WinUtilities is a useful all-in-one system utility program for Windows that comes with over 20 features under one root. To top it off, the program comes in Free and Pro versions, allowing you to pick if you want to use the program for free or pay to upgrade. (Click here to learn more about WinUtilities, if you don’t know what it is or what it does.)

Unfortunately, the developer of WinUtilities is very coy about the exact differences between WinUtilities Free and WinUtilities Pro; the following is all the developer bothers to tell us in regards to WinUtilities Free vs WinUtilities Pro:

WinUtilities Pro costs $29.99 and, I don’t know about you, but I want to know exactly what it offers over the Free version before I shell out that cash — telling me features are “enhanced” isn’t good enough for me. So I went about and tested WinUtilities Free vs WinUtilities Pro and I found the two versions are almost identical.

TECHNICAL DETAILS

Firstly, let’s discuss the technical details of the two.

At the time of this writing, both WinUtilites Free and WinUtilities Pro are at v10.61. They both have a download size of 5.9MB and work on Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit) while WinUtilities Pro also claims to work on Windows 2000.

In other words, in this category of measurement, both Free and Pro are identical.

INTERFACE

Secondly, let’s discuss the interface.

To be frank, the interface of WinUtilities Free and WinUtilities Pro is exactly the same… which is OK because most all programs with Free and Pro versions share the same interface:

FEATURES

Lastly, let’s discuss the features.

Despite what the developer claims in their comparative chart of WinUtilities Free vs WinUtilities Pro (shown above), I’ve found that, for the most part, WinUtilities Free and WinUtilities Pro have the same features with only four differences:

• Both Free and Pro have Disk Cleaner, Shortcuts Fixer, Uninstall Manager, Registry Defrag, Disk Defrag, Memory Optimizer, BHO Remover, StartUp Cleaner, History Cleaner, Process Security, EXE Protector, File Shredder, Disk Analysis, Document Protector, Duplicate File Finder, File Splitter and Joiner, Registry Backup & Restore, Registry Search, System Control, System Information, Auto Shutdown, and Windows Standard Tools modules
• Both Free and Pro have the same 1-Click Maintenance module, a feature that allows you run multiple WinUtilities modules — such as history cleaner, junk cleaner, registry cleaner, disk defrag, and registry defrag — with the click of one button
• Both Free and Pro show Registry Cleaner, File Undelete, Duplicate Files Finder, and Task Scheduler modules in their interfaces but these four modules are disabled in Free and only work in Pro (Registry Cleaner will scan in Free but not clean)
• Both Free and Pro show Scheduled Tasks (the ability to set Disk Cleaner, Disk Defrag, History Cleaner, Registry Cleaner to automatically run on a specific schedule) module but this module is disabled in Free and only works in Pro

Now, of course, you must be thinking: sure they have mostly the same features but the developer says some of those features are “enhanced” in Pro. Unfortunately (fortunately?) I’ve found the developer’s claim of having “enhanced” 1-Click Maintenance, Disk Cleaner, Disk Defrag, and Registry Defrag modules in Pro to be false.

I ran tests with both WinUtilities Free and WinUtilities Pro and found that Disk Cleaner, Disk Defrag, and Registry Defrag perform the exact same in Free and Pro, which leads me to predict that 1-Click Maintenance also performs the exact same (minus the registry cleaning portion that is available in Pro only). Now, does that mean there are no under-the-hood differences between Free’s and Pro’s 1-Click Maintenance, Disk Cleaner, Disk Defrag, and Registry Defrag modules? No, not necessarily; I have not looked at WinUtilities’ code, so I can’t say they are exactly the same in both versions. However, I can say that, as per my tests, they perform the same.

CONCLUSION

There are indeed some differences between WinUtilities Free and WinUtilities Pro. However, these differences are not as exaggerated as the developer of WinUtilities wants you to believe. Indeed, as I’ve pointed out above, the differences between Free and Pro are few and far in between. So if you ever feel the need to download and use WinUtilities, grab the Free version unless you specifically need/want the few extra features only found in Pro.

Hit up the links below to download WinUtilities.

Version reviewed: v10.61 (Free and Pro)

Download size: 5.9MB (Free and Pro)

Supported OS: Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Win7, Win8 (Free and Pro)

WinUtilities Free homepage | WinUtilities Pro homepage