Probably the best known for its 'repair and tune up your Windows' utilities, Iolo System Mechanic 10.5 has just had a 0.5-level upgrade from version 10.5. See also: Does PC speed boost software work?
The new product boasts Accelewrite, Windows 8 integration, more system horsepower and an unlimited home licence, as well as enhancements to many of its other utilities. It also includes SystemShield for basic AV and spyware protection. See also: Group test: what's the best PC optimisation software?
In fact, the unlimited home licence was included in the previous version, but is still very welcome, as it enables you to install the software on all the Windows PCs in your home, without paying again – until the updates stop after 12 months.
Accelewrite is a new technology, designed to keep file segments together. The idea is to reduce fragmentation, so the drive heads have fewer places to search to find the segments of an application or its data, when asked to load it.
This is said to increase the speed of file access and reduce the need for periodic drive housekeeping, such as defragmentation.
One of the really good things about System Mechanic 11 is that you can dig down into its utilities just as far as you feel comfortable.
At the top level, TotalCare Fix runs most of the key apps with a single click, analysing and then fixing the problems it sees with your system.
If you want to go to the next level, or to concentrate on one particular area of performance, four sub-sections labelled PC Accelerator, PC Repair, PC Cleanup and PC Security offer automated wizards running multiple apps.
Further down, you can run any of 34 individual utilities, such as Designated Drivers, Program Accelerator or the unfortunately named CRUDD remover.
The first of these example utilities updates drivers on your system to the latest versions; the second aligns programs with disk sector boundaries to improve loading speeds; and CRUDD is another name for duplicate copies of applications, where you only need to keep the most recent.
Having applied the TotalCare Fix on our test system and removed all the suggested programs from the start-up list that the optimiser suggested, Windows shutdown time dropped from 19s to 10s, an improvement of about 48 percent. The analysis for these fixes took 2 mins 24 secs. The fixes themselves, mostly optimising the system drive, then took another 16 mins 57 secs.
Very good, but the start-up time only dropped from 1 min 10 secs to 1 min 7 sec, a marginal improvement.
However, our test machine is pretty clean, without a lot of disk fragmentation or unwanted files. A PC which has been in use for a while without the benefit of a tool like System Mechanic 11 may show a bigger improvement.
System Shield, iolo's security suite, is bundled in with System Mechanic 11.
It's not particularly quick, taking 52 minutes to scan our 50GB of test files and only looking at 8769 of them, which is a small percentage. You have to trust it knows which to ignore.
The anti-virus shield's resource footprint is fair, producing a 33 percent increase in the time it took to copy a file when a scan was running. We don't have any data from security test labs of iolo System Mechanic's efficacy in catching malware.
Overall, this may be a good basic offering, though you'd still probably be better off with a freebie from AVG or Avast.
Comments
Matt Egan said: With respect System Mechanic is not supposed to protect your PC Its optimisation software not security software And I would be very wary if paying any service 200 to remove a Trojan A 50 ISS would remove a genuine Trojan I would be keen to know exactly what you have purchased - smells of snake oil if Im honest
John Southorn said: Do NOT install this software It will not protect you from Trojan Horses as I have just discovered to my cost - 200 to a professional company to clean up my computer after it was hacked Their support is so far Zero See other comments PC ADVISOR - PULL YOUR RECOMMENDATION PUBLISH A WARNING
Okpulot Taha said: As of System Mechanic version 117 this program is now malware Every half hour or so this software spams your monitor screen with Iolo advertisements I wrote to Iolo about their malware and was told this is a new feature in version 117 which cannot be disabledSystem Mechanic is malware which plasters your screen with Iolo adsOkpulot Taha - Choctaw Nation
frustrated said: I have used SM for over a year now and thought it was a good programI finally noticed that there are a lot of bells and whistles on System Mechanic that I dont even think they are usefulOn January 18 2013 I clicked on Energy Booster and got the BSD Blue Screen of Death After that I scanned my computer for any viruses and there were none I then did a sfcscannow and no problems were foundI took a chance and tried Energy Booster again and got this BSD againPretty scary I e-mailed SM Support and as of today January 25 I did not received a reply In my e-mail I included a snap shot with Print Screen so that they can analyze the problemI uninstalled System Mechanic on the 19th and this is the best thing I ever done for my computer I will never use this program again and with reason Its nothing more than a computer crasher in my opinionI downloaded CCleaner and Deffragler from Piriform and find that my computer is now running much better
paintingsbs said: I have an infection on a computer with System Mechanic Pro 11 on it I called a number from their site and a man went into my computer and he ran some free trials of malware protection and he said my problem was I didnt have the Professional version of this product and I told him yes I did and he checked and sure enough I had it then he said it was because I didnt have System Shield activated and I said yes I did and he checked and sure enough it was He said he couldnt find a problem until I showed him and he said it was tracking cookies until I showed him where it said I had 11 Trojans in my IOLO PROGRAM FILES He didnt know what to do so I told him to restore my computer because I couldnt and he said there would be a charge for that after his arguing he hung up on me and tried a restore and it didnt work and that was that I called again and talked to a woman and I told her I took pictures with my camera and she said to email them which I did bunches of em too She said she would send me an email and to reply to that address with them and thats where I sent them A few hours later I got an email saying my case was escalated A few hours after that email I got another and it said my case was closed but I thought this was a mistake since the woman had said it was escalated but 5 days later still no call like she said I would get within 24-48 hours I have pictures showing the overview from System Mechanic saying my system status is GOOD with a box next to it showing an elert from System Shield that I have 11 Trojans that have been blocked and in the same picture the Trojan sits Now I dont know what these people are doing but this seems impossible to be happening let alone theyre sitting on their hands and not looking into this If I wanted to deal with MORONS I didnt know I would find them at Iolo I got 10 free months of service for writing 10 positive reviews on sites they suggested but you know what 10 months of FREE CRAPPY ANYTHING isnt worth it Id rather pay for something thats good I bought McAfee for 1 computer Friday and Norton for 1 yesterday I expected something to be done about this Crap but theyve done nothing This is what theyre supposedly in business for I own a business and customer service and customer satisfaction is my 1 priority Obviously that is not the case with Iolo but if they think they can sweep this under the rug and Ill go away theyre sadly mistaken as Ive just begun