| Product: |
Norton System Works 2001 |
| Date: |
26/02/01 (160 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: wonderful integration, save pounds on buying separate programs
Disadvantages: Display can get inthe way
Norton SystemWorks is a highly comprehensive suite of programs to protect your computer and ensure it is running at its best.
I am a big fan of Norton products, having tried the full range of utilities over the years, and find it has the edge on McAfee, which is its leading rival.
Basically, you are getting a number of Norton's standalone products bundled together. However, the products are all quality programs in their own right: Norton Utilities, Norton Cleansweep, Norton Antivirus and the new Symantec Web.
Let's look at each in turn.
Norton Utilities provides a suite of mini-programs which check your computer for any problems with hardware and software, that may cause your computer to fail. It will then attempt to fix thee problems, or offer solutions.
SpeedDisk acts as a defragmenter, to help speed up your hard drive by moving all the programs that you use most often to the beginning of the disk, and putting any bits that may be scattered around back together again.
System Doctor checks your hardware, and keeps an eye on its performance, alerting you to any problems it comes up with, for instance if memory is running low.
Un Erase Wizard lets you attempt to recover documents that you accidentally deleted, even when you have emptied the Recycle Bin. It does this by changing the way the recycle bin works, replacing it with a new icon showing it is protected by Norton. Erased items are kept for a week in case you decide you need it back. I have used this with a number of word processing documents and it works great.
Win Doctor checks windows for things like lost shortcuts, or registry problems. When I first run it, it picked up over 100 problems with my system, but then proceeded to fix all of them.
WipeInfo will permanently shred documents so they cannot be found again. This is useful for business or private correspondence that you no longer wish to keep, but you don't
want anyone else to be able to recover them and read them. Paranoid or what?
Image creates a ghost image of your system in case you need to reinstall. This is similar to the System Restore feature in Windows Me.
Finally Diagnostic checks all your hardware for configuration problems, or problems with drivers, settings etc.
Phew, very comprehensive. All these programs can be set to check your system continuously through while you are working, and when it detects a problem, it will let you know by displaying an alert on the desktop. It does pop up with minor problems every so often, such as lost shortcuts.
Norton Antivirus is an excellent virus checking program that works in the background continually monitoring your downloads and file accesses to see if any virus is present. It can be set to check your email before you read it, and any viruses it does detect can be put into a protected area of the hard drive known as quarantine, or just deleted from your system.
Cleansweep is an uninstall utility that attempts to uninstall any program you do not want anymore, without leaving behind any little bits that sometimes happens if you use Windows own Add/Remove programs option. It will however do much more. For instance, it can clear more space on your hard drive by removing unwanted files, finds duplicate files that can be safely deleted and so forth. A protection system prevents you from removing by accident any files that is important.
Finally, there are a range of online services provided by Norton that you can access, such as a virtual hard drive on the net where you upload important files for safe keeping. You can also test your system to make sure it is secure from viruses and hackers.
The separate programs all integrate superbly into just one small icon in your taskbar. They are very comprehensive and easy to use, and all the programs can be accessed form the one screen that appears when you click on the
SystemWorks icon. Even better, if you have other Norton programs (for instance, I use Norton Internet Security) then they are also integrated into the one-stop shop.
The program features a quick to use one button check up where by clicking the one button, SystemWorks will perform a whole range of checks to make sure your system is working to its best. This works superbly - when I first tried it, the program found over 100 problems, which it then fixed automatically. However, now it only comes up with the odd one or two problems now and then.
All this, together with an internet auto update which keeps all the programs, and your virus files up to date, make this a superb program that keeps your system working like an ox, for the price of £59.99 for Win 95, 95 Me or 2000. Great stuff!
P.S. See comments for info on a cheaper upgrade version!
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