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Cover Story: Tools for Trouble-Free Computing

Whether your PC is brand new or showing its age, the best utilities will keep it in tip-top shape.

Lincoln Spector

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The Suites

Best Buy: Symantec SystemWorks 2002

Symantec's SystemWorks 2002 and Ontrack's SystemSuite 4 are both chock-full of useful tools, but most users will be able to get along without either suite. We've awarded Ontrack's SystemSuite two Best Buys for its diagnostic and disk cleaning tools. It's an extremely feature-rich package, with far more tools in a single box than Symantec offers. But bugs in other areas keep it from winning a Best Buy as a suite. For instance, the All-In-One Wizard can, on some computers, disable Microsoft's Word XP, although it is relatively easy to enable it again. Symantec wins this year because we didn't stumble upon any such bugs in SystemWorks.

Although neither suite is absolutely necessary, both offer one feature that's essential on any PC: antivirus software. You don't need to buy a whole suite to get a good antivirus program, however.

Both suites have plenty of other tools. For example, each includes a disk scanner that inspects your hard drive for file system errors such as lost clusters, and optionally scans the drive for physical problems as well. (Symantec's scanner is called Disk Doctor; Ontrack's is DiskFixer.)

Each suite also has an easy way to run multiple maintenance checks. Norton's is called One Button Checkup. SystemSuite has four different maintenance wizards.

Both packages contain an early warning program that operates in the background, looking for problems with your hard drive, Windows, and other trouble spots. Symantec's is called System Doctor; Ontrack's is SystemMonitors. Both suites have a tool that can defragment the Registry (Symantec's Optimization Wizard and Ontrack's Registry Defrag). Both suites offer unerase tools, as well as shredders if you want to make sure that no one will ever recover a particular file. And each program lets you create an emergency boot floppy to help you recover from a disaster.

The suites also include tools for monitoring installations and tracking system changes, plus a wizard for removing applications. Both are able to move a program to a different location (folder, drive, or computer), as well as archive and restore a seldom-used application.

Both programs boast Web-based services for updating, but on closer examination, these are merely links to Web sites that offer these services to anyone.

Ontrack's SystemSuite comes with plenty of tools you won't find in SystemWorks, such as NetDefense Firewall, and a program called CrashProof that tries to stop Windows crashes. SystemSuite also has many file management utilities that SystemWorks lacks, such as PowerDesk Pro. Among the software's other unique tools are ClockSync, which resets your system clock by syncing with an atomic clock, and DiskVerifier, which scans CD media for errors.

Symantec has removed features that were in previous versions of SystemSuite, stating that they weren't popular or were no longer necessary. About the only thing you'll find in SystemWorks that you won't find in SystemSuite is a limited version of Roxio's GoBack, a backup program that operates in the background, tracking every change made to your system files.

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