Software & Computers

jv16 PowerTools 2009 is the latest installment of what is arguably the most complete utility suite available to Windows users and contains 27 tools designed to either fix, optimize or speed up your computer. It has recently been launched and this review highlights my personal experience with it.

I tried to see jv16 PowerTools 2009 from the perspective of Windows PC home user. In theory, each and every time you install junk from the Internet (guilty as charge here), like games, utilities, demos and whatnot - the system becomes a laggard on performance. Every extra program that you install punches itself in tons of registry values that make the Windows registry bulkier and harder to start up every time.

The Registry Manager is a tool that tries to fix this by giving you control over the registry while allowing to fine tune the system. The functionality is extended to include virtually every aspect you might want to tinker with (like the New File and Shell Extensions reconfigurability).

The Registry Cleaner is yet another tool that I found useful and has a more direct, hands on approach to it as it scans for registry errors and cleans them up. I configured the Advanced Options to mostly clean up as much data as it can (and automatically delete stuff) and let it use up as much CPU as it wants. The results have been satisfactory. To complement the Cleaner, there is a Registry Finder - which has come a long way from what it was in earlier editions. You can use regular expressions to find virtually anything in the Registry. The functionality is with an order of magnitude higher than the plain RegEdit that comes as stock. I haven't had an opportunity to put the Artificial Intelligence to the best use, but there is a learning curve to this program and I will probably get the hang of it.

To top it all, the Registry Compactor compresses the registry further, by defragmenting it and rebuilding it from scratch. In conjunction with the Cleaner, this will stop making the registry a performance bottle neck.

The program also allows the running of these tasks at regular intervals through the Automation Tool bundled in the package. But handling the registry is only of the aspects jv16 PowerTools can deal with. All the temporary files, various temporary directories and tons of other settings can be automatically cleaned up at specified times (sometimes you can also use the Windows scheduler to automate these tasks).

I have a large collection of mp3 files, and it became difficult for me to sort it. The file tools that the program makes such not very hypothetical tasks much easier. It sports an organizing tool which separates the files in different folders and also contains a duplicate file finder, which helped me trim a great deal on the hard drive space this collection was occupying.

Another addition to the suite that I found useful is the Service Manager. With basically a single click on the Optimize button, it quickly turns off any unneeded services. This is an excellent way to speed up the startup and decrease memory usage of the entire system. The System Optimizer adds up tons of other tweaks to the system - further speeding it up.

The most interesting feature though, is the ability to create atch files that contain the jobs I need to be executed most often. I create a zip file containing all the job files (created through jv16), and include the batch (.bat) file in it. All that I had to do is then install the jv16 2009 on any system and reuse my set of jobs to quickly speed up "any" system. For admins of large networks, this is literally a godsend.

All in all jv16 PowerTools is an excellent way to deliver a workstation that is extremely fast and gets the job done without any frills. For this test I used an old Pentium III (450 MHz) system.

The speed and reliability obtained are comparable with those of more modern systems, simply due to the efficient use of system resources. To give it a try, download it from www.macecraft.com. With a minimal download size and some pretty impressive functionality, jv16 PowerTools 2009 is definitely worth a try.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Jv16 Powertools 2009 – A Personal Review