Tuneup Utilities 2008 Users Manual
TuneUp Utilities - 2008 - User Manual tuneup-utilities-2008-en Free User Guide for TuneUp Utilities Software, Manual
2015-07-27
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TuneUp Utilities 2008 User Manual TuneUp Utilities 2008 was developed by: Company: TuneUp Software GmbH Address: Rheinstraße 97 64295 Darmstadt Germany Internet: www.tune-up.com TuneUp Utilities 2008 is produced by: Company: Phoenix Software UK Ltd Address: Studio 40, Matrix Studios 91 Peterborough Road Parsons Green London SW6 3BU Internet: www.phoenixsoftwareuk.co.uk Support for this software can be obtained at the following telephone number and address: Phone: +49-6151-4938610 (9 AM to 7 PM CET) Internet: www.tune-up.com/support/ Table of Contents Installation..........................................................3 System Requirements ....................................... 3 Starting the Installation .................................... 4 Entering Your User Name and Serial Number .... 5 Selecting the Installation Location..................... 5 Introduction of TuneUp Utilities 2008 ..................7 Starting the software ........................................ 7 Using the software ........................................... 7 The six categories ............................................ 8 Global modules and settings .......................... 10 New Features in TuneUp Utilities 2008 ........... 11 Increase performance........................................13 TuneUp Drive Defrag ...................................... 15 TuneUp StartUp Manager................................ 19 TuneUp System Optimizer .............................. 22 TuneUp Registry Defrag.................................. 26 TuneUp Memory Optimizer............................. 28 Free up disk space ............................................31 Unnecessary files and backups ....................... 33 iii Table of Contents Windows functions......................................... 37 TuneUp Disk Space Explorer .......................... 38 Maintain Windows ............................................ 47 TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance ......................... 48 TuneUp Registry Cleaner................................ 49 Solve problems................................................. 55 TuneUp Disk Doctor....................................... 56 TuneUp Repair Wizard.................................... 60 TuneUp Undelete ........................................... 61 Customize Windows ......................................... 65 TuneUp System Control ................................. 66 TuneUp Styler ................................................ 69 Additional tools................................................ 85 TuneUp Process Manager ............................... 87 TuneUp Registry Editor .................................. 91 TuneUp Shredder ........................................... 93 TuneUp System Information ........................... 97 TuneUp Uninstall Manager ............................. 99 Global modules .............................................. 101 TuneUp Rescue Center................................. 102 TuneUp Update Wizard ................................ 105 iv Preface Windows Vista and its predecessors are installed on most of the computers in use around the world. Windows is, after all, a great system for performing standard tasks, using applications and managing files. But if a user wants to adjust, optimize or trim down the system, it stops being quite so easy. Many desirable functions are not even possible with the on-board Windows tools. Just about anything can be adjusted in Windows. Windows decides which applications will start automatically with your system. Windows determines which commands are visible in the Start menu. Windows also determines how icons on the desktop appear. But how can a user change these options? Nearly everything can be changed if you know where and how. TuneUp Utilities 2008 - your personal Windows expert Ask the expert. All important settings are hidden in the Windows boot files and the system registry. The registry is the central database for Windows, in which settings for all applications and hardware modules are stored. Using the right tools, you can open this special database and change its settings. The problem is that only experienced users know how to change the right settings among the cryptic entries in the registry. Most users don't understand a word of the information contained in an open registry file. Even if you know the registry entries inside and out, a small typo in the registry can still lead to serious consequences and even complete system failure. That's where TuneUp Utilities 2008 comes in. The software helps both beginners and experts to make Windows meet their needs in a way that is better, easier and safer. All important system options are explained in an easy way and can be turned on or off at the click of your mouse. TuneUp Utilities 2008 will then make the necessary changes in the registry or boot files automatically. We place a high value on system stability, so that Windows won't stop working reliably. And most changes that you make can be undone in TuneUp Rescue Center easily and safely. The program also gives you many more options. In addition to helping you make Windows "better looking", you can also clean up and optimize your system at the 1 Preface click of a mouse. TuneUp Utilities 2008 will clean up unnecessary data from your hard disk and remove unnecessary entries from your registry. It can defragment your hard disk and registry and optimize your system settings to make Windows run substantially faster. Most of this maintenance is performed automatically every week by TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance. Automatic adaptation to your operating system 2 When making these changes, TuneUp Utilities 2008 reaches deep into the Windows system. However, Windows has changed a great deal from version to version. Because of this, the software automatically recognizes and adapts to each supported version of Windows. This is done automatically so that you, the user, won't have to re-learn the software for each operating system version. Installation 1 Before using TuneUp Utilities 2008 on your computer, you must first install the software. During this process, application files will be copied to the hard drive. You can then run the software and use it at any time without having to insert the CD-ROM. System Requirements To be able to install and use TuneUp Utilities 2008 without a problem, your system needs to meet certain requirements. The software does not require a highpowered system, however - any reasonably modern computer should meet the necessary minimum requirements. Minimum system configuration Recommended system configuration Microsoft Windows 2000 Microsoft Windows XP or Vista 800x600 screen resolution with 256 colors 1024x768 screen resolution with 16.7 million colors 60 MB free disk space 100 MB free disk space CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive Internet Explorer 6 Internet Explorer 6 or 7 Internet access 3 Introduction Starting the Installation Insert the enclosed CD in your CD-ROM drive. The installation will start automatically as soon as the drive has recognized the CD. If nothing happens after inserting the CD, the autostart function of your drive is deactivated. In this case, use Explorer to open the file SETUP.EXE, which is located in the main directory of the CD. To do this, simply double-click on the file. Please close all other programs. The installation routine will welcome you. To begin with, you will be asked to close all other open Windows programs. Use ALT+TAB to switch to any other open applications and close them with the keystroke ALT+F4. This will help to avoid errors or conflicts during installation. In addition, the installation wizard is now free to update system files that might otherwise have been in use at the time. Click Next to continue. The program will now show the license agreement. Read through the text to learn about the conditions placed on your use of the software. After this, select the option I accept the license agreement and click Next again. You must accept the license agreement to continue. 4 Installation Entering Your User Name and Serial Number In the next step, you will be asked to enter your user information. The installation routine will ask for your name and the name of your organization or company. Usually these fields are already correctly filled out. If not, please enter the correct information yourself. The requested serial number can be found on the back of this manual. Personalize your copy of TuneUp Utilities Important for Windows Vista, XP and 2000 users: During this step, you can specify whether the application should be available to all users on the computer or only to you. After you have entered all necessary information, please click Next again to continue. Selecting the Installation Location Now things get serious. In the next step, you need to select a target folder. This is the folder on your hard drive in which TuneUp Utilities 2008 is to be installed. The installation wizard will suggest the default folder C:\Program Files\TuneUp Utilities 2008. In most cases you can accept this suggestion. If you would like to install the software to another folder, click Browse. Start the Then click Next to begin copying the files. installation process. A progress bar will show the status of the tasks being completed. Please wait until the following message appears: "TuneUp Utilities 2008 was successfully installed.". Then click Finish to close the installation wizard. 5 Introduction of TuneUp Utilities 2008 2 Starting the software There are a number of ways to open the TuneUp Utilities 2008 Start Center. The most important ways to do so are described below. During installation, a new icon is placed on your desktop. Double click on the yellow TuneUp Utilities 2008 icon to start the software directly. You can also start the software from the Windows Start menu. To do this, open the Start menu and go to the folder Programs. The folder TuneUp Utilities 2008 is created here during software installation. Simply click on the entry TuneUp Utilities 2008 in this folder to open the Start Center. You can also open each TuneUp Utilities 2008 module individually if you are already familiar with the software. To do this, open the Utilities subfolder in the Start menu, which contains a list of all modules. Click on one of the names listed in this folder to start the corresponding module. Using the software On the left side of the window, you will see the names of the available categories. Click one of the category names to open it and to view the available modules that it contains. 7 Introduction The modules of the currently selected category are displayed by name on the right side of the window. You can start a module simply by clicking on its name. You can also click the links below a module name to navigate directly to the desired feature within the module. When you are finished working with one of the modules, you can close the module window by clicking on the red X in the upper right corner. This will return you to the Start Center. From here, you can start the next module or close TuneUp Utilities 2008. The six categories TuneUp Utilities is made up of many useful modules that can all be accessed from a common Start Center. This Start Center is divided into six categories to make finding individual modules easier. The modules of the currently selected category are displayed by name on the right side of the window. You can start a module simply by clicking on its name. You can also click the links below a module name to navigate directly to the desired feature within the module. After you have finished working with a 8 Introduction module, simply click the red X at the top right corner of the window to close the module and return to the Start Center. Increase performance No one should have to use a Windows system that keeps getting slower and slower over time. TuneUp Utilities 2008 includes several modules to help prevent your system from slowing down. TuneUp Drive Defrag determines the degree of fragmentation of your hard disks and reorganizes your files in an intelligent manner. TuneUp Registry Defrag shrinks your bloated registry so that it takes up significantly less space. TuneUp StartUp Manager prevents unwanted programs from starting automatically. TuneUp System Optimizer uses various methods to improve general system performance and, most of all, your Internet speed. For systems running Windows 2000 or XP, you can also use TuneUp Memory Optimizer. This module lets you free up blocked system memory immediately, without restarting your computer. Free up disk space Even the biggest hard disks fill up someday. TuneUp Utilities 2008 helps you preserve disk space by searching for many types of unnecessary files that can be deleted with the user's approval. The Start Center of TuneUp Utilities 2008 now shows you how much space can be saved, even before you have started a program module. Maintain Windows Windows is a dynamic system that requires regular attention from its users. Because of this, regular system maintenance should be a priority. TuneUp 1Click Maintenance can initiate maintenance of your entire system automatically at predefined times or with a single click of your mouse. This lets you keep your system in top shape at all times. If you would like to perform detailed registry maintenance, you can use TuneUp Registry Cleaner at any time. Solve problems If Windows is no longer working properly, the three modules in this category can often be helpful. TuneUp Disk Doctor examines your system disks for defects or errors in their file systems. These problems can be fixed quickly. With TuneUp Repair Wizard, you can solve a number of general computer or display problems. If you have accidentally deleted important files, you can use 9 Introduction TuneUp Undelete for another chance to recover your files. File recovery is only possible in this case if Windows has not yet overwritten the files with other data. Customize Windows Windows is not as inflexible as you may think. The modules in this category will help you to customize your Windows system at the click of a mouse. With TuneUp System Control, for example, you can easily adjust Windows and program settings and Internet options or change the behavior of the Start menu or taskbar. TuneUp Styler lets you customize the appearance of Windows. Additional tools Five powerful modules are included in this category. TuneUp Uninstall Manager helps you delete programs that you are no longer using. TuneUp Process Manager manages running processes, shows a list of open files and monitors system resource usage. TuneUp Registry Editor lets you view and edit keys and values in the registry. With TuneUp Shredder, you can permanently delete files and folders so that unauthorized users will never be able to recover them. Finally, TuneUp System Information gives every user an overview of installed hardware and software, which can be very useful before performing repairs or modifications on your computer. Global modules and settings In addition to the modules within the six main categories, the Start Center also has three general buttons in a dark gray bar to the right at the top of the window: The TuneUp Rescue Center module runs in the background to monitor all changes made to your system. The module allows you to restore any changes made to your system with TuneUp Utilities to their previous states. The TuneUp Update Wizard module helps you to update your software over the Internet with a single click of your mouse. The last button provides help and settings that you can use to customize the software package to meet your needs. 