Free TuneUp Utilities 2009!

Update: This promotion has now ended!

This has been a very busy week for dotTech’s freebies section, talking about free WinOptimizer 2010, jv16 PowerTools 2009, MAGIX Movie Editor Pro 15 Silver, and many other software. So, lets continue the trend and talk about another awesome freebie: TuneUp Utilities 2009!

Seeing as we have already discussed how to get TuneUp Utilities 2007 and TuneUp Utilities 2008 for free in the past, I feel I should tell you the new features and changes in TuneUp Utilities 2009 before I tell you how to get it for free:

What’s New in TuneUp Utilities 2009
TuneUp Utilities 2009 has many great new features and enhancements compared to the previous version. 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.

The new Start page
TuneUp Utilities 2009 welcomes you with a completely redesigned Start page, which tells you about the status of your computer. If problems or nonoptimal settings are found, you are only a mouse-click away from resolving them. The Start page also tells you when new tips for increasing computer performance are available and warns you if maintenance tasks are not being taken care of automatically. The Start page also shows you whether new automatic startup programs have been added to Windows since the last time you ran TuneUp Utilities. You can decide whether these programs that start up automatically are really necessary.

TuneUp Speed Optimizer
Which settings slow your computer down? Which unnecessary services or programs are running in the background? Is your Internet connection optimally configured? TuneUp Speed Optimizer knows the answers to all these questions. It examines your entire system for bottlenecks, superfluous background programs, and incorrect settings. Great: with just one click you can carry out most optimizations very quickly. In addition, TuneUp Speed Optimizer provides suggestions for speeding up your system.

TuneUp Shortcut Cleaner
Cleaning up your working environment is tedious: removing invalid shortcuts from the Start menu, the Desktop, and the Quick Launch bar is very time-consuming. TuneUp ShortCut Cleaner now does the work for you. It checks whether all shortcuts are valid and removes the orphaned ones with just a click of a button. At the same time, empty folders are removed from the Start menu. TuneUp ShortCut Cleaner also checks frequently used programs and cleans up the list of recently opened files.

Support for the Opera browser
After hard disk defragmentation, which we introduced in TuneUp Utilities 2008, the feature most requested by customers was support for the Opera browser. TuneUp Utilities 2009 now also includes full support for Opera. Via several special Opera settings, TuneUp System Control now allows you to change the number of Speed Dial entries, conveniently choose your default search engine, and reenable fast backward and forward navigation. Internet optimization lets you optimize Opera’s performance for your Internet connection. Free up disk space lets you delete the Opera cache.

TuneUp Styler
Now you can also change the Vista logo animation which appears just before logon. You can download a whole series of great animations from the TuneUp website. Or, if you prefer, you can choose your own personal image to display while Vista starts up. With Vista, you can also add your own images to Vista’s logon screen: With just a few mouse clicks you can create a truly personal logon experience.

TuneUp Uninstall Manager
Redesigned from the ground up, TuneUp Install Manager now runs much faster and has a new, even more intuitive interface so that it is even easier to uninstall unnecessary programs. Unnecessary programs often are forgotten because they were installed a long time ago and then not used. TuneUp Utilities 2009 shows you a list of programs not used for a long time so that you can target for uninstallation those applications that use valuable disk space and in certain circumstances even slow your system down.

TuneUp StartUp Manager
A smooth-running system results when there are no unnecessary autostart applications. The improved TuneUp Startup Manager organizes your programs into groups and provides clear explanations to make it easier for you to identify those programs that are not needed.New automatic startup programs are now highlighted so that you can disable unwanted entries more easily. System start tasks are now also listed in TuneUp StartUp Manager In Vista, in particular, scheduled tasks are used in place of autostart entries.

Free up disk space
The already rapid display of disk space to be freed up is now even faster on NTFS drives. And now it is so easy to delete even more unnecessary files, like the backup files for the first Windows Vista service pack and the Opera and Safari caches. The second “Free up disk space” module that helps you turn off Windows functions that use excessive disk space has also been enhanced. The Windows Search index can now be disabled and deleted with a single click. This makes particular sense if you are already using a different search engine. In addition, TuneUp Disk Space Explorer now runs faster and no longer requires that an entire drive be analyzed. You can now specify that only those folders be analyzed that you are really interested in.

Lots more improvements
Along with the totally new features, there are a series of improvements that are not immediately visible. There are small improvements like Tooltips in the main window, a substantial increase in the number of problems that can be found byTuneUp Registry Cleaner, and better progress feedback from TuneUp Drive Defrag. But there are also big improvements “under the hood”. Two good examples are a completely reworked installation program and significant improvements in our update technology.

The only bad thing about TuneUp Utilities 2009 is it does not support Windows 7; in fact it won’t even install in Windows 7. (TuneUp Utilities 2010 adds in support for Windows 7.) However, as a adhoc fix, if Windows 7 users want to run TuneUp Utilities 2009 on Windows 7, they can right click the installer, select “Properties”, go to the “Compatibility”, check “Run this program in compatibility mode for:”, click “Apply”, and click “OK”:

During installation, Windows 7 users will be prompted multiple times with this window:

Click “Yes”. After installation, Windows 7 users will have to right click on TuneUp Utilities 2009 EXE file, go to “Properties”, go to “Compatibility”, check “Run this program in compatibility mode for:”, click “Apply”, and click “OK”:

When running TuneUp Utilities 2009, Windows 7 users will then be prompted with this:

Click “No” otherwise the program won’t run.

As a word of caution, it is generally recommended to not force-install a program on a Windows it does not want to install on. That does not mean the program, TuneUp Utilities 2009 in this case, won’t work; rather it means don’t be surprised if it causes problems on your computer if you are running it on Windows 7.

Anyway, to get TuneUp Utilities 2009 for free, follow these simple steps:

Version being given out for free: v8.0.3310

Free updates available: Unspecified

Supported OS:

Visit the CHIP.de promotion page and follow all the “Zum Download” links:

Eventually they will take you to the TuneUp Utilities 2009 registration page:

At the registration page, enter your e-mail address, enter the CAPATCHA code you see, and click on the “Produktschlussel anfordern” button. You should get a confirmation message:

Check the inbox of the e-mail you entered. You should have an e-mail from “TuneUp Promotion <no-reply@tuneup.de>” with the subject of “TuneUp Utilities 2009 Freischaltlink”. In the e-mail there is a URL you have to visit to get your registration code:

Click on the link or copy + paste it on your web browser.

The webpage that opens will give you your registration code:

Copy the registration code. There is also a download link given to you; however, it is for the German version of TuneUp Utilities 2009. So if you want the English version of TuneUp Utilities 2009, download it from Tune-up.com (click here to download it).

After TuneUp Utilities 2009 has finished downloading, install it. When you run TuneUp Utilities 2009, you should be prompted to register it. Click on “Enter Product key”:

Type in your name, organization, and product key. The name and organization can be whatever you want; the product key is the registration code you received earlier (you can paste it in):

You should get a confirmation message and be asked to restart TuneUp Utilities 2009: