Ontrack MyPCTools.co.uk

It's never been considered more important to look after yourself than it is today. Health food shops are on every corner of every high street, next door to the gym and beauty salon. People don't think twice about lavishing a bit of care and attention on themselves, but doing the same for the home PC is a different matter altogether.

Having an unreliable computer is frustrating in the extreme and the associated stress could easily undo all the good work you're putting in at the gym.

The best way to keep your computer in trim is by investing in some utility software. Products such as Norton SystemWorks 2002 provide a good selection of problem prevention and maintenance tools to keep computers ship shape. Ontrack is the first company to launch an online suite of software for keeping your PC fighting fit.

The site explains that the available tools are split into six separate sets: performance, diagnostic, repair, zip, cleaning and recovery. Categorising the tools this way makes finding what you're after a bit easier.

One of the best things about how MyPCTools operates is the way it doesn't deposit a load of program files on the PC's hard disk. Only the tool application you want to use is downloaded, so the amount of disk space used is minimal and download times are short.

Traditional packages can schedule maintenance so it happens every week, month or whatever period you choose. As nothing is actually installed by MyPCTools, it can't be scheduled in the traditional way but you do receive email reminders telling you it's time for some tuning up. It's not as good as automatic scheduling but it's the next best thing.

One serious disadvantage of MyPCTools over more traditional utility packages is evident if your computer has a total failure. If you can't get your computer to boot up, a traditional utility kit will let you initialise from a floppy disk or CDRom and proceed from there. With MyPCTools, if your PC is too poorly to crawl onto the internet, getting help from the online doctor is going to be impossible.

The other major drawback is that, at around £35 a year, it's not cheap. The price on the site is actually listed in dollars, something that Ontrack says is a quirk of its software but it is a UK product and full technical support is available in this country. If the thought of forking out for something you don't know whether you trust is too much, a free 30-day trial is available.

Despite being housed entirely online, it still has minimum requirements but the only really pressing one is an internet connection. Beyond that, any PC with at least Windows 95 and 16Mb of memory will cope. The tools can be used to tweak all versions of Windows from 95 right through to XP.

A full suite of software such as Norton SystemWorks costs around £50 but should last a couple of years at least, with regular updates from the website. That would also provide the virus protection that MyPCTools lacks. Getting software this way could well be the future but, at the moment, it just doesn't quite cut it.

Contact: Ontrack 01372 747414 www.mypctools.co.uk

Also consider: Norton SystemWorks 2002
Comprehensive tools and XP ready. £60. Worth it.
Computeractive issue 97.