10 Introduction New Features in TuneUp Utilities 2008 Compared to TuneUp Utilities 2007, TuneUp Utilities 2008 features a number of substantial upgrades and new features. Once again, our goal for the update was to implement the requests of our users in a simple and easy way. The most important changes are listed below. New module: "TuneUp Drive Defrag" TuneUp Utilities 2008 now includes the brand new TuneUp Drive Defrag module, one of the most powerful modules in the Increase performance category. TuneUp Drive Defrag performs a thorough analysis of your disks to determine whether they are highly fragmented. Highly fragmented disks can slow down your system performance, as the files needed by Windows must first be reconstructed from individual pieces (fragments) before they can be opened. TuneUp Drive Defrag puts the scattered fragments on your hard disk back together to speed up your system substantially. The files are also reorganized in an intelligent way so that Windows and frequently used programs or games will launch substantially faster. Finally, the free space on your disks is consolidated to prevent new fragments from being created for as long as possible. This comprehensive optimization may take a while but is worth it - just give it a try! Improved TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance in TuneUp Utilities 2008 allows you to perform even more maintenance functions on your system with a single click of the mouse. You can also run this important function directly from the Start Center. Additional information about TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance is also shown there. In the new software version, defragmentation of your hard disks is now included in TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance. While this is being done in the background, you can minimize TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance and continue working with your computer without any problems. New Start Center - even easier to use The TuneUp Utilities Start Center has been completely redesigned to make it more visually appealing and modern. But that's not all. The new software version now lets users navigate to program modules much more quickly. The completely revised navigation system in the TuneUp Utilities 2008 Start Center has been made even more intuitive. The left side of the window now shows potential 11 Introduction changes that can be made. There are now six categories to choose from: Increase performance, Free up disk space, Maintain Windows, Solve problems, Customize Windows and Additional tools. After a category has been selected, the names of the corresponding modules will be displayed on the right side of the window. The latest version of the software now includes links to specific functions within the modules. The program also displays links to related modules along the bottom edge of every category page ("See also"). New area: "Free up disk space" Even the largest hard disk fills up at some point. With today's Internet connections and the constantly growing range of downloads, this happens more quickly than most users would like it to. That's why TuneUp Utilities 2008 now offers even more features to find and delete unnecessary files. In the Free up disk space area of the Start Center, TuneUp Utilities 2008 now gives you an overview of the amount of space that can be saved on each system drive. This function replaces and expands upon the "TuneUp DiskCleaner" module, which was used in earlier versions of TuneUp Utilities. In addition to the file types that were identified by the older program versions, the program now finds error reporting files, thumbnail files (Windows, ACDSee and Google Picasa formats), restore points, Windows Update backups and the Google Earth cache. The "Windows functions" category, also new, can help you to quickly free up gigabytes of additional disk space. New module: "TuneUp Repair Wizard" The TuneUp Repair Wizard can be opened directly from the Start Center in the new category Solve problems. This recognizes common computer or display problems and can quickly resolve them. TuneUp System Control with even more tweaks for Vista TuneUp System Control gives you more than 400 options for customizing Windows and program settings. The new version also includes additional functions for the brand new Windows Vista operating system. 12 Increase performance 3 The modules in the Increase performance category are there to accelerate your system. You will find everything you need to accelerate your system here. Many Windows default settings slow down your system performance. Expert users know this and can adjust the system settings to achieve maximum performance. With the TuneUp Utilities modules in this category, a few mouse clicks are enough to optimize your system for maximum performance - and you don't have to become a Windows guru. 13 Increase performance One of the most powerful tools for accelerating your system is TuneUp Drive Defrag. The advanced defragmentation system will allow Windows and programs to start substantially faster. TuneUp Registry Defrag optimizes and defragments the Windows registry, which becomes increasingly larger and slower the longer you work with Windows. TuneUp StartUp Manager lets you stop unnecessary applications from starting with Windows. This often includes applications that are automatically started with Windows - even if you don't want them running. The category also includes TuneUp System Optimizer, another useful module. The module checks your system for any settings that may be slowing the system down and fixes them at the click of your mouse. You also will be given useful tips for configuring your hardware and software. Wizards can help you adjust the system configuration to meet your needs in a few easy steps. The TuneUp Mem Optimizer module, available for Windows versions up to Windows XP, monitors the system memory in Windows and automatically optimizes it when you are not working. 14 Increase performance TuneUp Drive Defrag There are many reasons, why your computer slows down more and more during time. One of the most important causes is increasing fragmentation of your hard drives. TuneUp Drive Defrag helps you to get rid of fragmented hard disks. And set within TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance to take care of defragmentation automatically, your system is efficiently protected from fragmentation and slow down. But there is even more TuneUp Drive Defrag can do for you. Realigning the files on your hard drive in the exact order in which they are used by Windows, you get the maximum possible speed of your computer. The start of Windows and programs will be noticeable faster. Drive analysis The TuneUp Drive Defrag start screen shows you all available drives and their drive letters. The program initially selects all drives for analysis. You can deselect individual drives with the mouse. Select the drives you wish to analyze. If the Automatically defragment highly fragmented drives option is selected with a checkmark, TuneUp Drive Defrag will take the initiative. If the program 15 Increase performance finds drives that should be defragmented, the module will automatically start defragmentation after the analysis is complete. If the option is not selected, defragmentation will need to be started manually. In this case, wait to see the results of the analysis. The drives that need to be defragmented will be selected automatically. Simply click on a drive in the list to see the corresponding drive usage map. You can select or deselect drives for defragmentation with a checkmark. Then, start defragmentation with Next. The module will then analyze the drives. A yellow arrow in front of an entry indicates that the drive in question is currently being analyzed. A green checkmark tells you that analysis of the drive is complete. The percentage next to the drive shows you the progress the module has made. Colors in drive usage map The drive usage map shows fragmented files in red and non-fragmented files in blue. Free space is shown in white and locked (= non-movable) files are shown in dark violet. Drives are being defragmented The program shows the current drive usage map for the hard disk partition in question as long as any drive is still being defragmented. The drive usage map is shown in real time, which allows you to watch as TuneUp Drive Defrag makes visible progress. 16 Increase performance Select the drives you wish to analyze. A progress bar at the bottom left shows the total progress for all drives. The progress for each drive is also shown directly after the drive names in the drive selection list. Click Cancel to stop the process at any time. Tip: NTFS is better than FAT Hard disks can either use the NTFS file system, as used in the most recent versions of Windows, or the older FAT system that is supported by earlier Windows versions. Analysis of drives before defragmentation is substantially faster on NTFS drives. For FAT systems, the user will need to wait significantly longer. This is just one of several reasons that the old FAT system should be converted to the modern NTFS system. The NTFS file system (NTFS = New Technology File System) is a file system used from Windows NT and its successors up to Vista. It offers an intelligently devised access protection to file levels, allows flexible management of privileges, accommodates file sizes above 4 GB, offers automatic error 17 Increase performance correction of the file system and can utilize the storage space of today's standard hard disk sizes in a considerably more efficient manner. Conversion can be performed very easily. In Windows, click Start, open Programs, navigate to the Accessories area and click on Command Prompt. You can use the command CONVERT.EXE C: /FS:NTFS to start conversion. Replace C: with another drive letter to convert a different partition. If the system partition is changed, the computer will need to be restarted. In this case, follow the instructions on your screen. Although conversion is considered very secure, you should make a backup of your saved data before attempting this. 18 Increase performance TuneUp StartUp Manager Many applications start automatically together with Windows without asking for your permission. There is often a good reason for this, for example to provide you with important functions and services such as your virus scanner, an ISDN call monitor or a text module administration system. In addition to these sensible applications, there are often also useless or even dangerous applications that also start together with your system. Newly installed programs sometimes add themselves to the Startup folder without asking for your permission, causing Windows to start more slowly. And what's worse, some of these programs even bother you with messages and dialogs or advertising. The limits of the Startup folder in the Start menu. Many users know that programs that are started automatically often simply add a shortcut to the Startup folder in the Start menu, and that these shortcuts can be deleted there. But that's only half of the story. Some start commands are added directly to the registry, and cannot be found in the Startup folder. TuneUp StartUp Manager finds every application that launches itself automatically, no matter where the start command is hidden. An overview of all automatic start commands. 19 Increase performance Usage TuneUp StartUp Manager shows a list of all found startup entries in its main window. The navigation bar on the left side of the window The TuneUp StartUp Manager navigation bar is located on the left side of the window. By default, it contains a list of Tasks that give you access to frequently used functions. Important information on the currently selected startup entry is shown beneath this list. You can customize this navigation bar by clicking View > Navigation Bar. When you select the Categories option, the navigation bar will contain a list of all locations where startup items can be saved instead of the task list. All is selected here by default. You can limit the selection of entries shown in the right panel of the window by clicking a specific node such as Startup folder or Registry in the list of categories. Then, only the startup items at these locations will be shown. How do I find out if a program that starts automatically is necessary? Deactivating and deleting entries When you select a startup item in the list, TuneUp StartUp Manager shows information on the selected entry in the navigation bar on the left side of the screen or in the information area at the bottom of the screen (depending on the selected view mode). You can use this information to decide whether or not the startup entry should be removed. When you start the program the first time, all startup entries have a check mark in front of them and are active. Click the check box in front of an entry to clear it, and the program will no longer be started the next time you start Windows. In this way, you can find out for certain whether the entry is needed. If something doesn't work properly the next time you start Windows, all you have to do is select the check box again. If you are certain that you no longer need an entry, you can remove it from the list entirely by clicking Delete. If need be, you can still restore the entry with TuneUp Rescue Center. Adding a new startup entry 20 If you wish to add a program to one of the startup folders yourself, click the Add button. If you are using the category list (folder list) instead of the task pane, please select the desired destination folder in the list first. Increase performance Enter the directory path of the program file in the Target box. You can use the Search button to help you find the file. 21 Increase performance TuneUp System Optimizer TuneUp System Optimizer helps you to find and correct misconfigured settings and settings that are slowing your system down. As soon as you start TuneUp System Optimizer, the module displays a welcome screen that tells you that you have come to the right place if you want to perform system maintenance. The module also tells you that you can undo your changes at any time with TuneUp Rescue Center. The TuneUp System Optimizer welcome window You can now select a task and have it completed with a click of your mouse. The individual optimization functions can also be accessed by means of the links on the left side of the window. The System Advisor The System Advisor analyzes your hardware and software configuration and offers important tips on how you can optimize your system. After you have clicked on the link in the System Advisor, it will immediately start checking your system thoroughly. 22 Increase performance The advisor helps you to eliminate weaknesses in your system. After only a few seconds, the results are displayed in the program window. The particular problems are listed in categories such as Display, System or Security. The problem is described with brief, concise language. For example: "Administrative shares are enabled and present a security risk". Select an entry in the list in order to display a more extensive explanation of the problem in the Details section. And the System Advisor can do more than offer vague suggestions. If the setting in question can be changed directly in Windows, the Advisor will usually offer a link under Details. This link opens the corresponding Windows dialog, or corrects the problem automatically. The Internet Optimization Wizard Whether or not a system is optimally configured also depends on what you want to do with your computer. If surfing the Internet is important to you, it can be very helpful to open up some bottlenecks. Because Windows is not perfectly optimized for surfing the Internet by default. 23 Increase performance You may be able to optimize your Internet settings Under Wizards, select Internet Optimization. A wizard will then take you through the necessary procedure step for step. In the first screen, you must tell the wizard what kind of Internet connection you have. Select the connection that best matches yours from the list, for example a modem, ISDN or DSL connection. Then click Next to go to the next step. The wizard will now analyze your system to determine whether it is optimally configured. The most important factors here are data transmission performance and the time required to display web pages. A green message Already optimized means that your system is already optimally configured for this, and that you need take no further steps. A red message Not optimal means that your configuration must be changed. Click one of the blue headers to view the individual settings that the Internet optimizer wants to change. Click Next to have your configuration optimized. The module will now make all the necessary changes and display a message indicating that your computer has been optimized. Note the message Restart required. Windows must normally be restarted for all of the changes in the registry to take effect. Click Finish to close the wizard. 24 Increase performance The System Optimization Wizard Use this wizard to adapt Windows to your specific needs. Here, you can adapt the most important settings to your needs. As soon as the wizard is opened, a message is displayed to tell you that the program needs some information about your system. Select the options that best describe how you use your PC from the lists. Under Visual effect, you can specify whether you prefer maximum performance and a simpler interface, or if you are willing to sacrifice a certain amount of performance for a more appealing appearance. Under Use of the computer, choose the option that best describes your computer. One option is for example "Computer with network or Internet connection". Then click Next to continue. The wizard now analyzes your complete configuration and prepares a list of optimization suggestions for Visual effects and Use of the Computer. Click a blue header to view detailed information on the suggested changes. You can reject individual suggestions by clearing the check box in front of them. Then click Next to apply the selected changes. The module now makes all of the selected changes and displays a message when it has successfully optimized your configuration. Note the message Restart required. Windows may have to be restarted for all of the changes in the registry to take effect. Click Finish to close the wizard. 