PC Booster????

Clicked on a advertisment I think on this site about a product called PC Booster and Modem Booster. Claims to really speed things up all the way around. Has anybody tried it???????

 

I never tried that program but similar. I highly recommend to avoid anthing like that.

 

I tried other program similar to this program, then had trouble with registries. It better to pick one little software for specific issue than a software for bunch of issues (if it aint broke, dont fix it). Most of tweaks I prefer to do by myself. Like Norton Systemwork, my window does better without it. I dont know if pc booster have custom install options, I avoid software without custom install options.

 

(dont want to get in any trouble about dissing possible advertizers on MG!)

personally i dont like those programs because it just says "Speed up" and doesnt realy tell you what its doing. I found a program a little while a go that did NOTHING to real system settings, just changed the delay time of the start menu. its amazing what programmers can get away with these days!

I agree with Johner here, its probably better to go for less tweaks and get more out of it because they are changing settings that you want them to. What the writers of this program might think is a good setup for your system isnt nececerily what works best for you.

But if you feel that you dont know what the program does, or care too much about it you will probably be fine. They usualy tweak some settings which you might not have found out about otherwise, and generally they do work to an extent. For a newbie user they work great.

Only trouble comes where somehow this program manages to corrupt hardware settings in the registry or otherwise and XP suddenly thinks that your modem doesnt exist! All I can say about that is MAKE A RESTORE POINT FIRST!

All im trying to say really is that if you want to tweak your PC effectivley, really you need to do the dirty work yourself. Plus i find that its much more rewarding this way!

If you do want to know about how to tweak settings, a good starting place for XP users is www.tweakxp.com . Big lists of user submitted tweaks. BUT be careful there are some bogus ones in there!

Happy Tweakin and Geekin

 

Oh yes, I almost forgot I was going to say how full of rubbish most of these programs are! A lot of them are just marketing kak. I googled PC Booster, and came up with :

http://www.inklineglobal.com/products/pcb/
http://www.redlaw.co.uk/
http://www.johnshepler.com/ar/pcbooster.html
http://www.mcafee.com/myapps/pcbooster/default.asp?members_only=true
http://www.softpile.com/Utilities/System_Tools/Review_10540_index.html
http://www.memoryoptimizer.com/

Some may be the same product, but i think you get the idea...

As an example :

"I am currently running on my AMD k6-2 500mhz MMX 3d processor with 192mb of pc133 ram,1.6 gb hard drive, and windows 98 second edition. everything was a little bit slow when I open my folders and click the "start menu." But after downloading this program, it worked effectively. so download this if you have a slow or fast computer, it really helps alot."
Albert Williams, ChristChurch, New Zealand

Technically speaking, to fix his problem there is a registry entry that you need to change that will make the start menu open faster, and might need to defrag. You dont need to shell out for this "miracle cure" program really..

 

LOL. I've been doing that to my computers for 15 years. I didn't know there was a saying for it.

 

While I'm by no means a Super Tweaker, I have been tweaking windows pcs since about the 386 processor days and the one firm rule I tweak by is that I will never allow any application to make a tweak that I wouldn't know how to make myself. You typically wouldn't let a stranger with no credentials perform surgery on you, if you could help it, so you might want to be careful about installing too many apps on your pc that change the system settings.

As mentioned, many of those apps are released more for advertising purposes than effective tweaking. Also, most of them really just change the same set of registry keys or system settings, but are packaged differently. From what I have seen, read and downladed, they all seem relatively harmless, but I would say that you can't expect miraculous things from any of them. Many of the changes they make to your system are only changes that are noticeable if you know exactly what behavior they affect and either look for the difference or test it with a benchmark. For example, I have made some tweaks to the system I use for gaming that improved the 3DMark overall score by a few thousand points and I was all "yay I'm uber, I'm UBERRR." Ok, I made a specific tweak to improve a specific score produced by a specific tool which is supposed to measure 3D video performance. Truth is that I don't really SEE a difference, but it sure made me happy.

Personally, I prefer to visit sites like MG and other information and tweaking sites and read up on practices, the theories behind them and accounts of personal experiences and then try them out. I consider a system mod relatively safe if I read about it on one or, maybe, several reliable sites. Particluarly safe if I thoroughly comprehend what the change effects and how to make it myseff, without the help of an application. Back when I was a little tweaker, I used to download some of those "super fastee makee zoom zoom" apps that touted wonderful things and typically I'd find that I'd run the installer and excitedly fire up the app and it'd just be a VB box with a big, candy-like button with the words "press me now" on it. Never did see much (or any - I'll be honest) improvement from my system, but I sure did enjoy pressing that button.

There are some of these freeware apps that I do believe are worthwhile. Information and benchmarking apps like Aida32 and SiSoft Sandra are really great for troubleshooting your system, gathering information and tesing. Also, there are several little apps for tweaking your internet/broadband settings that make it really convenient and simple to make a whole bunch of changes that would take a while to fish through the reg keys and make yourself.

Truth is that I learned a lot about Windows and systems in general by trying out many of these applications (and sometimes toasting my system). I still try them out, but now I know what to expect and usually just download them to see if they offer anything new or different. For every 10 I download, I might leave one on my pc because it has one feature that the others don't have or if I prefer the interface.

Good luck and don't let any monsters loose in your house.

<edit - you didn't ask for all that, did you? Oops>

Spaz

"Fear the setup.exe!!!"

 

I think there are some shareware progs out there that do that and actually do absoltuley NOTHING. haha!

Well said matey!