Avanquest System Suite 9

The thing to watch for, when buying computer maintenance software such as this, is that the utilities in it actually do something useful.

There are plenty of programs containing tools that, while they appear to be helping, don’t really do anything useful. For instance some will claim that every cookie on a computer is a threat, when many are completely harmless and simply improve access to internet sites.

While Avanquest’s System Suite 9 is not like that, when you filter through the list there are rather fewer than the 60 powerful tools claimed on the box, particularly as some of them are simple duplicates of what’s already contained inside Windows.

Hard Drive Clean Up is basically a disk defragmenter, for example, and Windows has a very serviceable defragmenter of its own. System Suite’s Recovery Point Scheduler makes recovery points you can move your PC back to should it crash, and Windows does that, too. Click the Windows Update button and it just runs Microsoft’s Windows Update.

There are some useful tools in the package, though. Startup Commander enables users to speed up Windows start times by selecting which programs start with the computer, with advice on what each program does. System Optimiser sets up performance profiles for different types of use, such as working with Office or gaming, though there’s no indication of what those settings are.

The program also includes a useful Undelete for files binned by mistake – even when the Recycle Bin has been emptied. There’s a single-click tool to synchronise the computer’s clock with an internet clock and the ability to create self-extracting Zip archives.

There’s also a year’s internet security cover, which appears to come from Sunbelt Software, though the provider is no longer stated. It includes virus and spyware protection although the anti-spam tool must be installed separately.

System Suite is easy to use, with a simple interface and plenty of wizards to kick off selected functions. Some of the tools took a while to complete, for example the disk defragmenter took nearly three hours.