25 Increase performance TuneUp Registry Defrag Every new program and every new hardware component enters itself in the registry, creating keys and values. Over time, the central Windows database gets larger and larger. The larger the registry becomes, the longer the system needs to find specific information, and this makes Windows slower. Swiss cheese bogs the system down When you remove the software or the hardware component, these keys and values are usually deleted, but the registry doesn't get any smaller. Why? The space that was occupied by a deleted key is still in the registry, even if it is no longer used. Sooner or later, your registry looks like Swiss cheese with lots of holes. It can be 13 MB large, but only contain 9 MB of information. This slows your system down and wastes space, both on your hard drive and in the memory. TuneUp Registry Defrag can consolidate your registry and make it considerably smaller - a trick that can make your system faster again. To do this, the module analyzes the old registry and then creates an entirely new version that only contains the correct entries in the proper order. The old registry is then deleted and is replaced with the new one after a restart. An introductory screen is displayed 26 Increase performance Registry Analysis First, TuneUp Registry Defrag must determine how fragmented your registry is. Click Next to begin. Before the analysis starts, you will be informed that all other applications must be closed. Please follow these instructions and close all other applications before you continue. Registry Analysis After you confirm this message, TuneUp Registry Defrag grays the screen and shows a wait dialog to indicate that you cannot use the computer. During the analysis, a small clock blinks in the upper left corner of the window to show that the software is working. At least Windows 2000, a progress bar is also shown to inform you of the progress of the analysis. There is no need to worry even if this bar does not move for several minutes. On heavily used systems, it can take some time to analyze the entire registry. Next, the module shows the results of the analysis. If there is potential for optimization, you will be told by how many percent and kilobytes the size of the registry can be reduced. Defragmenting the registry What happens during the Registry analysis? If TuneUp Registry Defrag determines that your registry can be defragmented, click Finish to begin defragmenting. TuneUp Registry Defrag must restart your computer for this. While the computer is restarting, the new registry is created and the old one deleted. As soon as Windows restarts, your new registry is already being used. The program has done its job and does not need to be opened again. 27 Increase performance TuneUp Memory Optimizer TuneUp Memory Optimizer monitors your system in the background and frees up memory whenever needed to increase the performance of your computer. The use of TuneUp Memory Optimizer is beneficial up to Windows XP on any system with up to 512 MB RAM. If the available physical memory gets too low, TuneUp Memory Optimizer causes the system to swap old data to the paging file to free up memory for your applications. SmartOptimize makes sure that this automatic optimization in the background does not interfere with your work by only optimizing your system when your processor usage is low. Important for Windows Vista users: Please note that TuneUp Memory Optimizer is no longer available starting with Windows Vista. Microsoft has substantially improved the internal memory management in Windows Vista - the operating system automatically adapts to the behavior of installed applications and intelligently pre-loads files that are likely to be needed soon while the system is not working ("prefetching"). Clearing your system memory can interfere with this mechanism, so we do not recommend that these types of optimization tools be used in Windows Vista. Usage The main window of TuneUp Memory Optimizer consists of three tabs. The first tab Overview contains an animated graph that shows the amount of free physical memory over time. This graph allows you to monitor how Windows uses your system resources. Free physical memory and Free space in paging file show exactly how much memory your system is using. Beneath the graph, you will find a small box that informs you whether AutoOptimize is activated. This TuneUp Memory Optimizer function monitors your memory and can optimize memory usage automatically when the free physical memory falls below a specific amount. Calling up the settings dialog If you wish to change the automatic memory optimization settings for TuneUp Memory Optimizer, go to Overview and click Change settings. 28 Increase performance AutoOptimize Settings This opens the configuration window for the module. Enable AutoOptimize should be selected so that TuneUp Memory Optimizer runs automatically in the background. If you do not wish to have your memory usage optimized automatically, you can disable this function here. Under Physical memory, you can specify the free memory level that triggers automatic optimization. This can for example be set at 50 MB. Under Increase free memory to, you can specify how much memory you want to free up. How SmartOptimize eases the burden on your computer Under Processor usage monitoring, you should select Monitor processor usage so that the module knows how hard your computer is working. When Windows Media Player or a game is currently using all of the computer's resources, for example, TuneUp Memory Optimizer delays optimization automatically so that the system is not slowed down unnecessarily. When Use SmartOptimize is selected, TuneUp Memory Optimizer recognizes such situations automatically and only frees up memory when you are not working. If you find the default setting too conservative, you can select Use manual settings to specify the desired processor load in percent up to which the module can optimize your memory usage. The higher this limit, the more aggressively TuneUp Memory Optimizer will optimize your system. Click OK to activate your settings. If you wish to restore the module to the recommended settings, click Recommended. Manual Optimization If you do not use AutoOptimize, or if you want to free up memory before you start a program that requires a lot of memory, you can go to Manual Optimization. Under Clear manually, you can use the slider to specify how much memory should be freed. Click Clear Now to free the specified amount of memory. The module will then remove unneeded DLLs and other files from physical memory, which may require a few seconds. Under Clipboard, the module shows the current amount of memory occupied by the data in your clipboard. Click Empty Clipboard to free up the memory used by this data. 29 Increase performance Program Options Under Program Options, you can select Load automatically on Windows startup so that TuneUp Memory Optimizer can ensure optimum performance as soon as Windows starts. Hide TuneUp Memory Optimizer Select Show icon in the notification area to have an icon that shows your current memory usage status in the notification area next to the clock. If you do not select this option, TuneUp Memory Optimizer will continue to work in the background, but will be invisible. To access TuneUp Memory Optimizer, you will have to call up the program through the Start Center or the Start menu. You can also have your memory usage optimized by pressing a key combination. The currently configured key combination can be seen in the Key combination box, and is Ctrl+Alt+O by default. You can change this combination at any time. 30 Free up disk space 4 Even the largest hard disk fills up at some point. With today's Internet connections and the constantly growing range of downloads, this happens more quickly than most users would like it to. The category Free up disk space helps you find unnecessary files and recover this space. Free your system of unneeded ballast! The most important features for freeing up disk space are integrated directly into the Start Center of TuneUp Utilities. After performing a quick analysis, the Start Center displays an overview of how much space can be freed up on the selected 31 Free up disk space system disk. TuneUp Utilities goes beyond the standard approach of searching for files only according to their file ending or size. Numerous special functions recognize those files that truly consume large amounts of space and, until now, went undetected by any standard "cleaner". Particular attention has also been paid to security. As a result, in contrast to conventional procedures that "blindly" comb through the hard disk using certain patterns, no unpleasant surprises such as sudden error messages or nonfunctioning software occur. The items that are suggested for cleanup are clearly identified, concisely explained and put into one of the following four categories. Unnecessary files and backups In this category, all files that can be deleted without a second thought are displayed. This allows you to quickly free up disk space. These include temporary files, the contents of the browser cache, temporary thumbnail views and automatically generated log files. This category also displays files that are normally used to restore your system to an earlier state. Furthermore restore points, Windows Update backups and the contents of the Recycle Bin are displayed. If your system is working fine and you do not want to restore recently deleted files or folders, you can free up space by deleting these backups. Windows functions Windows installs many standard features that can quickly consume several gigabytes of space. You can deactivate especially space-hungry features in order to free up space. These include the power save mode "Hibernation file", which permanently reserves the amount of disk space equivalent to your system's memory. 32 Free up disk space Unnecessary files and backups In this category, all files that can be deleted without a second thought are displayed. This allows you to quickly free up disk space. These include temporary files, the contents of the browser cache, temporary thumbnail views and automatically generated log files. In the Start Center, click on Free up disk space on the item Unnecessary files. You will then see an overview of the files that were found on the selected disks. In the overview, the files that were found are presented in several categories. The Size column indicates how much disk space will be freed up by deleting all files in this category. You can recover disk space here. As soon as you click on one of the categories, the yellow Show details area on the lower edge of the window provides a detailed description of the category as well as additional details about the elements that were found. A detailed search is performed for numerous types of unnecessary files. These can generally be deleted from your hard disk without causing problems. 33 Free up disk space Types of unnecessary files Type Description Backups Many applications automatically create backups of the files they use. These can be deleted if you do not need them. Google Earth cache files Google Earth uses this cache to save image data. Internet Explorer cache All pictures, text and animations that you view in Internet Explorer while surfing the Internet are saved in the cache. If you visit a website again, the text and images can be loaded from the cache more quickly than from the Internet. However, it is advisable to empty your cache from time to time. Log files Many applications write log files that can be used to analyze their behavior. This can be helpful, for example, when trying to solve problems. Any log files that you do not plan on evaluating can be deleted. Memory dump files When problems with an application occur, Windows saves the portion of your system memory used by the application in question to a file for troubleshooting purposes. These files are unnecessary and can be deleted. Mozilla Firefox cache All pictures, text and animations that you view in Mozilla Firefox while surfing the Internet are saved in the cache. If you visit a website again, the text and images can be loaded from the cache more quickly than from the Internet. However, it is advisable to empty your cache from time to time. Recycle Bin All files in the Recycle Bin can be deleted. Restore points Restore points are used to save the status of system files on the computer. They are created by the System Restore service at specified intervals and when changes are made to the computer. Saved lost clusters Repair programs such as CHKDSK scan your hard disk for lost clusters and save them as files. These backups are rarely used. Temporary files These are used by different programs to temporarily store data and should normally be deleted by the program after its tasks are complete. These files can always be deleted. Temporary help files These files are used to display help files more quickly. Temporary installation files These are used by many Microsoft installation programs to temporarily store data and should normally be deleted by the program after its tasks are complete. These files can always be deleted. Thumbnails Thumbnails of images are used by various programs to provide a quick preview. The thumbnail views used by Windows, ACDSee and Google Picasa are taken into consideration. Windows error reporting files When a program crashes, Windows saves data about the program. If this service has been deactivated or if settings do not allow for information to be sent to the manufacturer, these files can be deleted. Windows Update backups When Windows is updated, backup files are created. 34 Free up disk space Exclude categories You can prevent individual categories from being deleted. To do this, simply clear the check box in front of the desired category (for example "Temporary files" or "Log files"). View files to be Most categories give you the option before deletion to view the individual files that were suggested. In this case, you will see the Show details button in the details area of the window. Clicking on it opens a new window and displays all files from the selected category. deleted individually You can clear the check box in front of any file by clicking it, thereby excluding it from deletion. You can also click Open file to view the contents of the file in order to see if it can be deleted safely. View files to be deleted individually Cleanup If you want to start deleting files, click the Clean up button. The module will again notify you how many files you have approved for deletion and how much disk space will be cleared. Once you have initiated the cleanup, the software begins to delete the selected files. Please note that this process can take several minutes, particularly when 35 Free up disk space emptying the browser cache. During this time it may appear that the software is not responding. This is a normal technicality and is no cause for concern. As soon as the cleanup is complete, operations will continue normally, and a message indicating that the cleanup was successful is displayed. Finished! All unneeded files have been deleted. Once the files have been deleted, click Finish to close the window. 36 Free up disk space Windows functions Certain Windows functions that are not used by every user require a great deal of disk space. Here you can simply deactivate features that use substantial disk space and that you do not need. This frees up additional disk space otherwise used by the features. 37 Free up disk space TuneUp Disk Space Explorer Introduction The capacity of modern data storage devices such as hard drives and memory cards has increased tremendously over the last several years. Astonishingly, we users somehow always manage to fill even the newer, larger drives to their maximum capacity - in the past, no one would have dreamed of gathering 20 GB of files. Now, even drives with capacities of 250 GB or more are quickly filled to the brim. Obviously, this development hasn't exactly made it easier to keep track of these huge quantities of data. With so many files and nested folders, how is it possible to determine where the most space is being taken up? This is where the new TuneUp Disk Space Explorer comes into play: the powerful module helps you to quickly find all of the files and folders that are taking up your valuable disk space. These files can then easily be transferred to other drives, archived to CD/DVD or simply deleted to gain free disk space. Analysis of Your Drives When you start TuneUp Disk Space Explorer, a wizard appears that lets you select the drives to be used in the search for extremely large files. The wizard shows the total size for each drive, and the free space available. It is especially important to analyze the drives that have little free space remaining. TuneUp Disk Space Explorer will analyze the selected drives. Make your selection and click Next to start the analysis. 38 Free up disk space The analysis may take a moment depending on the size of the selected drives and the amount of data they contain. As soon as the analysis is finished, click Finish to close the wizard and display the results in the main window. The Main Window The TuneUp Disk Space Explorer main window is divided into two areas. A folder tree is located along the left edge of the window, as it is in Windows Explorer. The element selected in the folder tree determines which files are displayed in the right side of the window. When you start the module, the highest level folder My Computer will be selected, which gives you a summary of all drives that were analyzed. If you select a drive or an individual folder in the folder tree, only those files contained in the drive or folder will be displayed. This can help with tasks such as finding out which files in the folder My Documents and its subfolders are taking up the most space. You can determine how the files in the right side of the window are displayed by selecting the options Overview, Contents, File types or Top 100 files from the tabs along the top of the window. "Overview" View The default view Overview is an ideal first step when cleaning up your drives. The most important information from all of the other views is combined to give you a general overview. 