Review: XP Repair Pro 2006 utility software

Windows is such a complex operating system, it's almost inevitable it will occasionally get confused and need tidying up.

A major cause of such disorder is when un-installing software, which may leave references to itself in the registry, clogging things up. XP Repair Pro 2006 checks the registry and removes obsolete entries, which should help to speed up system performance.

XP Repair Pro takes around 12 minutes to perform a full scan, looking for errors. It spotted 274 inaccuracies on the machine we tested it on, which had recently been rebuilt from scratch.

When we looked into the results in more detail, we found they varied considerably in severity, though there was no clear indication of this. For example, XP Repair Pro considers references to unavailable programs as errors, which they are, but also references to missing shortcuts, which aren't really going to cause any problems in how Windows performs.

By default, XP Repair Pro doesn't scan Startup Entries, the programs which automatically start up each time you start Windows. This is just as well; as its rather cavalier advice on them is "Most of these programs are useless and waste valuable system resources. We recommend to remove most or all of these." Our advice is to check what each one does, first.

The most useful function of XP Repair Pro is its Deep Analysis, which looks at many parts of Windows and compares them with a list of 53,000 error conditions held in its database. Removal of these errors can be valuable, as it undoubtedly speeds up some normal Windows operations and removes potential trouble spots.

So, is XP Repair Pro 2006 worth £30? While there's little doubt it's better to keep the Windows registry clean and tidy, Windows XP is pretty tolerant and this program is probably one you'll want to run every few months, rather than daily. Therefore, £30 looks pricey.

Also consider
XP Tuning Suite 3.0
Overall: XP Tuning Suite 3.0 provides a centralised source for those who like to practice Zen and the art of computer maintenance, but could be confusing for novice users. However, it does more and is £10 cheaper than XP Repair Pro 2006.
Rating: 4
Price: £20

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