System Mechanic 5 Professional [AntiVirus, Firewall, Utilities, File Recovery]

Rating:
Summary: The potential to be great- but serious flaws!
Review: I only wish the description of the functions described by Hiro Protagonist were accurate. I very much want to like System Mechanic, unfortunately my experience has been very different. In a simple test I tried to defrag a disk with the following specs 40 Gigs, 25% full, 10% fragmentation to start) but had to stop it after 24 hours. The amount of fragmentation was not different at the finish than at the start. I think things like pagefiles cause serious problems with the System Mechanic defragger. I downloaded a trial version of Perfect Disk for comparison and in two hours it was done. Yes, it does what System Mechanic is trying to do: Move all the files to one side of the platter, leaving as much contigous free space as possible. Furthermore it puts the least used files down first, maximizing the likelihood that your disk will stay defragmented. As a further test, I purposely caused further fragmentation on my disk and reversed the order of the tests (Perfect Disk first, SM second). The results were similar. Something is seriously wrong with the defrag utility in system mechanic if in 24 hours time it can't do what Perfect Disk did in less than 2.

Yes System Mechanic has a spyware/malware tool, but the few hundred entries it checks against are nothing compared to the 20,000 that the free Spybot has in its data base. Somebody did not take the time to build up the spyware database before release Perhaps they should have given Kapersky this job, as they did they antivirus and firewall.

I do agree that the registry tools are good, and the Kapersky antivirus and firewall do a good job also. I will even say that the file recovery tools, although slightly buggy are strong. All in all, I think this suite has the potential to be great, but somebody was in too much of a hurry and they are doing themselves and their customers a diservice by releasing the product in its current state.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Software Suite
Review: The two previous reviewers really don't know what they're talking about. Yes, Windows may have some of the components that SM provides (firewall, defragmenter), but it most certainly doesn't have all of them. The Kaspersky Anti-Hacker Firewall is more vigilant and expansive in terms of logging than the Windows firewall (including the SP2 firewall -- I have used both). The Kaspersky Antivirus included with the suite is very good -- much better than Norton/Symantec/McAffee, about on par with Panda AV. As for the defragmenter, it has multiple available settings -- if you perform an optimized defragmentation (which is not what the Windows defragmenter does) it will take longer, but it packs all the files forward on your hard drive to greatly lessen the need for future defragmentation. SM includes a variety of other defragmentation methods, like context menu defragmentation and defragmentation profiles, that are useful as well. The anti-spyware software included is good as well, not as good as Ad-Aware perhaps, but certainly serviceable. The cleaning services are very useful and thorough, and the registry defragmenter and compacter can help improve system performance a good deal. I have used SM since version 3.0, and it is a high quality product that comes with my full recommendation as a well-informed computer user; this is one product that I will certainly continue to purchase.

Rating:
Summary: Most parts work as promised-defrag is in outer space
Review: This is a collection of useful utilities-Antispam and anti-hack(read firewall) from Kaspersky. Registry cleaner, and other assorted tools all seem to work well except for the defragmenter. I have an 80 GB hardrive partioned into two 40 GB drives. I tried to defrag the system (C:) that was only about 30% full and 7% fragmented according to the windows defrag ultility. 15 hours later the system mechanic optimal defragger was still grinding away- obviously they have something to fix here.

In response to Hiro's comments, I understand that an optimal defrag takes longer, but 15 hours is rediculous. I used a competitors product and it did the equivalent of an optimal defrag in 1 1/2 hours.

Rating:
Summary: Buggy, with some usable features. Not worth the trouble
Review: This software is only good if you are paying $5 or less. It has the worst defrag out there. As many reviews have mentioned, it takes endless hours to optomize defrag a disc. It runs and runs and runs. The nice components are the start-up manager, the memory defrag, and some of the other utilities. Out of the box , my software would not update. Re-installed twice to get the update to work. Many system reboots needed for basic changes. Serious geeks in need of a challenge may love this program, though I doubt it. I emailed tech support, and they have to get back to me. They get back(supposedly) within 48 hours. It has only been 24, so I will update you later. I switched from Norton due to its system hogging, but at least it worked. Avoid this unless you are endlessy amused paying lots and constantly repairing the program that is supposed to repair your computer. Get your act together iolo.

Rating:
Summary: 2005 Version is Buggy
Review: Totally agree with other reviewers regarding the endless process of deframentation...a fully optimized defrag literally takes hours even on my home computer with a 2.8 Ghz processor and 1.0 Gb RAM. The 2005 model's "Maintenance Wizard" is buggy in that the routine that searches for and removes invalid registry entries identifies the entries but, at when the wizard is finished, reports that none were found and provides no opportunity to remove them. However, if you run the "Fix Registry Problems" as a stand-alone routine, it finds and reports invalid entries and lets you delete them. I've tested this by running the Maintenance Wizard and then immediately running the Fix Registry Problems; Wizard finds nothing but the other finds numerous. Iolo's solution to this problem is to uninstall and reinstall. I did that twice but the problem remains.