Thread: Norton SystemWorks 2008

HIGH MAINTENANCE Norton SystemWorks 2008 integrates virus protection, application maintenance, file and hard disk optimization and maintenance, drive imaging and a few Web-related maintenance tools.

Features
First up is Norton Utilities-a set of tools for optimizing and examining your PC's health. SpeedDisk takes care of file system optimization and defragmentation on your hard disk; Norton Disk Doctor checks your drive's file system for file and directory errors; and WinDoctor diagnoses and fixes Windows registry errors.
The anti-virus application lets you set rules for file and e-mail scanning, including heuristics. For those who frequently load and uninstall applications CleanSweep proves very useful. It removes unwanted files completely. One of the most practical tools in this package is Norton Ghost.

It lets you copy your hard disk's image to a CD to another networked computer or onto a virtual partition. The Web tools let you delete the unwanted files created when you surf. for instance, cookies. The process viewer is just a process explorer tool that lets you monitor the specifics of the processes running in Windows.



Performance
Unfortunately SystemWorks doesn't live up to its promises. In fact. the package
has all the tools to optimize the PC-from analyzing the registry, debugging incorrect links and deleting useless files. However, the application needs to entrench itself deep in the system to carry out these tasks and this encroachment has its consequences. While conducting the link test, quite a few errors showed up during the analyze process. If the user lets the program repair these errors using the default settings, then things turn bad pretty fast.

For instance, SystemWorks finds a missing or incorrect shortcut link to an Office document, and proposes to correct it automatically, then it doesn't do a good enough job at setting the target file. Even operating in advanced mode isn't a lot of help in this situation because even though it opens up the registry editor, it doesn't load the required registry branch for the user to make individual changes.

We also looked closely at the CleanUp tool, which is only suppo~ed to delete useless data. However, along with all the files in the temporary folder, the tool also deletes cookies-and while there is an option for the user to select which files and folders he wants emptied and which ones to remain untouched, it gets hard to select individual entries when there are more than a score to choose from.

Verdict
We recommend to readers not to buy this bundle, because while the individual tools are great pieces of software, for instance, Norton Ghost, collectively they can make your life hellish. Windows comes with a bunch of built-in functions to defragment, clean-up and optimize the local hard drive which do a better job and are free to boot.

FOR: The user interface allows detailed control to the various parameters of the individual applications. AGAINST: The software puts a significant load on the system.