N&B,Cybermedia AV that came with FA,and Norton AV.They all want to scan my registry at boot.

I also tried Norton Utilities and gave it away. It drove me nuts: never got to know it well enough.

Like socalgal, I've learned to disable crash recovery very quickly.

I agree with Antonio.They can be very dangerous.However,for newbies,they are all you've got. But, you will reach a point eventually where you can help your computer better than these programs can and you've got to be selective in what you'll let these programs do for you.
http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
If you want a signed copy of this book when it comes out of the press,send in your orders now. Don't wait !!!

[This message has been edited by Pushrod (edited 05-10-99).]

[This message has been edited by Pushrod (edited 05-10-99).]

[suzan]

Heheheh-Antonio- You're right about that-It was a joke!

But I learned Like everyone else. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[Susan]

I use Sandra - just for diagnosing like socalgal, and nothing else. I've used the original Nuts & Bolts and it was fair, but the WIN98 version was a mess of bugs.

IMO, non of the utils are necessary. They just clog up the system.

[ENVY]

Why use multiple utilities from diferent companies all trying to do the same thing at the same time?
This was one of the most common problems that I run into.People come in and say"My computer is slow and crashing all the time".
After uninstalling all the So-called "helpful" utilities it leaves running just fine.
Now I know that some virus proggies do a better job at removing certain virus's than others so you may want multiple copies.But, to have them all resident and scanning your boot sector at startup is just not the "thing to do"!
Why do you want to scan your boot sector at every startup?Unless you are hooked up to a network or you install software from the network all the time this is really not to necessary.Best thing to do is to set the proggie to run autoscan at a time when you are not using it.

[Nathan]

I guess I'm the odd ball here. I don't have any utilities like Norton, First Aid, Nuts & Cracks, etc. Nor do I have any anti-virus software installed either.

The only time I had to redo my C drive was when I installed IE4.00 in December of 97. I was told it was a mistake and it was. And also when I installed 98. I reformatted C then too last October. So I've had no problems that would cause me to need those utilities. I just use the Microsoft ones.

[Bleeding Edge]

Hey Nathan. Your not alone.

I don't believe in using those utilities either. My system, like yours, also runs fine. Doesn't give me any problems. There are some oddities in Win98 and the IE5 interface. But it's to trivial to address. MS probably see it the same.

I do however have anti-virus software installed. It doesn't load or run at all on start-up. Strictly manual. It never fond/finds anything.

[ENVY]

A/V is the only thing installed as far as utilities.It is also set for manual scan.
I do like the norton speed disk but I don't use it on my home machine.
My machine runs like a champ.Could it be that the people that use.....Naw i am not gonna say it.

[Pushrod]

Yeah, I have three AV installed, all active,along with First Aid and Nuts&Bolts which are semi-active. That's not all; I have more. Ive learned by trial and error to install them in specific orders to avoid conflicts and all work just fine.

I don't remember posting any problems about lockups,crashes,slow downs, or what. Most of the time I don't have a clue about other people's problems other than device installations that I may have undertaken myself.

First Aid and Nuts&Bolts are no different from other softwares and games people buy. They have theirs flaws but are functional to a good extent though their usefullness may diminish over time but I don't think they can ever be totally useless for everybody.To discourage people from seeing for themselves and your way is the right way is just too absolute and could be misleading. I think a heed of warning along with pointing its value is fairer.

Anyhow, you all know more than I do. This is just my first time around the block and I'll keep your opinions in mind. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif Thanks.

[Nathan]

You were very courteous there Envy...

[DavidX]

just my 2 cents . . .

I tried demo versions of a couple of the utilities (Norton, Nuts & Bolts, etc) and hated them. A lot of the info was totally useless or readily available from the MS tools anyway. Some info/diagnostics was laughably misleading or just downright incorrect. The crash guards first tried to work you up into a frenzied state of paranoia and then tended to CAUSE crashes. And, worst of all, they were resource gobblers on a grand scale! I couldn't wait to get rid of the demos and get back to sanity. The Norton demo, I seem to remember, almost refused to die; took a lot of killing - worse than some of those monsters in Quake2!! Still had traces of Symantec lurking on my hard disk months later - like a recurring nightmare! Eventually took the super nail-gun to them and blasted them into oblivion. (Gotta stop playing those RPGs)

I do use McAfee AV, keep it updated, and it has proved useful a couple of times. I restore a lot of old computers and their hard disks can be a real hotbed of virus lowlife. Transferring floppies back and forth between them and my main system would be like dicing with death if it weren't for good ol' McAfee.

I do like SiSoft SANDRA (nice diagnostics without trying to take over your PC) and Dr Hardware isn't too bad either. But anything like Norton: no, not unless, like Kwai or Suzan, I could single out the few useful bits and dump the rest. As for the crash guard aspects: the extremely rare crashes I do have are always self-inflicted. I usually know exactly what caused them and certainly don't need some resources hog to tell me.

Well, kinda glad I got that off my chest . . .

[seti]

FYI
Crash protection software is only surpased by browsers as the leading cause of crashes.
I discoverd that pretty quick with Norton Crashguard. I use Speed Disk...that's about it...I guess disk doctor sometimes too

[socalgal]

MikeG ~ here is the link to SANDRA www.sysopt.com/sandra.html (http://www.sysopt.com/sandra.html) or just look under Cool Software in Sysopt's home page.

I do run Norton AV and update the definitions at least once a week. But like most the others here, I found that all those utilities were just a drain on my system and provided no real help. If I need my registry restored, then I can just do a scanreg /restore thru DOS. One program I do like is PowerDesk98 by Mijenix. Gives me lots more control over Explorer.

I also like the Win98 System Info (Accessories) and Win98 Resource Kit that comes with Win98.

[This message has been edited by socalgal (edited 05-10-99).]

[Bleeding Edge]

I'll consider myself lucky; my browser hasn't caused a crash.

It seems SpeedDisk is a stable favorite for many. How well does it do? There is a small and efficient HD bench at: http://tcdlabs.simplenet.com/hdtach.htm

I wonder if someone would be interested in running this with and without SpeedDisk to gauge the difference and post the results here.

Perhaps we can post and compare our results of this test to see if there really is much of a difference among the variety of drives we are using. Mainly the 33/UDMA's.

Just curious.

[kwai]

actually i'd use speeddisk over ms' defrag even if there is no system performance difference just because speeddisk seems to defragment faster, and it organizes the disk that it doesn't need to be run as often.