Best Diagnostic Utility Software?

[FlashG]

I have been using Norton's Utilities and (with the exception of the virus checker) they all seam to be more trouble than they are worth. What do you use?

I've herd that P-Cillin (SP?) is good. Any other favorites?

 

[FlashG]

Should I have posted this question at another forum?

 

[konichiwa]

I would doubt if many people here use those things. If you ask me, they're a waste of time.

 

[Quickfingerz]

I like Norton utilities. They do things that no one else can. I *LOVE* the defragmentor esp for the fast that it puts the swap file first if you have a permanent swap file. It will optimize the registry kill lots of shortcuts that you don't need. It has a lot of "the little things" that you need from a program. You aren't a computer guru unless you have a program like norton utilities.

 

[Prancer]

Norton Utilities is a waste of time. It's pretty dangerous too. It made several of my systems extremely unstable and I've had to reinstall/reimage all the machines where NU was used.

I'd throw away Norton Utilities.

On the other hand, if you're still running DOS (hehe), NU is a very good tool. For windows, it's a piece of junk.

 

[StanTheMan]

NU is best for Speedisk only. It's disk defragmenter can optimize your swapfile by moving the file at the beginning of the disk, so that it is not defragmented (esp. if you use a fix value swap file). Other than Speedisk, there is no useful software that NU offers.

 

[FlashG]

With all due respects,

I pretty much agree with StanTheMan & Prancer. I can't tell you how many times the other Norton utilities tried to screw up my system.

That's why I am asking if there is something out there that is less intrusive and maybe more useful.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

NU isn't so bad if you elminate the system monitor or whatever that thing is. Drive imaging can save your ass. For example, my dad runs this on his computer, and he took it back to the place where he bought it because it was getting weird errors.
We told them not to reformat because we had data on there that we couldn't afford to lose. They went ahead and reformatted anyway. Thanks to the image, we were able to restore everything. Turned out that the CPU was the culprit anyway. They had to replace it.

 

[FlashG]

So I guess the general consensus is that NU has some good stuff but use with caution 😉 It looks like no other utility is worthy of mention. Too bad, now the fed is probably going to target NU after it finishes chewing on M$.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Auric]

NU is trash. Go directly to Ontrack. Check out Fix-It Utilities.