Optimize & Speedup Windows 7 with EnhanceMySe7en Freeware Utility

I am sure all those users who have used Windows 7 Beta or Windows 7 RC will accept the fact that performance of Windows 7 is superior to Windows Vista or XP. However a big issue with all windows operating system is performance degradation over period of time.
Here is handy freeware utility EnhanceMySe7en with which you can tweak, optimize & control many aspects of the windows 7 with maximum convenience. It has all necessary features for maintaining Windows 7 in a perfect condition.
EnhaceMySe7en has tools that take care of the registry, disk space and its defragmentation, installed software, HDD temperature and all sorts of things related to system’s health. Also there are lots of other options helping to boost your system’s performance.

Features of EnhaceMySe7en for Windows 7

1. Process Identification – Identify unrecognized software
2. Start-Up Management – Disable unnecessary software increasing performance
3. Registry Cleaner – Can easily checks your registry and repair incorrectly linked registry entries, automatically remove invalid entries
4. Disk Cleaner – Find out which files or folders engross your disk space and shown with chart
5. Registry Defragmenter – Rebuilds and re-indexs your registry to reduce application response time and registry access time
6. Disk Defragmenter – Reduces the amount of fragmentation in file systems
7. Hard Drive Monitor – Gives the current values of various hard disk parameters such as Temperature, Head Flying Height, Spin-Up Time etc.
8. System Tools, File, network and Security Tools
9. Security – EnhanceMySe7en has easy to configure security settings for managing the new security features of Windows Vista
10. Optimization – Optimize settings for maximum speed and stability
11. Customization – customize system desktop, menus, toolbar and notifications settings
12. Network – Optimize your Internet connection speed

Screenshot of EnhanceMySe7en

Download EnhaceMySe7en to Optimize and Speed Up Windows 7.

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View Programs & Files Loaded After Windows Boot with After Boot File Viewer

We are sure you would have noticed that machine with freshly Installed Windows boots faster than the one which has Windows running for past six months to year. The reason for this is as you start installing programs and applications many of the files are added to Windows boot process to load at startu and this is what causes the slowdown in Windows boot process.
If you can control & remove those unnecessary files and programs added to Windows startup then you can reduce the windows boot time significantly but unfortunately Windows doesn’t provide any way to let us know which programs are loaded in startup. To solve this problem here is free utility After Boot File viewer.

As the name suggest this utility lets you to view the programs that load after PC boots.  This utility can also become handy in case when you are suspicious about virus or malware infection. The utility can be run any time once your Windows is booted.

After Boot Files Viewer

Download After Boot File Viewer.

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View Windows 7 Startup Program List with Startup Discoverer

Windows 7 has several ways to start applications & programs automatically commonly referred as startup locations. A tight control over startup programs can save you from viruses & malicious programs. Manually keeping check of windows 7 startup locations could be cumbersome task and many don’t know all Windows 7 startup locations.

Here is nifty app Startup Discoverer which can retrieve list of programs added into startup locations of Windows 7. You can view program list based on startup category like machine runs, user runs etc.

Startup Discoverer

The main interface has 19 categories that you can click on to get the auto start programs list for each category. Blue category label means that there are auto programs in this category, black label means empty category.
Click on Show All Runs to view full list of Startup Programs.

It is also possible to save a list as a text file and to print the a list to the default printer.
Download Startup Discoverer to get Windows 7 Startup List.

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Speedup Windows 7 Startup with My Startup Delayer

Windows exhibits typical characteristics of system slow down, slow startup and frequent crashes as the time passes after fresh installation of Windows operating system. Though Microsoft has significantly improved the booting time from Vista to Windows 7 but there is no control over the applications which adds entry to startup process list in order to auto start with every Windows boot.
This could be very frustrating, especially when you want to quickly go online for some reason and patiently waiting for your System to startup. Not any more, My Startup Delayer is here to rescue you. As the name suggests, this is small application designed to help in removing or delaying the applications which auto starts with Windows there by increasing overall Windows boot time.
My Startup Delayer has simple user interface and multiple options to adjust delay of application launch on startup as per your need. It also offers option to either delay or completely disable selected application from Windows Startup.
My Startup Delayer is portable app, so it doesn’t need any installation. Simply download and run My Startup Delayer. You will notice that when you run this app, it provides you the list of all the application currently added into Windows Startup process list.


Right clicking on any entry and you will be provided with an option to Delay, Disabled or set Normal. You can also check the current status of any exe present in startup.

The executable set as delayed will be highlighted in yellow bar.

You can also define the delay options such as seconds to wait before launching delayed executable or seconds to wait before launching every executable etc. This will help you to prevent system becoming unresponsive during startup.

Please note that if you plan to remove My Start Delayer then you must revert back all the delayed executable to normal.
You may like to check out below articles,
View Windows 7 Startup Program List
View Programs loaded after Windows Boot
Optimize and Speed Windows 7
Download My Startup Delayer
Download My Startup Delayer.

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My 2012 Review Of PC Tools Antivirus Free v9

The latest in my series of reviews of free 2012 antivirus programs is for PC Tools Antivirus Free v9.