39 Free up disk space You can always find information about the selected element in the folder tree at the top of the window, in the upper area with a colorful background. If My Computer or an individual drives is selected, the capacity and the percentage of occupied space are displayed. If a folder is selected, you will see its size here, including all of its files and subfolders and the percentage of space that it takes up from the folder in which it is located. An overview of the most important information from all of the other views is located along the bottom of the window in the form of several tables. The first table gives you an overview of the largest folders and files that are located directly in the selected element (drive or folder). The size and percentage of space occupied is shown here for up to 10 items. If you would like to see more than the 10 elements that are displayed, simply click on the link Show Contents to switch to a detail view. If My Computer is displayed in the first table, it will instead show the occupied space for each drive. The second table organizes the files contained in the selected element based on file types and shows you at a glance which types of files (documents, music files, videos or images) are taking up the most disk space. Please note that this view does not just include the files that are directly located in the selected drive or folder, but also includes all files in subfolders. You can 40 Free up disk space limit the amount of information being displayed by moving a level lower in the folder tree. If you would like to see the individual files included in a given file type, simply click on the name of the file type in the table. This will directly open the correct category in the detail view. The third table is particularly useful in acute disk space shortages. It shows a list of the top 10 files that take up the most disk space. As with the last table, this view does not just include the files that are directly located in the selected drive or folder, but also includes all files in subfolders. If you click on one of the files in the table or on the link Top 100 Files, the corresponding detail view will open. There you can move, archive or delete files. "Contents" View This view shows the contents of the selected element in the folder tree on the left. In addition to basic information such as name and type, as in Windows Explorer, each element has a field that displays its size and the percentage of space that it takes up. A graphical representation with bars allows you to recognize at a glance which files and folders are taking up the most space. Double click on a folder to move a level deeper and to show the contents of the folder. 41 Free up disk space "File Types" View This view groups your files based on their file types to show you at a glance which types of files are taking up the most disk space on your system. Along the top border of the window, you can select from the available file types: Images, Documents, Compressed files, Music files, Video files or Other. Click on one of the buttons to display the files in this category. You can obtain an overview of the distribution of the different file types by clicking on the button Overview. Each file type category includes files with many different file extensions. Images, for example, include the file extensions .bmp, .jpg, .gif, .tif and .png. TuneUp Disk Space Explorer automatically recognizes which file extensions are used by your system. The list of extensions can be viewed by clicking Advanced along the top right border of the window. The category Other shows you all other files that do not belong to any of the other categories. The list of file extensions obtained by clicking Advancedt is particularly helpful in this category. You can determine which files are to be displayed in the list below by placing or removing a checkmark in front of each file extension. To quickly change the status of all checkmarks, you can right click on the list of file extensions to bring up a context menu. This contains options such as Select all and Invert selection. 42 Free up disk space Explore your own hard drive and use the available views to look for ways that you can gain more disk space. Sorting the list at the bottom by file size or date of last access can also help you discover interesting files. To do this, simply use the mouse to click on the headlines with a gray background at the top of the columns. Cleanup Tip Sorting files by the date of last access in combination with limiting a view to certain file types allows you to find objects such as older MP3 files or videos that you may not want to listen to or watch anymore. The same is true for images and larger documents that you haven't used for years and are currently just taking up space. "Top 100 Files" View For most users, this is the most interesting view. This shows you the 100 largest files in the selected branch of the folder tree, clearly organized by file size. As the contents of all subfolders are included, this view allows you to clean up hundreds of megabytes or even several gigabytes with a few clicks, depending on the size of your system. Cleanup Tip Sometimes it useful to sort the Top 100 list by the date of last access. This method allows you to quickly find large files that have not been used for several weeks or even months and that may not be needed anymore. 43 Free up disk space Archiving Files Has it ever happened to you? Have you ever looked through your drives and found a file that makes you wonder,"Do I still need this? Not really, but I don't really want to delete it either"? Many users later regret having impulsively deleted files, especially personal files such as pictures, videos or music. TuneUp Disk Space Explorer can solve this problem for you! Thanks to the seamless integration with Windows Explorer, you can easily copy files to a USB stick or an external hard drive before deleting them. To do this, click on the selected file(s) with the right mouse button and select the menu option Copy or simply use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+C. Then open the desired target drive in Windows Explorer and paste the copied files there using the menu option Paste or the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V. Thanks to support for all major CD burning programs, you can also easily burn rarely used files to a CD or DVD. If you are running a burning pogram such as Nero Burning Rom at the same time as TuneUp Disk Space Explorer, you can move the desired files by dragging them with your mouse directly to the Nero burning list. After the files have been successfully archived, you can then delete them with a clear conscience in TuneUp Disk Space Explorer to clear up valuable disk space. Settings TuneUp Disk Space Explorer lets you customize the appearance and behavior of the software to meet your personal needs. To change the available options, click File and then Settings. General The section Hidden Files and Folders allows you to determine whether hidden files and folders should be shown in TuneUp Disk Space Explorer. The default settings are based on the settings of Windows Explorer. If you would like to use settings that differ from those in Windows Explorer, simply select the option Use custom settings and adjust the options to your liking. With default settings, TuneUp Disk Space Explorer protects all elements in system folders to prevent you from accidentally deleting or moving important system files. If you know your system perfectly, you can deactivate this 44 Free up disk space protection in the section Protected system elements. Place a checkmark next to the option Permanently deactivate protection (not recommended). Deletion method The section Deletion method lets you decide which method TuneUp Disk Space Explorer should use as the default when deleting files and folders. The standard deletion method Move to Recycle Bin is particularly recommended for beginners, as accidentally deleted files can be restored. However, please note that the Windows Recycle Bin can only hold a limited amount of data. If the storage limit of the Recycle Bin is exceeded or if Windows needs more space, the oldest files in the Recycle Bin will be permanently deleted over time. If the deletion method Permanently delete is selected, the Windows Recycle Bin will be bypassed and the files will be deleted directly. Restoring these files at a later time is only possible with luck and special software such as TuneUp Undelete. The three other deletion methods use TuneUp Shredder to make restoring the deleted files practically impossible. Further information regarding these deletion methods and their settings can be found in the documentation for TuneUp Shredder. 45 Maintain Windows 5 The modules in the Maintain Windows category help you to keep your system running smoothly. Keep your system in shape! This module also includes the useful TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance function, which performs error analysis and optimizes your system with a single mouse click. Every installed program writes entries to the registry - entries that are not always completely removed after deleting software. This causes the registry to grow larger and larger, taking up more space on the hard disk. The module TuneUp Registry Cleaner works to remove all unnecessary registry entries that could slow down your system. 47 Maintain Windows TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance is a function that allows you to quickly and easily clean up your registry and hard drive. To access this part of TuneUp System Optimizer, click TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance under Wizards on the left side of the screen. TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance does justice to its name. As soon as you start the program, it scans your registry and your hard drive automatically for unneeded entries and files. A status window is displayed during the scan to keep you informed of its progress. And when the scan is finished, all you have to do is click Correct Problems to rid yourself of the unneeded ballast. TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance at work. And the best thing about TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance is that you can schedule it to run regularly to keep your system clean. Once you set up a schedule, TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance will run once each week, for example, without interrupting your work. You can also have a TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance icon placed on your desktop so that you can run a complete check on your system at any time quickly and easily. 48 Maintain Windows TuneUp Registry Cleaner You can use TuneUp Registry Cleaner to quickly and thoroughly remove the unneeded data left over when you install and remove programs and when you work with your computer every day. Cleaning up your registry database frees your system of unneeded ballast so that it can work better and more quickly. After the module analyzes your system for problems, you can individually view each of the problems found and call up a detailed description. If you wish, you can also have all problems corrected automatically. All changes to your system are monitored by TuneUp Rescue Center and can be undone with a few mouse clicks. Using the Search Wizard Once the module is started, a wizard is opened automatically in which you can choose between two options for scanning the registry. Decide for a complete or partial registry scan here. The option Complete scan analyzes the entire registry and all system files. If you select Choose tests, you can specify yourself which categories should be analyzed by TuneUp Registry Cleaner. It is best to select the Complete scan, then click Next to begin analysing your system. 49 Maintain Windows The option Complete scan analyzes the entire registry and all system files. If you select Choose tests, you can specify yourself which categories should be analyzed by TuneUp Registry Cleaner. It is best to select Complete scan, and then click Next. TuneUp Registry Cleaner will now analyze your system. The individual sections of the registry that will be analyzed can be seen in the program window. A yellow arrow in front of an entry means that that section is being analyzed. Please wait until the analysis is finished. This may take several minutes. A green check mark indicates that the analysis has been completed for the section. A progress bar beneath the list shows the progress of the overall analysis. When the analysis is complete, the message “The search for errors has been completed.” is displayed. Click Show errors to close the wizard and to show the problems found in the main window. System Analysis TuneUp Registry Cleaner will now analyze your system. The individual sections of the registry that will be analyzed can be seen in the program window. A yellow arrow in front of an entry means that that section is being analyzed, a green check mark indicates that the analysis has been completed for that section. An animated bar at the bottom of the screen shows the progress of the overall analysis. 50 Maintain Windows When the analysis is complete, the message "The search for errors has been completed." is displayed. Click Show errors to close the wizard and to show the problems found in the main window. The Main Window The TuneUp Registry Cleaner main window is divided into two areas. The Categories bar is located along the left border of the window. This allows you to switch between different views, which are shown in the right side of the window. The analysis has found a large number of problems – correcting them will bring noticeable benefits. The default category Summary will open first. The module will show here that the system analysis is complete and gives the total number of problems found. The section below shows the distribution of the problems found in the individual categories. 51 Maintain Windows The module can recognize problems in the following areas: Type Description ActiveX and COM ActiveX/COM objects were found that are based on libraries that are no longer available on your system. Sounds Some sounds refer to sound files that are no longer on your system. Application path Some of the application paths in the registry point to directories that no longer exist. Startup Some programs that are supposed to run on system startup or when certain events occur are no longer present. File types Some file types refer to programs that are no longer available on your system. Shared files The registry database contains references to files which were intended for use by more than one application. However, these programs are no longer present. Help files The registry contains entries for help files that are no longer available on the system. Fonts References were found to fonts that are no longer available on the system. Software Some of the programs in the "Add or Remove Programs" module in the Control Panel are missing an uninstaller. Because of this, the entries will no longer work. System extensions Some system extensions such as audio and video codes or Internet Explorer Add-ons refer to targets that no longer exist. Shortcuts Some shortcuts on the Desktop, in the Quick Launch menu or in the Start menu refer to targets that no longer exist. History lists Some entries in the history list for standard dialogs point to files that no longer exist. Windows Firewall Several entries in the list of applications that are allowed to accept incoming network connections point to files that no longer exist. This illustrates the following: Deleted files can leave many "ghost entries" in the registry. TuneUp Registry Cleaner finds the unnecessary entries and can delete them. 52 Maintain Windows Explanations can be provided for every single problem, if desired. For this, simply click one of the listed problem categories under the Categories bar. A detailed description is available for each problem, a single mouse click is all you need. The problem will quickly provide you with brief explanations of all problems that were found. Mark an entry in the list in order to display a more extensive explanation along the upper border of the window. To view the problem analysis section, the entry Details must be selected in the icon bar. TuneUp Registry Cleaner is set to correct all problems found by default. Because of this, the small box before every entry in the list is checked. If you do not want a certain problem to be resolved, click on the box once to remove the checkmark. The application will then ignore this problem when peforming scans. Clean-up Click Start Cleaning in the toolbar to have TuneUp Registry Cleaner do its job correcting all of the problems that were found. A new wizard is opened that takes you through the process step by step. First, it indicates how many problems were selected for correction. It also informs you that all changes can be undone with TuneUp Rescue Center if necessary. Click Next to clean up your system. 