Existing users, 
 System Mechanic - 3.7gSpeed up your Internet connection, find and clean junk and obsolete files, and clear your cache. |
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Feedback Summary:
| Version 3.7g: | |||||
| Overall Rating: |  (5.0) |
Features: | (5.0) |
Support: | (5.0) |
| Ease of Use: | (5.0) |
Quality / Stability: | (5.0) |
Price: | (5.0) |
Key to Types of Feedback:
Reviews 
Troubleshooting 
Usage Tips 
Developer Notes 
Commentary 
Featured Reviews
Pack a Lunch!! 
- Version: 6.0q, 12/20/2005 08:43AM PST
(3 of 3 users found this comment useful)
jhr1014
You best pack a lunch and take a nap once you start the trial version. Takes forever to do anything. Most functions I canceled since I didn't have the time to waste. Tried other registry programs after trying this one and found them to be faster.
Looking thru the installed files you will find an interesting EXE. Delay.exe - You need to be a qualified rocket scientist to figure out what that is used for!
I found System Mechanic had installed a program in my startup menu that runs in the background. No mention of why it is needed or what it is doing. Wanna bet it is NOT calling home once in a while? I wouldn't.
I want to see what a program is doing. I don't like the little magnifying glass going around in a circle being the only indication that the program is still doing something. Other programs show you what key is being looked at and leave a warm fuzzy feeling that it is working. System Mechanic gives you that "what the heck is going on" feeling.
I tried to delete the program and found it acted like the typical poorly written program that refuses to leave without a little help. The entry in the startup menu was still there. The program directories were still in place. About what I expected. I found that I need another registry cleanup program to help cleanup the entries System Mechanic leaves behind!
The last scan I performed with System Mechanic declared no problems found of any kind. Using Registry Mechanic immediately after uninstalling System Mechanic showed there were 116 problems. 13 were listed as high priority. At least one was the result of uninstalling System Mechanic.
I would expect System Mechanic should have found a few of the problems Registry Mechanic found
Its hard to imagine anyone would like this program but for those that do, I have some property in Florida I need to unload, er - I mean sell....
On the plus side there was no shortage of pleas to register System Mechanic
Looking thru the installed files you will find an interesting EXE. Delay.exe - You need to be a qualified rocket scientist to figure out what that is used for!
I found System Mechanic had installed a program in my startup menu that runs in the background. No mention of why it is needed or what it is doing. Wanna bet it is NOT calling home once in a while? I wouldn't.
I want to see what a program is doing. I don't like the little magnifying glass going around in a circle being the only indication that the program is still doing something. Other programs show you what key is being looked at and leave a warm fuzzy feeling that it is working. System Mechanic gives you that "what the heck is going on" feeling.
I tried to delete the program and found it acted like the typical poorly written program that refuses to leave without a little help. The entry in the startup menu was still there. The program directories were still in place. About what I expected. I found that I need another registry cleanup program to help cleanup the entries System Mechanic leaves behind!
The last scan I performed with System Mechanic declared no problems found of any kind. Using Registry Mechanic immediately after uninstalling System Mechanic showed there were 116 problems. 13 were listed as high priority. At least one was the result of uninstalling System Mechanic.
I would expect System Mechanic should have found a few of the problems Registry Mechanic found
Its hard to imagine anyone would like this program but for those that do, I have some property in Florida I need to unload, er - I mean sell....
On the plus side there was no shortage of pleas to register System Mechanic
Don't waste your hard earned money on System Mechanic v6.0n - Version: 6.0n, 11/26/2005 04:31PM PST
(4 of 4 users found this comment useful)
jessatm
Ah, yes, do you remember the good ole days of computing? Remember using the latest Windows 3.0 operating system? Remember the old running joke about "Windows has detected your mouse has moved, reboot now"? Remember all of the bloated, poorly written software, that would bring your computer to a grinding halt? Well, thats exactly what to expect from the latest, greatest, software from www.iolo.com. I have been a registered user of System Mechanic version 5.0 for almost a year. Then, in early November 2005, was alerted to the latest and greatest version yet of System Mechanic, version 6.0n. I have learned from the 'good ole days of computing' to not fall victim to alleged "WonderWare" software. I decided to trial run System Mechanic verion 6.0n, just to see if the claims iolo was making were in fact true. WRONG! Everything they claim this software to be is quite the opposite. It is a bloated, heavily graphical, typographical nightmare. After installing this software, it immediately wants to analyze your computer. Nine, yes, count them, 9 hours later and it was still analyzing my computer. I needed to use my computer, so I decided to cancel the analyze functions. I clicked on the cancel button, and lo and behold, the software became unresponive, and crashed. After rebooting my computer, it became clear what System Mechanic version 6.0n was up while it was "analyzing" my computer. System Mechanic disabled all of my computers security features, and altered the way my computer 'normally' operated. It did all this automatically, without alerting me to such facts, or offering me the choice to make the changes manually. My virus protection was disabled, along with my firewall and spam filter. I had to reinstall or re-enable all the software that System Mechanic version 6.0n deemed undesireable. Figuring that at that point I had little to lose, I tried to use some of the 'features' of the software manually. What I found was astounding, to put it mildly. Typographical errors abound in the software, it looks like a 6 year old child wrote the help'less' files. I was left wondering if iolo has any such thing as "quality control". The graphical interface to the software is nothing but bloat, and serves no real purpose. Many of the options in the "Customise Windows" sub-menu don't work at all. I'm left with the impression that they are just there for appearance. And to top it off, each time you do even the smallest of things, such as cleaning up cache files, you are forced to reboot your computer each time (Can you say Windows 3.0?). Upon attempting to use System Mechanics Netbooster option, the entire program would crash with "Access violations". This effectively caused my computer to crash, which by the way is a Windows XP system. The computer I'm using is not some rag-tag, roll your own system. I have a computer from a major manufactor, and it is only 6 months old. So the problems are not attributed to some old "legacy" computer. Basically this feedback is intended to save anyone else from making the same mistake I did. If you value your computer, and use it as much as I do mine, stay away from SYSTEM MECHANIC VERSION 6.0n! You'll save yourself alot of headaches, time, and MONEY!
It seems to run ok until you ask it to download the fix.
I asked it to download the latest ASTRA32 and upgrade to 1.55
It did not find it, so I did. It is now 1.55 and it stills says it is 1.54a!
I am just a bit cornfuzzed...................
Thanks in advance, John from New Hampshire