Review of the PC Pitstop Optimization Utility
PC Pitstop Optimize 3.0 has just been released with some interesting new features. Optimize version 3.0 has a new Remote Scheduler so you can schedule Optimize to scan any of your computers from any PC that Optimize is installed. Also new in version 3 is the ability to have scan results emailed to you so you always know that Optimize is keeping your computers in perfect working order. Another new feature is the ability to log in from any computer where Optimize is installed to view scan results remotely. A review of the new PC Pitstop Optimize 3.0 computer optimization utility is coming soon.
This is a review or tutorial of the PC Pitstop Optimize computer optimization program. A user was complaining that the computer used in this review was running noticeably slower and Internet access was not as fast as it used to be. I have heard a lot of good things about the PC Pitstop Optimize utility so I thought this would be a good time to put the program to the test. Optimize 2.0 claims to be able to make your computer faster by resolving many common issues that computer users experience from everyday use.
The PC Pitstop Optimize utility claims to be able to improve Internet speeds, recover valuable system resources, increase hard drive space, remove registry errors and all around increase your computers performance. Sounds like this utility is just what this computer needs to bring it back to life.
The computer used for the review of the Optimize utility is has a 3 Gigahertz processor, 200 Gigabyte hard drive with a half a Gigabyte of RAM. Not a bad computer by today's standards but it is running more like a 1 Gigahertz with 256 Megabytes of memory. The boot time to a usable desktop is 1-minute and 15 seconds. Let's see if the PC Pitstop Optimize 2.0 optimization utility can take care of the problems as the program claims to be able to do.
This is a screenshot of the task manager before running the Optimize program. The computer has about 172 Megabytes of available physical memory, running 39 processes and has 269 MB of page file usage.
The PC Pitstop Optimize program claims to be able to speed up the Internet connection by performing a set of tweaks to increase the speed. This is a shot of the Internet connection speed from SpeedTest.net before running Optimize 2.0.
So I took a cruise out to PC Pitstop to grab a copy of PC Pitstop and clicked the Scan Now button and then ran the installation program. The installation of Optimize was uneventful, it was quick and the default settings seemed to work just fine.
After clicking Finish , the program launched with the following welcome screen. The Welcome screen states that PC Pitstop Optimize is designed to help you quickly and easily get the most out of your PC. After analyzing data from thousands of PCs, they have created an application that will make your PC run faster, make it more stable, and free up some needed hard drive space.
The program asks to select an Internet connection type and click Next to go to the scanning phase and that no settings will be changed during the scan process.
The next screen says to get started, click the Scan button below and again that no settings will be changed during the scan; you will have the chance to review the recommendations before the program makes any changes. Naturally I smacked the Scan button to get things started.
Then the program told me that the scan was complete and to click Next to see the results. The first screen the utility shows is the Junk Files screen. Junk files come from several sources. The Recycle Bin holds deleted files so you can retrieve them if you later decide that you should not have deleted them. However, files in the Recycle Bin can use a lot of space; empty your Recycle Bin to reclaim this space. Windows and applications create temporary files while they are running. In some cases, though, applications do not clean up after themselves. Other examples include the caches for Internet Explorer and Firefox. Although caches help a dial-up connection, oversized caches can hurt performance on a broadband connection.
The next screen that Optimize shows is the Internet settings that it will adjust to make a faster Internet connection. Optimizing your Internet settings can help to dramatically boost your Internet speed. Internet-related settings can be tuned for faster throughput and may provide up to a 200% increase in Internet performance. Optimize determines the best settings by performing a dynamic test under the actual conditions currently being experienced on your connection.
The next screen is a list of unnecessary programs that run every time that this computer is started. If there are programs listed, then removing them from automatic startup may improve the performance of your computer and reduce memory usage. We suggest that you remove them, but you can continue to run any of them by unchecking the box next to the entry below. To find out more about an item, click on it. I didn't see any harm in getting rid of these startup programs so I clicked next.
The Next screen that Optimize 2.0 shows is the Registry Fixes that it will perform. Programs sometimes leave incorrect information behind in the registry, either because they uninstall incorrectly or because the files associated with the entries have been moved or deleted. Cleaning the Windows registry will help to keep your PC in working order and keep the system running at peak performance.
The next screen shows the performance tweaks that the PC Pitstop Optimize utility will perform. The default settings for Windows are long on flash but often low on performance. By adjusting some of these parameters, you can get a more responsive system without sacrificing much in the way of looks. These are the settings we recommend for best performance and stability. I kept the recommended settings.
The next screenshot is the Optimization Summary. If you don't find any significant errors or fixes on this screen then there more than likely do not have any reason to buy the program. In this case, the Optimize program found enough problems and suggested tweaks that I just had to purchase the program.
After buying the program, it tells me that Optimize is now ready to make changes to your system. Please click the Optimize button to begin making changes. The utility will first back up your current settings so you can restore these settings later if you encounter any problems.
The next screen shows the changes that the utility has made or will make but I must reboot the system for the settings to take effect. I quickly saved this page and clicked the reboot button.
After the computer rebooted I shut it down and did a cold start. The boot time to a usable desktop is now 57 seconds, an improvement of 18 seconds. That is an impressive improvement. Now lets take a look at the Windows Task Manager after running the PC Pitstop Optimize 2.0 computer optimization utility.
The task manager always tells a good story about what the utility did. This computer now has about 191 Megabytes of available physical memory, running 34 processes and has 254 MB of page file usage. So this computer gained 19 megabytes of available memory, decreased the page file usage by 15 megabytes and decreased the boot up time by 18 seconds. I then took another trip out to SpeedTest.net to see the following results.
Looks like this computer gained quite a bit of Internet speed too. A total speed increase of 3427 kb/s. Impressive! So this computer gained 19 megabytes of available memory, decreased the page file usage by 15 megabytes and decreased the boot up time by 18 seconds and also noticeably increased the Internet speed connection. The Optimize utility did everything that it claimed to be able to do and it is very easy and intuitive to use. However, there are other PC optimization programs that do the same job with a little less work. See the reviews of the reccommended programs below.
Review of the Uniblue Powersuite 2013
SpeedUpMyPC Review
TuneUp Utilities 2013 Review
System Mechanic 11.7 Review
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