PC Utilities Roundup 1997
by Alan Zisman
(c) 1997. First
published in Toronto Computes,
September
1997
FirstAid 97
CyberMedia, Inc.
1-310-581-4700/www.cybermedia.com
$49
Nuts and Bolts
Helix Software Co.
1-800-451-0551/www,helixsoftware.com
$59
PC Medic 97
McAfee Associates
1-800-332-9966/www.mcafee.com
$69
Way way back, just after dawn of personal computer
history, Peter Norton
discovered that deleted files weren't really gone-with the help of a
clever
utility, they could often be recovered. With that discovery, both a
software
category-disk and file utilities, and a dynasty-Norton Utilities, was
born.
Now, three competitive products are looking to become the new King of
the
Utilities Suites. We'll take a look at the contenders here.
All of these products share many features. Each offers
a program, similar
to Norton's new Crash Guard feature, that can lurk in the
background,
protecting your system from crash-happy software. Each installs basic
protection
against viruses. And each combines easy use for novices with
customizability
and depth for would-be power users.
Cybermedia First Aid 97
Cybermedia is a company on a roll. Their Windows
Uninstaller helps users
clean up their hard drives from the clutter left behind by unused
software.
Oil Change provides an innovative method of automatically informing
users
of hardware driver and software updates-and offers to automatically
download
and install them. But it's their First Aid product that is challenging
the Norton Utilities, and appearing on software best-seller lists in
the
process.
Recently upgraded to look for hardware conflicts as
well as software
problems, First Aid 97 includes a Knowledge Base full of solutions for
common hardware and software problems. One click, and the program gives
your computer a 'Check Up' making corrections for optimal performance.
If you prefer, you can call 'The Specialist' to focus on a specific
problem
in more depth, or 'The Advisor' to access its Knowledge Base directly.
You can even update the Knowledge Base over the Internet.
The Windows Guardian intercepts crashes, and can
reactivate locked programs.
It can give warning in advance of potentially failing hardware. A basic
version of Dr. Solomon's AntiVirus program is included, as is a version
of CyberMedia's OilChange, limited to keeping FirstAid updated.
The Deluxe version adds "The Official Tech Support
Yellow Pages book",
and two multimedia tutorials- one for Windows 95, the other for the
Internet.
The program does an exceptional job of integrating the
Internet, from
updating itself, to connecting to manufacturers' Web pages for
information
that isn't available in its Knowledge Base.
Helix Nuts and Bolts
Helix Software has, for years, produced DOS and
Windows memory management
products such as Helix Hurricane, which while never leading their
product
categories in sales have tended to include the most advanced technology
in their class.
Their new product, Nuts and Bolts, continues the
tradition, with a series
of utilities, each of which provides more features and ease of use than
the comparable Norton Utility.
Its 20 or so features are divided into four
groups-Repair & Recover,
Clean & Optimize, Prevent & Protect, and Secure & Manage.
For
example, R&R's DiskMinder resembles Microsoft's ScanDisk or
Norton's
Disk Doctor, but finds and fixes more category of errors than either.
(The
other two reviewed products simply automatically call on Win95's
ScanDisk
to check for disk errors).
DiskTune, in the C&O group, similarly resembles
Win95's built-in
Defrag, or Norton's Speedisk, but smarter-it can optimize your disk so
the most frequently-accessed files are at the most easily-accessed
front
of the disk... if you so desire. As with all features in this software,
it's completely user-customizable.
Other tools locate duplicate files, clean and rebuild
the Registry,
and encrypt documents. There's even a low-level Disk Editor, enabling
power
users total low-level control of their hard disks... and more power
than
Norton's version. The single product installs on both Win 95 and Win
3.1
systems, and be run on systems with as little as 4 megs of ram.
McAfee PC Medic 97
McAfee Associates is best known for their Viruscan
anti-virus product,
with wide shareware distribution. PC Medic targets FirstAid 97 as its
main
competition. While it offers fewer features, it has a similar,
one-click
interface. While limited, its features, such as the Diagnosis module
are
more powerful, and faster than the competition's version.
Like CyberMedia's product, it uses a medical metaphor: Diagnosis can
check your machine to determine optimum multimedia settings-and offers
to make changes for you. And like FirstAid 97, it offers a broad
database
of information, in this case, referred to as 2nd Opinion.
The other features of this product are built on
McAfee's other software
offerings- it includes a strong backup module, which supports many tape
drives, as well as ZIP and JAZ drives, and rewritable CDs. It even
allows
you to use a tape drive as a (very slow) hard disk, for easier reading
and writing. And its antivirus software is a limited-feature version of
its own well-known Viruscan.
PC Medic works along with BackWeb to use Internet push
technology for
automated updates. Subscribers to the MediCast channel will receive
notification
of new versions, which can be downloaded in the background and easily
installed.
All three products successfully challenge the reigning
Norton Utilities
champion... FirstAid 97 for ease of use, Nuts and Bolts for its depth
of
features, and PC Medic 97 for its strong diagnosis, backup and
antivirus
modules.