System Utilities

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steve P
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Steve P

How important is it to use a utility like Norton System Works to correct
hard drive errors and correct registry problems? Is there something better
than System Works?

Thanks, Steve
 
Drive errors are usually the result of failed hardware. Registry problems
may be an effect of the former.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect
 
Steve said:
How important is it to use a utility like Norton System Works to correct
hard drive errors ....
Click to expand...


If you're referring to a hardware problem, no software utility can fix
such. If you're referring to file system problems, WinXP's built-in
Chkdsk is usually sufficient. If the problems are too egregious for
Chkdsk to handle, Norton's System Works will also be useless.

.... and correct registry problems?
Click to expand...


What specific registry problem? Use Regedit.


Is there something better
than System Works?
Click to expand...


That's too easy! ;-} All you need is common sense and a little knowledge.

Once a useful utility suite, back in the days of MS-DOS, when Peter
Norton was more than a picture on the box, Norton Utilities have been
becoming increasingly useless and redundant over the years. There's
little offered by NU that WinXP cannot already do natively. And some of
Systemworks's additional features, like WinDoctor, CrashGuard and
CleanSweep (if they're still included) cause far more problems then they
prevent.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH
 
Marginal hardware can do similar. The apparent problems can be fixed in
this situation until the hardware decides to creep to the bad end again.
Difficult to diagnose at best.

--
Lil' Dave
Beware the rule quoters, the corp mindset, the Borg
Else you will be absorbed
Dave Patrick said:
Drive errors are usually the result of failed hardware. Registry problems
may be an effect of the former.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

Steve P said:
How important is it to use a utility like Norton System Works to correct
hard drive errors and correct registry problems? Is there something better
than System Works?

Thanks, Steve
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
There's really no way of knowing without some detail.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Marginal hardware can do similar. The apparent problems can be fixed in
| this situation until the hardware decides to creep to the bad end again.
| Difficult to diagnose at best.
|
| --
| Lil' Dave
| Beware the rule quoters, the corp mindset, the Borg
| Else you will be absorbed
 
And chances are you're not going to see any corresponding symptoms in XP
until the damage is already done.
 
Steve,

The question if there is a "better" tool than "Norton System Works"
depends on what version you use on which OS and filesystem-format(s) on
your harddrives (FAT32 vs NTFS).

A good alternative for Norton if you want to simply check and clean your
system is "TuneUp Utilities 2006".

My "Norton System Works 2003 Pro" did it okay under WinME/Win2000 and
four FAT32-patitions on two physical harddisks.
This dual-boot machine got mixed-up by Norton WinDoctor when it
"repaired" my ME-setup with links to the 2K-setup, even Norton Speeddisk
got a FAT32-partition messed up when I did not pay enough attention
(I'm using SpeedDisk sinds 1995)!

What's been done "automatically" i.e. "easy" can go terrible wrong when
you for example change or remove one of two dual-boot environments (like
me, iek !!!).

When I run a Norton "Checkup and repair" I usually run also a TuneUp
"clean and repair" to find still some inconsistencies in the Windows
Registry that Norton left out (different algorythm I guess - version
2003 was probably designed in 2002, a lot is different with Microsoft
since then).
TuneUp also does a better finetuning for XP and 2K (my humble opinion).

The Norton Speeddisk feature by the way does a better defragmenting job
on a NTFS-partition than XP's System Management (any Windows version has
the same lack of disk-optimization once a partition is formatted since
Windows 2 in 1992 - Bill has his billions, who cares !).

At the moment I use that same PC configured as dual-boot "WinXP Pro SP2"
on primary C-drive (boot) and Win2000 Pro SP4 on the secondary hardrive
with NTFS clustersize 4Kb for XP (usually small file i/o) versus
a single partition on the secondary hardrive running Win2K with a
clustersize of 32Kb for the "large" file i/o.
Yes, I re-installed Win2K once on that same D-drive while XP already
was present at the boot C-drive - normally impossible (backing up and
changing c:\boot.ini prooved quite handy)

Thus: try and use several tools with the same features/functionalities
along side each other that suite your needs for the best ... (goes for
disk I/O issues and for network-settings also !).

For me,
I keep trying and understanding why any Windows-feature works fine at
one time and doesn't the next (Linux is to technical and time-demanding
for my personal and professional needs):

I needed FOUR (re-)installs for Win2000 SP4 to get all of my software
working like it did and should under WinME (exept the many reboots of
course).

In between I migrated three FAT32-partions (9.5, 14.5 and 14.5 Gb)
on the primary harddisk (ATA100, 7200 rpm) to NTFS and the single-large
partion of 76.5 Gb on the secondary hardisk (ATA133, 7200 rpm, 8 Mb
cache) also to NTFS.

Finally,
I also needed four (re-)installs for WinXP Pro SP2 to get the
same speed, stability and software-components as Win2K.
You need to install Norton BEFORE you install "Service Pack 2" SP2 with
a complete security center with it that bites any third-party
security-product(like Symantec's Norton of Sygate's Firewall).
Uninstalling SP2 is NOT AN OPTION, despite what Microsoft tells you -
a realy clean install of WinXP on an empty and defragmented primary
bootdrive is always the best !

Do I need security and a nicely looking userinterface, I bootup WinXP.
when I want to fix WinXP and/or speed thus I bootup Win2K (how come ?)

As for this tuned and tweaked Phantom-PC (of-the-shelve clone-build RECOM):
I used this dual-boot configuration on several occasions to restore a
backup from one WinOS for the other from several formatted CD-RW's and
DVD+RW's with two burners simultanuously ...

I use Windows Explorer handled as a 'separate process' with large
ZIP-archives and lots of memory for my Nero-packetwriting software (WITH
memory swapfile of 1150 Mb adds up when Windows needs to 'reorganize'
the physical RAM through DMA channels to harddisk).

Microsoft tell's you NOT to use a swap-file if the PC has more than 500
MB of physical RAM, I proove them wrong with a MSI-motherboard of only
three DMA-channels !

It took me six months to get WinXP cleaned-up, speeded-up and tweaked
like the way I wanted it with every software- and OS-version and
fix-level the same on Win2K.

I put in an extra IDE-controller for two Plextor burners, one DVD-ROM
and two harddrives (got me a RAID-controller with 133MHZ extra bandwith
- max. 133 Mb per second - for NOT using any RAID, just a Plextor DVD-RW
and a LiteOn DVD-ROM attached to it).

It's like driven a fast-car with 768 Mb SDRAM and AMD Athlon XP1400Mhz
and a virtual memory of ... Mb and TWO IDE-controllers with bandwiths of
100 Mb/sec and 133 Mb/second ?!

Just 'tweak' Windows and know what you're doin' - dualboot at the top !

Marc
 
Steve P said:
How important is it to use a utility like Norton System Works to correct
hard drive errors and correct registry problems? Is there something better
than System Works?

Thanks, Steve
Click to expand...
 
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