53 Maintain Windows A progress bar indicates how far TuneUp Registry Cleaner is with its work. The module corrects all problems one after the other and makes sure that unneeded entries and keys are removed. Please wait until the clean-up is finished. Once the module is finished, a message is displayed to tell you that all problems have been corrected. Chain reactions in the registry: the Check Again button. Sometimes, the button Check Again is displayed, and the wizard recommends that you analyze your system again. This is always the case when the clean-up may have made additional entries invalid. This is not an error in the module, but a chain reaction that can occur in the categories ActiveX and COM and File types. A simple example: Entry A points to entry B, which in turn points to the missing file X. In the first scan, TuneUp Registry Cleaner determines that entry B is invalid because file X cannot be found on the system. Entry B is deleted during clean-up. This in turn makes entry A invalid, as it points to the now missing entry B. TuneUp Registry Cleaner recognizes when this may happen and suggests that you analyze the system again. In this case, click Check Again, and these two categories will be analyzed again. All’s well that ends well. 54 Click Finish to close the wizard. Repeat the clean-up process as often as necessary until no new problems are found. You can now close the module, with the confidence that you have removed a great deal of junk from your system. Solve problems 6 The modules in the Solve problems category do just what the name says - in a simple way. Let the program help you - solving problems has never been this easy! If you have problems with your hard disk, TuneUp Disk Doctor can analyze your drive and automatically repair any errors that are found. Many common problems can be solved by TuneUp Repair Wizard in a few simple clicks. Did you accidentally empty the Windows Recycle Bin or permanently delete a file? TuneUp Undelete lets you restore deleted files or folders. That is, if you haven't deleted them securely with TuneUp Shredder. 55 Solve problems TuneUp Disk Doctor Introduction When working with your computer, many files are constantly being read and written – regardless of whether you are editing a text document, looking at pictures or simply starting an application. Modern operating systems place all files in special file systems to allow quick access to all necessary information at any time. File systems keep track of every file and folder on a drive and save information about these objects such as their name, size, date of last access, location and much more. The file systems used by Windows for hard drives, USB sticks, memory cards (such as those used by digital cameras) and diskettes are called FAT and NTFS. The newer of the two file systems, NTFS, allows you to save additional information such as access authorizations and is better suited for the size of modern disks than FAT. Over time, errors may occur in these complicated systems - due to defects in the drives being used, power outages or software crashes. If these errors are not found and corrected quickly, this can lead to error messages, application problems and, in the worst case, total loss of important files. TuneUp Disk Doctor performs a thorough analysis of your disk drives and their file systems. If errors are found during analysis, they can be automatically repaired to prevent data loss. Using TuneUp Disk Doctor After starting TuneUp Disk Doctor, a wizard will appear to guide you through the analysis and repair of your drives step-by-step. In the first step, select the drives that you would like to analyze. To do this, you simply need to check the box in front of the drives you wish to analyze. Then, click Next. In the next step, you can select whether you would like to perform a normal analysis or a thorough analysis. As the thorough analysis can take quite some time for larger drives, a normal analysis of the selected drives is usually sufficient. This usually only takes 1-2 minutes. However, if errors occur on your system or Windows reports problems with reading or writing data, a thorough analysis is recommended. Make your selection and click Next to start the analysis. 56 Solve problems TuneUp Disk Doctor will perform a careful analysis of the selected drives. During the analysis, TuneUp Disk Doctor will show you the current progress as a percentage and in graphical form. The boxes displayed represent the space usage of the drive being examined. Normal Analysis TuneUp Disk Doctor performs normal analysis of your drives in multiple steps. The exact number of steps and their sequence depend on the file system of each drive. The following table explains all possible steps. Analysis step Explanation Checking files and folders NTFS & FAT Each element in the file system is analyzed to ensure that all files and folders are present at their indicated locations. Checking indices Only NTFS Indices are references to folders in the NTFS file system. If any of these indices are damaged, the associated folders will not be displayed in the file system. If any or your files or folders have suddenly "disappeared", there is a good chance that they will be recovered after repairing the file system. Checking safety descriptions Only NTFS Files and folders in an NTFS files system can be protected by so-called safety descriptions, which block access by unauthorized users. During the analysis, errors in these descriptions are found and corrected. 57 Solve problems Thorough Analysis A thorough analysis includes all the steps of the normal analysis. In addition, your drives will be checked for physical defects. Storage space on drives is divided into so-called sectors, which are usually 512 bytes in size each. In order to detect physical defects on a drive, the thorough analysis checks each of these sectors. The length of this analysis depends on several factors, including the size of the drive and the degree of fragmentation. You should allow at least 5 to 20 minutes. The exact number of steps and their sequence in the analysis depends on the file system of each drive. The following table explains all possible steps. 58 Analysis step Explanation Checking files and folders NTFS & FAT Each element in the file system is analyzed to ensure that all files and folders are present at their indicated locations. Checking indices Only NTFS Indices are references to folders in the NTFS file system. If any of these indices are damaged, the associated folders will not be displayed in the file system. If any or your files or folders have suddenly "disappeared", there is a good chance that they will be recovered after repairing the file system. Checking safety descriptions Only NTFS Files and folders in an NTFS files system can be protected by so-called safety descriptions, which block access by unauthorized users. During the analysis, errors in these descriptions are found and corrected. Checking file data Only NTFS All sectors of the drive that contain data will be checked. This will ensure that no read errors take place when working with files, If sectors are found that require multiple read attempts to successfully read the data, the file data contained will be moved to a sector that is free of errors. The sector will then be marked as defective in order to avoid future problems. Checking free disk space NTFS & FAT All drive sectors that do not contain any files will be checked for error-free readability. If errors occur during this check, the sector in question will be marked as defective to prevent files from being saved there in the future. Solve problems Analysis Results TuneUp Disk Doctor will notify you as soon as the analysis of the selected drives has been completed. Click Next to display the analysis results. In some cases it is necessary to restart your computer in order to successfully complete the analysis or repair process. This can happen, for example, when active applications or Windows itself are using the selected drive and thus prevent TuneUp Disk Doctor from having exclusive access. If a system restart is necessary, TuneUp Disk Doctor will show you a corresponding message. You can then decide if the necessary restart should be performed immediately or if you would like to restart the system yourself at a later time. Click Finish to close the wizard. 59 Solve problems TuneUp Repair Wizard TuneUp Repair Wizard handles the repair of computer and display problems on your PC. These types of problems occur from time to time when running Windows. Without warning, Windows suddenly shows the wrong icons, shortcuts on the desktop disappear or the entire taskbar is no longer visible. Finding the solutions to such problems is anything but simple, and this is where TuneUp Repair Wizard is a great help. How to use After starting TuneUp Repair Wizard, several known problems are displayed. These are displayed in easy to understand categories. Clicking on an entry with the mouse shows a detailed explanation on the right edge of the window. If the problem is found, you can click a checkbox next to the corresponding problem to select it. You select the problem; TuneUp Repair Wizard fixes it. After clicking on Next, TuneUp Repair Wizard shows a final list of all problems that have been selected, giving the user the opportunity to check and correct the selections that have been made. Clicking on Next starts the quick process of solving the problems. Pressing Finish exits the module. 60 Solve problems TuneUp Undelete It has happened to everyone. You delete a file accidentally, and you can't find it in the Recycle Bin. And you don't have a backup, or the one you have is months old. This means that it's time for some serious tools. With TuneUp Undelete, it is usually possible to recover deleted files and save your valuable work. Usage When you start TuneUp Undelete, a wizard is opened that takes you through the recovery process step by step. First, you must select the drives you want to search for deleted files under Drives to be scanned. The list contains all drives that are available on your system. Only select the drive on which the files that you wish to recover were deleted. Click Next to go to the next step. Enter search string On the next screen, the module allows you to narrow the search to make sure that you don't oversee your file in an endless list of deleted files. It is practical to enter one or more words to search for, but this is not required. It is practical to enter one or more words to search for, but this is not required. 61 Solve problems You can enter the name of the file in the Search criteria box. You do not have to enter the complete file name here, a single word is usually enough to narrow your search. Or if you can only remember the file extension or part of the name, simply use a wildcard such as *.doc or Picture??.jpg. You can enter multiple search terms in the box, but you must separate them with a semicolon. If you can't remember the name of the file at all, or if you want to search for all recoverable files, simply leave the search box empty. There are two additional options that also let you narrow your search further: Option Description Don't show 0-byte files All files that contain no data whatsoever will be ignored. Show only files in good condition Makes sure that only files with a good chance of being recovered are shown. Click Next to begin searching for deleted files. Search results TuneUp Undelete now scans all selected drives one after the other. The progress of the search is shown in the empty Search results box. The search may take some time, especially on larger hard drives. 62 Solve problems Which files do you want to restore? As soon as the search is completed, the module lists all available files that match your search criteria. The table shows the file name, the original location, the file type and the condition of the file. Don't worry if the first letter of the file name is missing for the files on FAT drives, Windows always deletes the first letter when deleting files on drives with this file system. Recovering files If you find a file that you wish to recover in the list, click it to select it. You can select more than one file by holding the Ctrl key while clicking. Then click Restore, and the program will attempt to return the file to the normal Windows environment. Once the files have been recovered, try to open them in the corresponding program. If the file can be opened, the recovery was successful. If not, then part of the file was already overwritten by another file. And that can often happen sooner than you think. File Condition In the Condition column, TuneUp Undelete displays a status for each file that indicates the probability that it can be successfully restored. There are two statuses: 63 Solve problems Good: The location of the file on the disk does not appear to be occupied by any other files. The chances are good that the file can be successfully recovered. Bad: Part of the file has already been overwritten by other files. It may be possible to recover at least part of the file. Please note that these are only estimates. It can never be determined with complete certainty what has happened with any specific location on the hard disk since the file was deleted. Data Recovery 101 Valuable tips for better results. As deleted files have a rather short life expectancy under Windows, especially on the system drive where the paging file and many temporary files are located, you should normally attempt to recover an accidentally deleted file with TuneUp Undelete right away. The sooner you try, the better the chances that you will be able to recover the file. Please do not install software for the recovery of deleted files on your computer when you have already deleted the file! When you install the software, you may overwrite the lost file forever. Even if you install the software on a different drive, temporary installation files may be written over the files you are trying to recover. For this reason, data recovery software such as TuneUp Undelete should already be installed and operational. This way you have all the tools you need should something go wrong. Deleting Sensitive Files the Right Way Make sure that even Undelete can’t recover your sensitive files. Use TuneUp Shredder to permanently delete confidential files. This module ensures that files that it deletes cannot be recovered with TuneUp Undelete, by the military or professional data recovery companies. If you have already deleted a file by “normal” means, the only way to reliably destroy it is by using a special tool that overwrites all free space on your drives. Tip: When you defragment a drive, any deleted files are normally overwritten in the process and cannot be recovered afterwards. 64 Customize Windows 7 The modules in the Customize Windows category help you adapt the operating system to meet your needs. Here, you can "tweak" Windows as much as you like. TuneUp System Control and TuneUp Styler let you specify exactly how your Windows system should look and work. You will be surprised at how many options you can configure with TuneUp Utilities 2008. 65 Customize Windows TuneUp System Control TuneUp System Control is a kind of control center that allows you to quickly and easily adapt your Windows operating environment to your needs and tastes. Regardless of whether you want to change the visual effects, the desktop, the way users log in, the security of your system or memory management, TuneUp System Control lets you configure and optimize any setting, down to the smallest detail. And the program even protects your privacy if desired by deactivating Internet functions that automatically contact Microsoft or that collect information on your surfing habits without asking permission. All changes are monitored by TuneUp Rescue Center and can be undone at any time. Usage TuneUp System Control is the most powerful module of TuneUp Utilities. You can use it to easily and safely configure hundred of Windows settings. Extensive but easy to use: TuneUp System Control contains over 330 options, structured and clearly explained for easy use. 66 Customize Windows As soon as the program opens, the various Categories that you can configure are shown on the left side of the window. These categories are Appearance, Usage, Communication, Administration and Wizards. Each of these categories contains multiple subcategories. As soon as you click one of the subcategories with your left mouse button, the available options are shown on the right side of the window. Take a look at all of the settings that can be configured with the program, you will find many interesting and useful options. All the settings should be self-explaining. If you nontheless wish more detailed information for single options you can simply click on Help in the upper right corner or press F1: you directly jump to the help for the category you're just on. Note: TuneUp System Control adapts to the installed operating system automatically and only offers the options that are supported by your system. Don't be surprised when you see different options under Windows XP and Windows Vista, for example. Appearance Category In this TuneUp System Control category, you specify exactly which of the Windows visual effects you wish to use, configure how file types are handled and specify how folder windows and the Explorer should look and act. Usage Category In this TuneUp System Control category, you can configure a wide range of mouse and keyboard options, customize the items that are shown in the Start menu and the menu opening delay, and can configure the behavior of the taskbar. Communication Category In this TuneUp System Control category, you can configure the network behavior of Windows and can adapt Internet Explorer and Outlook Express or Office Outlook to your needs. You can also speed up surfing on the Internet and protect your privacy by preventing certain programs from automatically contacting servers from Microsoft and other companies. Administration Category This category in TuneUp System Control gives you control over a large number of internal system settings. You can customize the boot process and how users log on, automatic CD playback, user data, the special system folders and the default settings for the command prompt. 