{rw_text}Giveaway of the day for December 28, 2008 is WinUtilities 6.2.
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WinUtilities was last given out on October 28, 2008. The version in October was 6.2. Today’s version is also 6.2. That being said, the review I wrote on WinUtilities is still relevant today – I will just update a few things. I will post the Pros and Cons, free alternatives and final verdict here for convienience. For all other information, you will have to refer back to the old review.

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• Has almost every tool in the book needed to clean/maintain your computer
• Almost no learning curve
• Automatically Creates system backups before doing any changes to registry.
• Has an option to recover deleted files and to ‘securely’ delete files.
• Has a ‘1-click’ system maintenance option.
• You can schedule times when maintenance will run automatically.
• Vista compatible
• EXE file password protection.

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• No defrag tool.
• Uninstaller does not scan registry/computer for left over files.
• Duplicate File scanner does not discriminate between important files and useless files.

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{for=”Features as Described” value=”10″}WinUtilities delivers everything YL Computing claims.
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{for=”Ease of Use” value=”10″}Almost no learning curve what so ever. Most everything is in GUI format and is self explanatory.
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{for=”Usefulness” value=”10″}Anyone can use this program. Little to no technical knowledge needed. This program will be useful to everyone – every computer has some sort of junk that needs to be removed.
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Free Alternatives:

CCleaner
Tuneup Utilities 2007
Glary Utility
Ashampoo WinOptimizer 4
Advanced SystemCare Free (For a limited time, you can get 6 months Pro license for free at Raymond.cc)
RevoUninstaller
Recuva
Eraser

PMnet Verdict: WinUtilties is an excellent program. I have been using it since I got it in October and it has been very reliable. Not to mention the automatic backups of registry and other files gives you peace of mind if anything ever goes wrong. However, with so many free alternatives to do this same task, I would recommend the following: For one single computer optimization/management program, I would say go Advanced SystemCare (get Pro while you can then switch to Free once Pro license is over). As I mentioned in the Premium Booster review, Advanced SystemCare is the most resource intensive out of all the alternatives listed above, but it is an excellent tool in terms of computer management – especially the fact that it has automatic scheduled cleaning of your computer almost every day. After Advanced SystemCare, I would rank the other programs in this order: CCleaner/WinUtilities/Tuneup Utilities 07, then Ashampoo/Glary. However, I still recommend downloading WinUtilities because of the ‘extras’ it has such as EXE password protection that Advanced SystemCare does not have. Lastly, regardless of what system optimization program you decide to use, you should definitely download RevoUninstaller to help you completely uninstall programs.

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