TuneUp Utilities is an award winning system optimization tool that has long been my favourite. The 2009 edition was released yesterday and boasts of several new features. Let’s take a look at the latest release and see if it’s worth the upgrade.

New in 2009 :

Retooled Interface: TuneUp Utilities 09 maintains the look and feel of TuneUp 08 with a few changes. The new addition is the Start Page. It basically acts as a dashboard. It gives you a quick summary of your computer’s current condition, and recommends actions to be taken. There are other several minor changes e.g. “Maintain Windows” Tab has been renamed to “Clean Windows” which makes more sense.

TuneUp Speed Optimizer: TuneUp System Optimizer has been retooled into TuneUp Speed Optimizer. Speed Optimizer asks you a few questions regarding your system usage and recommends tweaks best suited for your system. Speed Optimizer is a huge improvement over its predecessor. It’s much more comprehensive and more importantly suggests tips that I can use (I found myself agreeing with most of the recommendations).

TuneUp Shortcut Cleaner: Just as the name suggests this tool cleans up invalid shortcuts and references.

Support for Opera browser: Now TuneUp Utilities supports Opera along with Internet Explorer and Firefox. This is a welcome addition, but at the moment the implementation is a bit buggy (it failed to apply a couple of tweaks).

TuneUp Styler: Styler is the skinning application built into TuneUp. Now it supports changing Vista Bootskin. Not only that you can use your own images as Vista Logon screen. Styler is one of the most comprehensive skinning tools around and is as good as many dedicated desktop modding suites. It supports skinning of bootskin (TuneUp Bootskin, Stardock Bootskin, ntoskrnl.exe and image files), logon skin (TuneUp Logon Skin and Stardock LogoStudio), icons(TuneUp Icon Package and Stardock Icon Package) and visual styles(TuneUp Visual Styles and Microsoft Visual Styles).

Registry Cleaner: These days registry cleaners are a standard affair and are present in almost all system utilities. TuneUp is no different. Although Registry Cleaner has always been present in TuneUp in this edition it has received its most significant update yet. While TuneUp 2008 Registry Cleaner managed to detect 33 invalid entries TuneUp 2009 found 233 invalid entries. However TuneUp still missed a lot of invalid History traces that Advanced System Care managed to detect.

And More: There are numerous other changes including new improved StartUp Manager, Uninstall Manager, Drive Defrag, Disk Space Explorer and Disk Space Cleaner.

Other Features

TuneUp Utilities is so comprehensive that it would take pages to write about everything its capable of. Here is a brief list of some of the features that we have come to expect from TuneUp.

Memory Optimizer: Defragments your RAM and recovers unused memory. Works in XP only.

Disk Doctor: Similar to checkdisk. Scans your harddisk for errors.

Repair Wizard: Contains list of common computer problems and their cures.

Undelete: File recovery tool capable of recovering permanently deleted files.

System Control: Advanced System Tweaker with loads of options.

Process Manager: An enhanced version of the Windows Task Manager that lists all running processes and open files.

Registry Editor: An enhanced version of Windows Regedit.

Shredder: For permanently deleting a file. Makes it almost impossible for any file recovery software to recover the deleted file.

System Information: Displays detailed information about your computers hardware configuration.

Full list of features is available here.

Download TuneUp Utilities (15.9 MB)
Official Website
Platforms Supported : Windows XP and Vista (x86 and x64)
License : Shareware (30 days trial)
Cost : $49.95
Version Reviewed : 8.0.11

Over the years I have tried almost dozens of similar tools – iolo System Mechanic, iobit Advanced System Care, Norton SystemWorks, Systweak Advanced System Optimizer and Ace Utilities to name a few. But, none of them comes close to Tuneup Utilities. The latest update makes TuneUp utilities better than ever before. A must have for anyone serious about system maintainence.

Popularity: 17% [?]

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