Tools & Utilities Diagnostic & Recovery

Terrible. This thing almost destroyed my computer the first time using it.

First of all, there was a strange glitch when trying to use the Maintenance tools where the cleanup program started running without any window actually showing up

Terrible. This thing almost destroyed my computer the first time using it.

First of all, there was a strange glitch when trying to use the Maintenance tools where the cleanup program started running without any window actually showing up (I heard the sounds of my HD working and found the cleanup exe running in my task manager's processes). I just killed the cleanup process after it sounded like it had finished. No damage, no big deal. Here's where the horror story begins.

After running the registry cleanup tool, I chose to remove all this bad registry data. AdAware, a security program, pops up and asks me if I want to confirm the registry changes that are being made. At this point, Optimizer and AdAware basically clash with each other and this begins to cause the computer to slow to a crawl. After many efforts (done during near-freeze slowdown of course) to get either program to work or close, I am unsuccessful and have to kill both of them through task manager.

And then I found that my PC was screwed.

I try to open up a folder and Windows Installer starts popping up. My immediate thoughts are to go on the internet for help but wouldn't you know it... it killed my online connection too. So I think, "I give up" and go for the trusty ol' System Restore but whoopdeedoo even THAT wasn't working anymore.

Exasperated, I went back to Optimizer Pro (which at this point I was reluctant to run the damn thing ever again) and used the registry backup I made to restore things and clicked 'yes' when it told me to restart my computer. Instead I get a lovely blue screen of death (which isn't bad, since I haven't seen the lovely blue screen of death in a few years) before I turn off my computer manually.

After an extremely long boot up period my PC starts up, and thankfully I could run System Restore. After running that, my internet was back but the Windows Installer problem persisted and through help on the net I believe I've fixed it. At least partially.

In an event, Optimizer Pro caused me much pain and grief. Probably two hours of it. And if some poor fool who was even less computer savvy than I ever ran into the same problems I did... well... they're DOOMED.

Optimizer Pro plays tries to eek some small increase in performance by delving irresponisably into sensitive areas of the PC. In my case, it didn't pay off and it messed things up really bad.

Don't bother with this. It's not worth the risk. If you need faster PC peformance, you can get 512 DDR RAM for $30 or something.