The Good:

• 1. Fair detection rates
• 2. Nice clean interface
• 3. Low memory usage during scans

The Bad:

• 1. Took a long time to install
• 2. Very high CPU usage during a full scan
• 3. -

If you are looking for a good free antivirus program should you consider PC Tools Antivirus Free v9, the company’s new program for 2012?
Lets find out…


Installation and first impression
The first thing that surprised me with this antivirus program was it’s size. The download was some 140 MB in size and it did take some time before I was in a position to run the program.
One thing you may want to look out for during the installation is the toolbar installation prompt. On the whole I hate toolbars and typically am wary of installing them. You may have differing views. In either case, you will be prompted to choose whether to install the PC Tools Defender Toolbar:

Once installed, however, I have to say that the new graphical user interface is very good looking indeed. The blue, white and green colour scheme works very well and the way the features are laid out make this a very simple and intuitive program to use.

The features on offer in this antivirus program are functional but quite limited and you’ll see an Upgrade link at the bottom of the screen. The paid for version (review coming soon) is much better in my opinion but this free version certainly does a job.
Conclusion
In use I found PC Tools Antivirus Free v9 to be very good at finding questionable files, such as adware and tracking cookies. When it came to the most important items to detect – malware – it certainly didn’t get a 100% detection rate against the sample list that I used. Thats not to say that it gave a disaterous result but it certainly didn’t do quite as well as the other free antivirus programs I’ve looked at thus far.

Of bigger concern to me was the resource usage.
On the plus side, this antivirus program never required a huge amount of memory. Even during a full scan I never saw more than half a gig of RAM being used by the entire system.
CPU usage, however, was an entirely different matter…
As you can see in the screenshot above, the central processing unit was kept very busy indeed during a full scan with usage typically above 80% for pretty well the entire operation.
To conclude then, I wouldn’t choose this program for myself as I’m always busy on my computer and multitasking whilst running a scan (yes, I know they can be scheduled but I like to turn my computer off when not being used) was a virtual impossibility. PC Tools Antivirus Free 2012 v9 isn’t the worst free antivirus program I’ve looked at but I believe there are better choices available this year.
Check out my other reviews of 2012 free antivirus programs.

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The Top 10 Free Antivirus Programs 2012

As summer 2011 comes around the security vendors cast their eyes to the following year and start releasing the paid for versions of their antivirus programs. For most people I would definitely recommend handing over a few dollars to get a good level of protection but, for some people, that may not be necessary.



With that in mind it is time once again for me to look at what free antivirus protection is available.
Over the next couple of months I will be writing some new reviews for what I believe are the top 10 free antivirus programs you can get in 2012 without parting with your cash. I’ll be looking at programs from the usual suspects, including -

• AVG
• Avira
• Avast!
• Comodo
• and, assuming no fingers have just fallen off, 6 others.

Check back soon to read each review as I add it and to see if you agree with the choices I make and the commentary I write.

Top 10 Free Antivirus Programs 2012

1. AVG Anti-Virus Free 2012
Its quick, its free, its low on system resources. Well worth checking out.
2. Microsoft Security Essentials
Capped CPU usage and its free. Might not be well suited to business users though.
3. Avira Free Antivirus 2012
Quick, accurate and good detection rates.
4. Pc Tools Antivirus Free v9
Easy to use but high CPU usage may be an issue.
5. Avast! Free Antivirus 6
Offers the lowest memory and CPU usage I’ve seen yet.

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Review Of Webroot Secure Anywhere Antivirus

Today’s 2012 antivirus review features the latest offering from Webroot; Webroot Secure Anywhere.

Key Benefits:

• Quick scans
• Offers a sandbox mode
• Happily works in conjunction with other security products

There is a growing trend with antivirus programs these days and that is to combine traditional databases full of virus definitions with cloud technology which provides a quicker response to new threats. Webroot Secure Anywhere Antivirus bucks the trend somewhat by dispensing with the database model completely.
This of course offers some advantages, namely that most of the ‘work’ performed by the program is not reliant on your PC. Therefore, hourly/daily updates are not required as all the pertinent information is stored and frequently updated on Webroot’s own servers.

System Requirements
The minimum system requirements are as follows:

• Windows XP (32 bit and 64 bit) SP2 or later / Vista (32 bit and 64 bit) SP1 or SP2 respectively / 7 (32 bit and 64 bit) SP1
• 128 MB of RAM
• 10 MB of hard drive space
• Pentium / Celeron / K7 / Athlon / Duron or compatible processor

As you can see, this antivirus program should run on many older computers as well as more modern ones too.

Installation and first impression
the first thing I noted about Webroot Secure Anywhere Antivirus is that it is very quick. Very quick indeed. The program installed in seconds and then launched into a full scan. This again was very fast, taking less than 2 minutes!
When installation and the first scan have completed you will be presented with the screen shown above. You’ll note that the interface is very clean and uncluttered, making this an easy program for beginners to get to grips with.

Features
As a standalone antivirus product Webroot Secure Anywhere Antivirus was never going to be as feature packed as an internet security suite and that is quite evident when you start looking around the Settings area. Beyond the sandbox, which allows you to run suspicious programs in a protected environment, there is nothing much here that you won’t find in any other antivirus program on the market today.
You can see pretty much what is on offer in the screenshot below:

Effectiveness
This is a good antivirus program that does a fine job of detecting and blocking viruses as well as spyware, worms, etc. It’s key selling point, to my mind, is it’s ability to run on older machines and without using much in the way of memory or CPU.

Conclusion

I can think of nothing negative to say about this program but, equally, it just didn’t get me overly excited either. Thats not to say I wouldn’t recommend it though – its good at what it does, runs very well and is terrifically fast at scanning – it just, as you may have guessed by now, didn’t inspire me for some reason.
But if you want an easy to use program and quick scans then you may want to check it out for yourself…
Do you want to see what the other vendors are offering this year? If so, read my other 2012 Antivirus reviews.

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