67 Customize Windows Wizards Category In this TuneUp System Control category, you will find a Correct Problems wizard that can fix common Windows problems with a few clicks of your mouse, and a Copy Settings wizard, which copies your settings to other user accounts and even to the Windows logon screen. 68 Customize Windows TuneUp Styler Windows would not be very useful without its graphical user interface. How important an attractive interface is can be seen on the basis of Windows Vista and how the entire system feels at once fresher and more modern. But just as in fashion, it's easy to get tired of the new design, not to mention the people who have always been bothered by what they consider a "candy" look. Wouldn't it be practical to be able to change the appearance of Windows? Kann man das Aussehen von Windows anpassen? Take the icons for example. These little square pictures are everywhere, in the Start menu, in file dialogs and of course on the desktop. Is there a way to lend all of these icons a new look with a few mouse clicks? And what about the Logon Screen? Anyone who shares a computer with others or has a password-protected user account sees it every day: a mixture of different blue tones. And there is no way built into Windows to change this. Or what about the boot screen? The well-known logo that is shown on the screen while Windows starts can't be replaced or changed without additional tools, either. There is also only a very limited range of options to customize the appearance of all windows and buttons (the so-called visual style). You can either use the new interface or the old Windows classic interface. Ja, man kann - Mit TuneUp Styler! TuneUp Utilities has its own module dedicated entirely to letting you customize the appearance of your system, TuneUp Styler. Use this module to give your system a digital makeover. Usage The TuneUp Styler window is broken down into two sections: a blue navigation bar on the left and a large area on the right to display the options. The customization options in TuneUp Styler are divided into seven categories, each of which can be selected directly in the navigation bar at the left. 69 Customize Windows TuneUp Styler lets you change the icons and names of many elements. System Elements In this category, you can replace typical Windows icons with icons with a common theme. You can also change the name of many elements, such as the Recycle Bin, My Computer and My Network Places. After clicking System items in the navigation bar, all system icons that can be changed are shown in a hierarchical list on the right side of the window. The Desktop level is selected by default, under which you can see all special desktop items. Select one of these items to change it. 70 Customize Windows TuneUp Styler lets you change the icons and names of many elements. How to change an icon Click Replace icon to open a dialog in which you can choose a new icon for the selected item. The module always shows the icon library in which the current icon for the item is contained. This is normally the library Shell32.dll, which is included with Windows. If you have an icon library of your own, you can view its contents by clicking Browse. The file shell32.dll, which is included with Windows, contains a large number of icons. 71 Customize Windows As soon as you have found the desired icon, select it with your mouse and click OK to record your change. Important: All of the changes that you make to system items are not applied immediately. The program records your changes for the individual items, and indicates that a change has been saved by adding a small red star next to the respective entry in the list. Your changes are not applied until you click Apply in the lower right corner of the window. Undoing changes If you have selected a different icon for an item, you can undo this change at any time as long as you have not yet clicked Apply. To do this, select the corresponding item in the list and click Discard unsaved changes made to this item. If you have already clicked Apply, you can still undo changes to an item by resetting it to the Windows defaults at any time. To do this, select the desired entry in the list and click Reset element to Windows default. Please note that this link is only shown when the selected icon is not set to the Windows defaults. Undoing changes for multiple items If you should want to undo changes made to multiple items, you can click Reset category or Reset all categories. Here, "category" refers to the five levels into which the system items are divided, namely Desktop, Start menu, Explorer, File types and Control Panel. The first link only resets the items in the currently active category, while the second resets all system items that can be changed with TuneUp Styler without exception. After either of the links is clicked, a dialog is shown that asks you if you wish to reset all items to the Windows defaults, or if you only wish to discard any unsaved changes for these items. The second option is of course only available when changes have not yet been applied. Icon packages Of course, it is rather tedious to change all Windows icons one at a time. For this reason, TuneUp Styler also allows you to replace all of the icons in Windows with a new look in one fell swoop. To do this, click Icon Packages in the lower right corner of the window. 72 Customize Windows Administer and install Icon Packages Practical: icon packages let you change all icons at once. A new window opens in which you can see all available icon packages. Select the desired package in the list and click Install to have the new icons shown in the main window. You can also add new icon packages to the list by clicking Add at the top of the list. Here, you can either add an icon package from a file on your computer, or download new icon packages from TuneUp Online, where you can select from a large number of packages. Creating Your Own Icon Packages You also have the ability to prepare your own icon package from your current icons. You can then save this package to install it again at a later time, or send it to friends via e-mail. To do this, click Create New Package at the top of the list. After you click this button, a wizard opens that will guide you through the process of creating an icon package: 73 Customize Windows Step Description 1.) Information on the author Here, you can add your name, e-mail address and Internet address to the icon package. 2.) Package name and description Enter a descriptive package name here. If you wish, you can also enter additional information on the package in the Description box. 3.) Optimizing the size of the package Use the options in this step to make sure that your package is not too large so that it can be sent via e-mail without problems. 4.) Creating the icon package The icons are now collected and optimized if needed, after which they are saved together in an icon package. 5.) Finish the wizard The icon package has been created successfully and is added to the list of icon packages when you click Finish. Click Open folder to go to the icon packages folder of TuneUp Styler, after which you can copy the icon package to a different location, or attach it to an e-mail. File System Windows assigns a default icon to each drive, file folder, Start menu folder and Favorite. Click File System in the navigation bar to change any of these icons. Drives and folders Under the My Computer node, you can for example assign a cool icon to the drive where all of your games are installed, and an icon with a serious appearance to the drive where your office applications are installed. You can do the same with folders. A few carefully chosen icons can make it much easier to find your way around drives that contain a great deal of data. 74 Customize Windows Assign new icons to your drives! Start menu folders You can use TuneUp Styler to replace the default folder icons in the Start menu with more informative ones. To do this, open the Start menu node in the tree by clicking the plus sign in front of it. This function is only available in Windows 2000 or higher. Internet Explorer - Favorites You can even assign special icons to your Favorites in Internet Explorer. This way, you can find your most frequently used Favorites in the long list more quickly. How to change an icon Select the desired item in the tree and click Replace icon to select a new icon for the item. Please note that this cannot be done with the three main nodes My Computer, Start menu and Favorites. You must open one of these nodes by clicking the plus sign in front of it and then select a subnode. A new icon is selected in the same manner as for the System items. Once you find the desired icon, select it and click OK to apply the icon. Undoing Changes You can apply the default icons and undo your changes at any time by clicking Reset element to Windows default. 75 Customize Windows If you would like to undo changes to muliple icons at the same time, you can use the Restore backup link. This link opens TuneUp Rescue Center and lets you undo the changes you have made with TuneUp Styler on a specific date. Appearance Here, you can change a large number of settings that govern how icons are displayed on the desktop. The module shows a preview of your changes on the left side of the window at all times so that you can see what effect your changes have. A preview of your changes can be seen at all times in the left pane. Icon color depth From Windows XP, you cannot manipulate the maximum color depth of icons, as this is always 32 bit (the highest value). If you use a different operating system, you can increase this value here. Change Icon size (only Windows XP) Using a sliding bar, you can change the size of icons on your desktop. They can even be made twice their current size if you find them to be too small. You can also shrink the icons to a very small size in order to gain more desktop space. 76 Customize Windows Change Icon spacing You can even specify how much space should be between the individual icons, both vertically and horizontally. Get rid of Shortcut The Show shortcut arrow option is very interesting. If you do not wish to have the small arrow displayed on shortcuts, you can disable it by clearing the check box in front of this option. Many users are bothered by this arrow. overlay (only Windows XP) Repair It is of course fun to change the Windows icons and to add your personal touch here and there. But what do you do when your changes are not applied, or when Windows starts mixing up your icons altogether? Reloading icons In this case, click Repair in the navigation bar and then click Reload Icons. And the display errors will disappear. Repairing the icon cache If reloading the icons doesn't help, there may be a serious problem in your icon cache. The icon cache is a file in which Windows stores all of the icons that it has ever displayed so that they can be shown more quickly in the future. And when a mistake finds its way into this file, this can corrupt all of the icons. Fortunately, this problem can be corrected directly in TuneUp Styler. All you have to do is click Repair Icon Cache. You must restart to complete the repair. Boot Screen Category When Windows starts up, a black screen with an animated progress bar at the bottom is shown by default. With Windows XP, the Windows logo is also displayed in the center. You can use TuneUp Styler to replace this boot screen with just a few mouse clicks, or you can create your own personal boot screen, for example with your favorite vacation photo. Click Boot screen in the navigation bar to go to this part of TuneUp Styler. The module will list all available boot screens. The first time you use the module, the only screen in the list will be the default Windows boot screen. Add additional pre-made screens to the list, or create your own. 77 Customize Windows Downloading premade boot screens You can add additional boot screens to the list by clicking Add at the top of the list. Here, you can import a boot screen from a file on your computer, or you can download new boot screens from TuneUp Online. The following formats are supported: Type Extension Description TuneUp boot screen .TBS The TuneUp Styler format Stardock Bootskin* .BOOTSKIN A large number of boot screens in this format can be found at web sites like www.wincustomize.com. Images .BMP; .PNG; .GIF; .JPG; .JPEG When you select an image file, the Create Boot Screen dialog is automatically opened with the selected image. Here, you can make all of the necessary changes. Ntoskrnl.exe files* .EXE These files are Windows XP system kernels that contain a boot screen. TuneUp Styler extracts the boot screen from this file and saves it in Styler format. * only Windows XP Creating your own boot screen If you want to make your own personal boot screen, click the New Screen button above the boot screen list. This will open the Create Boot Screen wizard, which will guide you through the necessary steps. Installing a boot screen Select the desired boot screen in the list and then click Install Boot Screen in the lower right corner of the window. A progress dialog will be shown for the duration of the installation. Restoring the default screen If you no longer want to use your new boot screen, you can naturally restore the default Windows screen at any time. To do this, click Restore Defaults in the lower right corner of the window. The default screen is then selected in the list automatically. Click Install Boot Screen to save your changes. Create Boot Screen Give your imagination free reign and create your own boot screen that you can install on your computer and share with your friends. 78 Customize Windows With TuneUp Styler 2 you can easy create your own Boot Screen. Opening the Create Boot Screen dialog To create your own boot screen, go to the Boot screen category and click New Screen at the top of the list. This will open a wizard that will take you through the following four steps: 1. Select image First, select a background image for your new boot screen. To do this, click one of the available options, for example Search local drives if the desired image is already on your computer. If you select Capture pictures from camera or Find pictures with Google, save the desired picture at a location where you can find it again quickly and then click Search local drives to load the picture. 2. Customize image Once you have selected a background image, you can use the Alignment and Borders functions to optimize the appearance of your picture. Please note that the available alignment options will only have an effect when the picture is not the correct size for a boot screen (640 x 480 pixels). Under Background, you can specify the color that will be used for the areas that are not covered by your image. This will also be used for the background of the progress bar (for technical reasons). 