The idea behind System Mechanic is that it can give your computer a thorough check-up as well as tweaks to keep it running smoothly.

Installation was painless, and the program automatically runs a basic check as soon as it starts. This seeks out unneccessary files, things that are taking up hard disk space, basic Registry errors and lack of memory. It offered to automatically fix all of them, as well as backing up the Registry, but usefully it also gives the option of going in and seeing exactly what the problems are. That's good if you're not sure you want to delete certain things or if you want to see exactly what it proposes to do to the Registry.

We ran a thorough scan which took around an hour, but took in a surface scan of the hard disk (which checks for potentially dangerous physical errors) as well as a more thorough search of the Registry. All the tools can be accessed separately as well, including others such as one that wipes unwanted files.

One thing we aren't convinced about is the subscription – unlike most utility programs, System Mechanic requires you to subscribe in order for it to work. The initial price includes 12 months, as well as automatic updates and upgrades during that time, but if you don't renew it will stop working. That's fine for anti-virus software, which needs to keep itself up-to-date, but this kind of program should still be useable without updates after a year.

The Pro version of System Mechanic, which is a little more expensive, adds anti-virus capabilities as well as a firewall and the Search and Recover product, which can recover accidentally deleted files.

As it stands, though, the standard System Mechanic 8 product is an impressively comprehensive set of tools that covers almost all of the bases for most users. It's true that most users won't use most of the tools available, but if you need them, System Mechanic is an excellent collection.

Vista compatible: Yes