Feature Walk-Through – Part 2
The theme of a more streamlined Windows carries over to several other Registry Mechanic features. The Optimize Your System option offers sub-sections showing the Processes (right-click on any process to set its priority) and Performance normally located in the Windows Task Manager (look for the Optimize button under the Performance tab); Drives/Space detailing the total, free, and used space on each internal system volume; and a readout of the System Information pulled from the Control Panel’s System area.
Monitor. Novices may feel a bit gun-shy in this section, but more experienced users will appreciate having all of this under-the-hood visibility gathered into one spot. Yes, you can find the Event Viewer and Performance Monitor (both of which are useful for troubleshooting and diagnostics) elsewhere in Windows, but why bother when Registry Mechanic puts them at your fingertips?
Similarly, Manage Your Services tracks on the utilization load of third-party services while Monitor Your Registry minimizes the still-running Registry Editor to your system tray.
Windows Tools. The WindowsControlCenter contains many useful sections and tools for system management, but they can be hard to find for those with little experience. The Registry Mechanic Windows Tools area remedies this, putting the Computer Management, Windows Update, System Properties, System Information, Control Panel, and Local Users and Groups screens all just one click away.
HelpCenter. Google is famous for showcasing some of its Labs projects as optional add-ons for its services, such as Gmail and Google Calendar. PC Tools does something very similar help in its HelpCenter. Click through the PC Tools Labs link and you’ll find (as of this writing) nine different add-on apps, most of them focused on malware detection and all of them free. The other link here, Windows Registry Guide, takes users to a list of other useful registry hacks that can help improve performance but didn’t necessarily fit with the rest of the Registry Mechanic program.
Options. Among the four links here—Settings, Restore, About, and Smart Update—Settings is obviously the highlight. Again, this is all presented fairly intuitively. You can select how Registry Mechanic will behave at startup, whether it should remove problems automatically or prompt you, and whether it will create log entries of its scans. You can set criteria for a custom scan based on which of the twelve sections Registry Mechanic will scour and which folders and/or volumes should be examined. If some valid registry items continually come up as problems, you may also opt to exclude these from custom scans.
As you can see, there’s a lot more to Registry Mechanic 9 than its name might suggest. Also realize that PC Tools provides a 30-day money back guarantee and free 24x7 live chat, email, and telephone tech support for those with a purchased license code.
We found Registry Mechanic 9 to be fast, convenient, unobtrusive, and of very little system impact, consuming no visible CPU resources while idle. For under $10 per machine, this seems like a solid deal, especially for older PCs that don’t have the benefit of modern components (such as solid state drives and quad-core CPUs) to help counterbalance Windows’s performance deficits.
As we said in the beginning, there are many ways to improve system performance and keep your PC healthy. We have no reservations in recommending Registry Mechanic as one of the essential prescriptions in your Windows medicine chest.