3. Customize Here you can specify the Position of the progress bar, its Foreground color and the Border color as desired. Position the progress bar at a location that does not interfere with the overall impression of the picture. This option is not available in Windows Vista because the progress bar is not shown in the alternative start screen that is used. progress bar (only Windows XP) 79 Customize Windows 4. Finish Click Save boot screen to assign a name to your creation and to add it to the list of available boot screens. Tips for attractive boot screens under Windows XP All boot screens may only have 16 colors under Windows XP for technical reasons, whereby some of these colors are prescribed by the operating system, for example black. For this reason, TuneUp Styler must reduce the wealth of colors in your composition (normally 16.7 million) to a very few when you click Finish. TuneUp Styler uses a sophisticated algorithm for this to automatically determine the best 16 colors for your picture. If the picture contains too many different colors, the results of this conversion may not be satisfactory. So erziehlen Sie die besten Ergebnisse. Experience has shown that the most attractive boot screens can be created with pictures with only a small number of different colors. This means, for example, that a picture that consists predominantly of different blue shades and only a few contrasting colors will most likely result in an attractive boot screen. Set the foreground color of the progress bar to a color that is contained in your picture. This way, you do not use one of the precious 16 colors in the progress bar only. You should avoid skin tones in your boot screen if at all possible. Pictures with skin tones normally cannot be displayed correctly with only 16 colors (ask any graphical artist). Of course, you may be lucky. The best thing to do is try! Logon Screen If you share your computer with other users, or if you use a password to protect your account, you are familiar with the Windows XP Welcome screen. With Windows XP, the Logon Screen shows a list of all user accounts. A user can log on by clicking one of these accounts and entering a password, if one is set for the account. With Windows Vista, you need to manually enter the user name and corresponding password. With TuneUp Styler, you can completely change the appearance of the welcome screen. Click Logon Screen in the navigation bar to go to this area. 80 Customize Windows Pep up your system with a custom logon screen. The module will immediately list all available Welcome screens. When you use the module for the first time, you will only see the default Windows screen. You can add additional welcome screens to the list by clicking Add at the top of the list. You can select an existing Logon Screen from a file on your computer, or you can download new screens from TuneUp Online. The TuneUp Styler custom format (TLS) is supported in both Windows Vista and Windows XP. In addition, all available Welcome screens can be directly installed with the file Logonui.exe or in Stardock LogonStudio-Format (LOGONXP). Installing a new Logon Screen Select the desired screen in the list and click Install Logon Screen in the lower right corner of the window. Most welcome screens are in English, but not all. For this reason, your system may greet you in a different language the next time you start your computer after installing a new screen. Then, instead of "Click your user name to log on," the screen might read "Klicken Sie auf Ihren Benutzernamen, um sich anzumelden," for example For this reason, TuneUp Styler will ask you if you want to use the texts in the selected Logon Screen, or if you want to use the default texts for your system 81 Customize Windows language (or the currently installed Logon Screen). Once you confirm the dialog, the installation will begin, and a progress bar will be displayed for the duration of the operation. After the new screen is installed, you can test your new screen right away. To do this, press the Windows key and L key at the same time. Restoring the default screen If you no longer want to use your new Logon Screen, you can naturally restore the default Windows screen at any time. To do this, click Restore Defaults. The default screen is then shown in the list automatically. Click Install Logon Screen to save your change. Visual Style The new visual style of Windows makes it possible to lend a new look to all modern applications. Click Visual style in the navigation bar to customize your visual style. When you select a visual style in the list, a preview and additional information are shown on the right. As soon as you have chosen a visual style, click Apply Visual Style to activate it. Your screen is grayed out briefly while the style is 82 Customize Windows applied to your system. As soon as the wait screen is closed, you can view your interface in all of its new glory. visual styles from TuneUp Online You can download new visual styles at any time from the TuneUp website free of charge. To do this, click Add and then Download Visual Styles From TuneUp Online. This will open your Internet browser and go to the TuneUp website, where you can select from a wide range of different styles. Click on a style to add it to the list of visual styles in TuneUp Styler. Adding a style from a file You can also use the option Install Visual Style From File if you have other visual styles on your computer. This way, you can use visual styles that you received on CD, for example. Downloading For both options for adding new visual styles, it does not matter in which format the styles are. TuneUp Styler recognizes nearly all standard formats and can install them without problems. The following formats are supported: Resetting and deleting a visual style Type Extension Description TuneUp Visual Styles .TVS The TuneUp Styler format. Microsoft Visual Styles .MSSTYLES This Microsoft format often includes additional files that can be found in the same folder or in subfolders. Compressed archives .RAR; .ZIP Archives are searched for all file types in this list, and decompressed automatically if such files are found. Self-extracting archives .EXE These files are searched to see if they contain compressed RAR or ZIP archives, which are then handled as described under Compressed archives. If you should ever want to restore the standard Windows visual style, all you have to do is click Restore defaults to select the standard Windows visual style from the list. Then click Apply visual style to apply your change. If you wish to remove a visual style from your computer entirely, select it in the list and click Delete visual style. 83 Additional tools 8 The Additional tools category in TuneUp Utilities 2008 includes powerful tools for various tasks. TuneUp Uninstall Manager shows you all of the applications currently installed in Windows. Unnecessary applications can easily be uninstalled. TuneUp Process Manager makes it possible to view all of the applications currently running on your system and stop them if desired. You can also see an overview of files on your system that are currently being used by each application as well as the resource usage of your system memory and processor. 85 Additional tools TuneUp Registry Editor takes a look inside the central Windows database and allows experienced users to quickly and easily find keys and values, and to make any necessary changes. TuneUp Shredder makes it easy to securely delete sensitive files from your computer. Three high-tech deletion methods can be used to delete files with such a high level of security that even the most skilled data recovery experts will not be able to restore them. And TuneUp System Information provides you with a clear overview of your hardware and software so that you know exactly what is installed on your system. 86 Additional tools TuneUp Process Manager TuneUp Process Manager gives you constant control over the programs and processes that are running on your system and allows you to monitor your system activity. You can find out how much memory is being used by which processes, view numerous details and terminate unwanted processes with a single mouse click. The module also offers live graphs for processor and memory usage and provides valuable information on what your computer is doing at any given time. Usage TuneUp Process Manager provides a great deal of information on the current status of your system. This information is divided into three tabs. Processes tab Once the module is started, all currently running programs and processes are shown in the Processes tab. The names of the processes can be seen in the table together with their priority and CPU usage. The module also shows how much memory is being used by each process. It’s hard to believe how many processes are running on a freshly started computer. 87 Additional tools If you wish to view more information on an application or a process, you can select it in the list and then click Show Details. Click Terminate Process to close a program. This is a somewhat drastic measure, but is sometimes necessary to close a program that has hung, or if you want to stop an unwanted dialer. If User Access Control is activated in Windows Vista, it is possible that initially only the processes that you started are shown. To see the processes started by other users and by the system, click on the button at the lower border of the window entitled Show all processes. Open files tab The Open Files tab provides an overview of all files and folders that are currently open on the computer, including information on the file type and location and which process is currently using the file. The list of open files. You should not be surprised when some files are shown in the list more than once. Files and folders can be opened by more than one process at the same time. 88 Additional tools It is also normal when files that are obviously "open" cannot be found in the list. Applications like Microsoft Word and the text editor Notepad only open a file briefly to read its contents or to save it, but do not keep it open the entire time you are working on it. Tip: When you try to delete a file and the computer tells you that it is currently in use, you can use this module to find out what process is using the file and terminate it. This will let you delete the file. Performance tab The Performance tab provides detailed information on the current status of your system. You can view the current processor usage in percent, and a graph of the processor usage for the last several seconds. A similar graph also shows memory usage for the last several seconds. You can also view the current usage of the paging file and the physical memory on kilobytes. Keep an eye on your system in the Performance tab. 89 Additional tools Menu bar functions The menu bar at the top of the TuneUp Process Manager window provides you with additional functions. Click File > New Application to open the Windows Run dialog, which you can use to start a new application or open a file. Click File > Exit Windows to shut down or restart the computer so that new settings can take effect. If you have selected a process in the list, you can click Edit > Set Process Priority to specify how much processing power Windows should assign to this process. Replacing Task Manager If you click File > Replace Task Manager, TuneUp Process Manager integrates itself into your system so that you can access the module by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del, or by right clicking on an empty part of the taskbar and selecting Task Manager. If you want to use the Windows Task Manager again, simply select the same menu item to remove the check mark in front of it. Note: This function is only available for Windows 2000 and Windows XP. 90 Additional tools TuneUp Registry Editor The Windows registry is nothing more than a large central database. Every hardware component and program that is installed makes entries in this database. With time, the registry gets increasingly larger and more chaotic. The advantages of TuneUp Registry Editor. True experts who are looking for a suitable tool to delve deep into the Windows system and to adapt their configuration manually should use TuneUp Registry Editor. It is considerably faster and more comfortable to use than the standard editor from Microsoft, and also offers the protection of TuneUp Rescue Center which means that you can undo your changes at any time. The main window. Usage The registry is opened as soon as you start the module. The registry database consists of countless keys that are divided into different categories. The editor displays the structure of the registry in the form of a tree, with the individual categories on the left side of the window under Folder. Double click a category to display its subcategories. When you reach the lowest level of the hierarchy, 91 Additional tools the individual keys will be displayed on the right half of the window, where you can edit them. When you click a key with your right mouse button, a context menu opens with a number of different commands. Delete removes the entry from the registry. Rename lets you assign a new name to the key, and Edit lets you change the value of the entry. When you right click the hierarchy on the left side of the window, the context menu that is displayed has a much larger selection of commands. One of the most useful commands here is Search, which allows you to look for words in the entire registry. Set bookmark lets you place a virtual bookmark. All "dog ears" are shown in the lower third of the window under Bookmark. The results of your searches can be found under Search Results. 92 Additional tools TuneUp Shredder When you delete a file in Windows, it will probably be moved to the Recycle Bin. Anybody can get a file back out of the Recycle Bin. For this reason, many users empty the Recycle Bin regularly, or delete their files without moving them to the Recycle Bin. But you should know that Windows does not really destroy a file when it deletes it, its entire contents are still located on the hard drive. Windows simply marks the file as "deleted" in the file system, and the disk space occupied by the file can be used to store other data. But as long as nothing is saved in the area occupied by the deleted file, this "lost" file can be found and recovered easily with a program like TuneUp Undelete. What does TuneUp Shredder do? TuneUp Shredder makes sure that no data thief can get his hands on your sensitive data. The tool deletes files permanently, with no chance of recovery. And if you wish, you can even use a deletion method that was developed by the United States Department of Defense, which overwrites files with certain number patterns multiple times before deleting them, so that their contents are securely destroyed. Usage What do you want to delete? Once you start the program, a wizard opens that asks you if you wish to delete individual Files, entire Folders or the contents of the Recycle Bin. Type Description Files When you select this option, the next window will show an empty list to which you can add files that you wish to delete. Folders When you select this option, you can select the folder that you wish to have deleted along with its entire contents in the next window. Recycle Bin Select this option when you want to shred the contents of your Recycle Bin. You can review the contents of the Recycle Bin before deletion in the next window. 93 Additional tools Select the desired option and click Next to continue. Deleting Files Drag and drop the files you wish to delete from the Explorer into the Files list, or click Add to select the files in a file browser. When Delete allocated free space is selected, the Shredder will also overwrite the free space that has been assigned to the selected files. Select the files you want to delete Click Next to confirm your selection. Deleting a Folder Enter the complete path of the folder you wish to delete in the Folder box, or click Select to select the folder from a tree view. When Delete allocated free space is selected, the Shredder will also delete the free space that has been assigned to the files in the selected folder. Click Next to confirm your selection. Deleting the contents of the Recycle Bin In this step, you can view the contents of your Recycle Bin by clicking Show Contents. All files and folders in the Recycle Bin will be deleted. 94 Additional tools When Delete allocated free space is selected, the Shredder will also delete the free space that has been assigned to the files in Recycle Bin. Click Next to confirm your selection. Selecting the deletion method How securely do you want to delete your files? This section deals with the level of security you wish to use when deleting files or folders. Just select one of the three options in the Deletion method section. Quick delete: Files will be overwritten with a single character The original text of the files will be replaced with endless columns of a certain letter. Secure delete in accordance with DoD 5220.22-M A procedure that was developed by the United States Department of Defense (Regulation DoD 5220.22-M) will be used. The files are overwritten with special data patterns multiple times before deletion, thereby destroying the original contents so effectively that even expensive examinations of the magnetic structure of the disk in a special laboratory cannot recover the data. Secure delete, Gutmann method: This method, named after its inventor Peter Gutmann, overwrites the files to be deleted 35 times with random values in a special pattern and then deletes them. This method is considered the most secure way to delete files with software, but also takes the longest time. 95 Additional tools How many times should the deletion operation be repeated? You can specify how many times the deletion process should be performed under Repeat the delete operation. The more the process is repeated, the more secure the deletion will be, and the longer the process will take. Click Next to begin the deletion process. Please wait until this is successfully completed. If you do not want to delete any more files, you can close the wizard by clicking Finish. If you wish to delete additional files or folders, simply click Back. Shredding a File After Deletion If you have already deleted a file by “normal” means, the only way to reliably destroy it is by using a special tool that overwrites all free space on your drives. Tip: When you defragment a drive, any deleted files are normally overwritten in the process and cannot be recovered afterwards. 96 Additional tools TuneUp System Information TuneUp System Information asks the computer the question of all questions: what about the hardware? The module takes a deep look inside your computer and gathers an extensive range of facts and information that can be useful when you want to upgrade your system, or when a technician asks you if specific components are installed in your system. Using Information is gathered and displayed in nine sections. The most important section is the Overview. This shows you the most important information for the most important devices. This shows you which processor is installed in the computer, the system RAM, the graphic card performance, the mouse being used and any available information regarding the disk drives. The other tabs contain the following information: Windows This section tells you exactly which Windows version is installed on your computer, when you last started your computer, and what version of Internet Explorer you are using. Display All important information, including the supported display modes and the abilities of your monitor and graphics card can be found here. Memory This section shows the current usage of your memory and tells you which programs are currently running and how much memory they are using. Drives The module displays the hardware information and storage space usage for each of the drives in your computer. This tells you how much space is still available on your drives. I/O Devices All important ports, installed printers and audio devices are shown here. 97 Additional tools Performance Here, you can view detailed information on your physical memory, the size of the paging file and the kernel. Three real-time graphs show the current processor usage, physical memory status and how much of your paging file is currently being used. The performance tab with three real-time monitors Communication When a dial-up connection is open, two real-time graphs show how much data is being sent and received in kilobytes per second. System Devices Information on your processor and BIOS can be found here. Click the link Processor details to view detailed information on the features of your processor. 98 Additional tools TuneUp Uninstall Manager Every program that you install under Windows enters an uninstall entry in the system registry. This entry makes sure that the program is removed completely from your computer when you don't need it anymore. TuneUp Utilities lets you clean up your computer and remove unwanted programs from your hard drive. All you have to do is open TuneUp Uninstall Manager. Usage When you start the module, it displays an alphabetical list of all programs, games and tools that have added an uninstall entry to the registry. Select an entry in the list to view more information about the program. Select an entry in the list to view more information about the program. If you no longer wish to use a program, select it in the list and click Uninstall software to remove it completely from your computer. This function only works when there is a green check mark in front of the program. 99 Additional tools The uninstall program that starts is different from program to program, but one thing that they all have in common is that they not only delete the files from the hard drive, but also all associated desktop icons, Start menu entries and keys in the registry. Follow the instructions in the program to finish the procedure. If there is a red X in front of a program instead of a green check mark, this means that no uninstall program was found for the software. In this case, you can delete the entry from the registry by clicking Remove entry, as it has no function. 100 Global modules 9 Two global modules in TuneUp Utilities can be found in the dark gray area beneath the blue title bar of the Start Center: TuneUp Rescue Center and TuneUp Update Wizard. TuneUp Rescue Center monitors all of the changes you make to your system with the other TuneUp Utilities modules and can undo these changes at any time if you wish. TuneUp Update Wizard saves you the trouble of searching for and installing updates for TuneUp Utilities 2008. A few clicks are enough to make sure that you have the latest version of the software. 101 Index TuneUp Rescue Center Introduction TuneUp Utilities provides you with a large selection of tools that you can use to optimize, repair and customize your operating system. It can happen that you fiddle with a setting or two that you should have better left alone. Or that you delete an entry in TuneUp Registry Editor that you need after all. In this case, you will be happy to hear that TuneUp Utilities is also equipped with a lifeguard that can undo all of your changes if need be. Undoing Changes Click Undo changes under Tasks on the left side of the window. These backups can be restored. 102 Global modules TuneUp Utilities opens a chronological list of all backups on the right side of the window. Regardless of whether you cleaned the registry or your hard drive with TuneUp Utilities, all changes can be found here. Next to each entry, you will find the date and time of the action, as well as the disk space used by the deleted objects or entries. You can also see which TuneUp Utilities module was used to make the changes and how many files or entries were affected. What you can do with the backups. Select an entry and click Details to open a log of the files or entries that were deleted. This log can be viewed, but not changed. You cannot only restore individual files or settings, you can only restore an entire backup. This means that you may have to restore a couple dozen unneeded files to recover one file that you accidentally deleted. Click Restore to restore the selected backup. If you wish, you can click Delete to remove a backup permanently from the list, provided that you are certain that you will not need this backup in the future. Configuring Rescue Center protection. Click Options in the blue bar to open the configuration window for TuneUp Rescue Center. Here, you can specify how long backups should be kept and when they should be deleted automatically to free up disk space. You can also deactivate the Rescue Center protection for individual TuneUp modules. Tip: Do not limit Rescue Center too much only to save disk space. The protection offered by this module may be the only way to fix problems in some cases, and is more important than a few extra megabytes on your drive. System Recovery When you add and remove programs and install system updates under Windows, the system creates so-called restore points. These points are also created automatically in regular intervals when no software or updates are installed. In the event that the system is not functioning properly, the system can be rolled back to any of these points, and all changes made since that time are undone. 103 Index A large number of restore points can normally be found here. Windows regularly creates system restore points. If your system stops functioning correctly, you can roll your system back to one of these restore points at any time. This brings the computer back to the state that it was in when the restore point was created, undoing any changes made since then. Go to System Recovery to view all restore points. If your system stops working as expected, all you have to do is select an entry in the list (the latest possible when your system worked properly) and click Restore to activate the backed-up configuration. You must restart your computer for this. Saving your own restore points. 104 If you wish to create a restore point of your own so that you can return to a specific configuration at any time, click Create restore point and enter a description in the dialog that appears. Global modules TuneUp Update Wizard Introduction TuneUp Utilities is being continually enhanced, improved and adapted to new Windows versions. New functions are added to modules, errors are corrected. And some tools need to be continually adapted to the advances in technology. TuneUp Update Wizard automatically checks for a new version of TuneUp Utilities by contacting the TuneUp server over the Internet. And if an update is available, these files are very small and can be downloaded quickly. Run TuneUp Update Wizard regularly to make sure that you always have the latest version of TuneUp Utilities. Open the Start Center. The TuneUp Update Wizard icon can be found in the dark grey area at the top of the window, directly beneath the blue titlebar. Click the text Update Wizard to start the module. Using TuneUp Update Wizard Welcome to TuneUp Update Wizard. This module allows you to keep TuneUp Utilities up-to-date at all times. For this to work properly, you will need to tell the wizard which Internet connection you use in the first step. In general, the correct connection will be automatically recognized by the program. If this does not work for you, select a connection type from the list. Select your connection. 105 Index If your Internet connection is not displayed in the list, you have two options: If you are always online (such as on a network), select the entry Permanent connection to the Internet. If you need to manually connect to the Internet first, select the entry Start connection manually. If you use a network to connect to the Internet, you may need to adjust certain Proxy settings so that the connection works. Generally, this is not necessary, as the module uses the default Internet Explorer settings. This means that if you can surf the web with Internet Explorer, TuneUp Update Wizard will work too. Click Next to check for updates. Installing updates The Update Wizard will then connect to the Internet and look for new updates. This may take a few seconds. After this, the wizard will show you a list of all current updates that are present on the Internet server. Click Next to install the available updates. The Finish button will then close the wizard. 106 Global modules Index Customize Windows ................................. 69 Data Recovery .......................................... 64 Defragment hard drives ............................ 15 Defragment registry .................................. 26 Defragmentation ....................................... 15 Delete permanently ................................... 93 Deleting contents of Recycle Bin ............ 94 1-Click Maintenance................................. 48 Desktop icons............................................ 76 Administration .......................................... 67 Display...................................................... 97 Appearance ............................................... 76 Display problems ...................................... 60 Applications that start automatically ........ 19 Drives.................................................. 38, 97 Archiving Files ......................................... 44 FAT........................................................... 17 Automatic maintenance ........................... 48 Firefox cache ............................................ 33 AutoOptimize ..................................... 28, 29 Free up disk space..................................... 37 Boot Screen............................................... 77 Hardware .................................................. 97 Burn DVD ................................................ 44 I/O Devices ............................................... 97 CD burning ............................................... 44 Icon color depth ........................................ 76 Change icons............................................. 74 Icon packages............................................ 72 Check and repair drives ............................ 56 Icon spacing .............................................. 76 Check and repair file system .................... 56 Incorrect or missing icons......................... 60 Check USB memory sticks....................... 56 Incorrect or missing taskbar...................... 60 Clean up hard disks .................................. 37 Information ............................................... 97 Communication .................................. 67, 98 Installing updates ................................... 105 Copy Settings............................................ 68 Internet Explorer cache............................. 33 CPU usage ................................................ 87 Internet Optimization................................ 23 Create Boot Screen ................................... 78 Logon Screen ............................................ 80 Ctrl+Alt+Del............................................. 90 Logonui.exe .............................................. 81 107 Index LOGONXP................................................81 Restore.....................................................103 Memory .....................................................97 Save space ................................................37 Memory Usage ..........................................87 Set Process Priority ...................................90 Modify design ...........................................69 Shell32.dll .................................................71 Mozilla Firefox cache................................33 Show shortcut arrow..................................77 MSSTYLES ..............................................82 Speed up downloads..................................22 Normal Analysis........................................57 Speed up Internet surfing...........................22 NTFS.........................................................17 Stardock Bootskin .....................................77 Ntoskrnl.es ................................................77 Startup .......................................................19 Open files ..................................................88 System Advisor .........................................22 Optimization functions..............................22 System configuration - tips........................22 Optimize downloads..................................23 System Devices .........................................98 Optimize memory......................................28 System Information ...................................97 Optimize RAM..........................................28 System Optimization .................................25 Optimize use of the Internet ......................23 System Recovery ....................................103 Paging file .................................................87 Take off the brakes ....................................22 Performance ..............................................98 TBS ...........................................................77 Processes ...................................................87 Thorough Analysis ....................................58 Processor ...................................................98 Tips for system configuration....................22 Processor usage .........................................87 TuneUp 1-Click Maintenance ...................48 Programs ...................................................87 TuneUp Disk Cleaner................................33 Proxy settings ..........................................106 TuneUp Disk Doctor .................................56 Recover deleted files .................................61 TuneUp Disk Space Explorer....................38 Recycle Bin ...............................................61 TuneUp Drive Defrag................................15 Registry ................................. 51, 86, 91, 102 TuneUp MemOptimizer ............................28 Repairing icons..........................................77 TuneUp Process Manager..........................87 Replace icons ............................................70 TuneUp Registry Cleaner ..........................49 Replace Task Manager ..............................90 TuneUp Registry Defrag ...........................26 108 Index TuneUp Registry Editor............................ 91 TuneUp Utilities - Free up disk space ...... 37 TuneUp Repair Wizard............................. 60 TuneUp Visual Style ................................ 82 TuneUp Rescue Center .......................... 102 TVS........................................................... 82 TuneUp Shredder...................................... 93 Undesired programs.................................. 99 TuneUp StartUp Manager......................... 19 Undo changes.......................................... 102 TuneUp Styler........................................... 69 Uninstall programs.................................... 99 TuneUp System Control ........................... 66 Unnecessary files and backups ................. 33 TuneUp System Information .................... 97 Use SmartOptimize................................... 29 TuneUp System Optimizer ....................... 22 Visual effects ...................................... 25, 67 TuneUp Undelete...................................... 61 Windows functions ................................... 37 TuneUp Uninstall Manager ...................... 99 Windows Start .......................................... 19 TuneUp Update Wizard.......................... 105 Wrong or missing desktop items............... 60 109
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