Member Avatar for Mike Feury

I'm looking to replace Norton SystemWorks as my main PC utility package, as it seems to have gone steadily downhill in the last few years.

The best two atlernatives I've been able to identify are System Mechanic Pro and .

I'm leaning towards Sys Mechanic because of their recent deal with Kaspersky anti-virus. This would enable me to ditch Norton A-V also. I'm satisfied with NAV's performance, but it does have a high running overhead.

I run two Win2000 Pro PCs and an XP Home laptop, and may move the PCs to XP.

Anyone got another utility package to recommend, or any preference between the two I mentioned. Any gotchas? :)

Thanks,

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Short answer: pick the tool that fits your maintenance style rather than chase a single ‘‘best’’ suite. is right to look for convenience when supporting other users, and is equally right to caution about runtime overhead — both points matter. Use the following practical checklist and a short deployment workflow to get the benefits of a suite while avoiding the usual gotchas.

What to check before you install a suite (quick checklist):

  • Resource impact: prefer suites that let you turn off resident modules you don't need.
  • Modularity: the ability to install only the cleanup/optimization pieces and skip duplicate realtime components.
  • Safe undo: any registry/shortcut cleaning should create a backup or offer an easy rollback.
  • Scheduling and logging: automated runs must produce logs you can review before applying wide fixes.
  • Compatibility and recovery: ensure the suite is compatible with your OS and that you can restore the system if something breaks.

Simple deployment workflow you can apply immediately:

  1. Image or backup the machine first (so you can restore if a cleaner removes something important).
  2. Install on one test PC, disable modules you won't use, and run scheduled tasks at low priority or only when idle.
  3. Let it run for a couple of cycles, check logs, and only then roll it out to friends/colleagues.
  4. Keep specialized security tools (antivirus/firewall) as dedicated standalones if you need stronger, real‑time protection.

Troubleshooting notes and cautions: never run multiple realtime cleaners/antivirus engines simultaneously; decline any blanket “fix everything” option until you read the log; if a tool offers an integrated backup or snapshot, enable it before any registry or boot‑sector changes. Tie this back to the thread: use a suite for convenience, but follow ’s stand‑alone discipline for security and use a monitored installation/uninstaller approach as others here recommended when you need precision.

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Member Avatar for Catweazle

The only tools I believe you need are these:

A decent antivirus program
At least two spyware detection and removal programs
A decent 'Uninstaller' which will monitor your installations and ensure that all traces of a program are removed when you uninstall.


Beyond that, regular use of the 'Defragmenter' and 'Disk Cleanup' system accessories will keep your system in good order.


I don't believe that any one 'Utility Suite' provides all of that. You are best to use stand-alone programs, in my view.

Member Avatar for dlh6213

The only tools I believe you need are these:

A decent antivirus program
At least two spyware detection and removal programs
A decent 'Uninstaller' which will monitor your installations and ensure that all traces of a program are removed when you uninstall.


Beyond that, regular use of the 'Defragmenter' and 'Disk Cleanup' system accessories will keep your system in good order.


I don't believe that any one 'Utility Suite' provides all of that. You are best to use stand-alone programs, in my view.

Can you recommend a decent 'Uninstaller'? Any good ones that are free?

Member Avatar for Catweazle

See this topic:

Member Avatar for Catweazle

Sorry. Yes, that's the topic I meant.

Member Avatar for Mike Feury

I don't believe that any one 'Utility Suite' provides all of that. You are best to use stand-alone programs, in my view.

Thanks for the advice Catweazle :) I agree with you, and I have separate tools for the purposes you mention except an Uninstaller, an area I've ignored up to now. I'm checking out your two recommendations in the other thread.

I want a suite as a first line of defense for day-to-day use and to cover the times when I forget or don't get to the separate apps. Plus something to install for colleagues and friends, which I can schedule to run regularly.

Member Avatar for Catweazle

Of the two products you've mentioned I'd choose System Mechanic. I'd endorse dumping Norton, and I can't for the life of me understand why people choose to continue using Norton products!

Using a Utility Suite will incur quite a bit of system overhead, and should be avoided where high demands are made on system performance.

Member Avatar for dlh6213

...I can't for the life of me understand why people choose to continue using Norton products!...

Catweazle, this is not intended to be rude or offensive; I'd just like to explain why some people still use Norton products.

First of all, I believe it is name recogintion -- Norton is better advertised and many new systems come with a free trial preinstalled. If people new of alternatives, I'm sure they would try them.

Next, is what Norton SystemWorks can do. I've been using it since '96 (upgrading every other year) and have had little trouble with it. I just finished scanning with One Button Checkup and it found 7 registry errors and 15 shortcut errors. When I ran it the other day on another users profile, it found over 100 shortcut errors. Now, I suppose if I spent enough time, I'd be able to find many of these errors, but probably not all of them. And the time spent doing that could be better spent doing other things. Norton fixes them all in less than a minute.

Almost daily, I run Disk Cleanup (in Windows), clean all temporary folders for all users, search for *.tmp and delete whatever is found. Yet when I use Norton's CleanSweep, it still finds MB's of data that can be cleaned. I don't know where it's finding it, so without Norton it would continue to build up.

Using Norton's Internet Cleanup usually turns up a couple of plug-ins and ActiveX controls that can be cleaned. Again, I don't know where I would go to remove these manually.

So, until I find a good alternative, I will continue to use Norton products. Now that I am aware of System Mechanic, I'm going to give it a try. For anyone that is interested, it can be obtained free (for a limited time) by purchasing PNY RAM, then clicking on this link:
http://www.iolo.com/pny/landing.cfm?pid=9687C57E-2913-43D9-8ED6-8C2C05E597B5&adid=FA32CDE2-E6A5-4258-BB69-2AB87FF28BF6

Well, that's my two-cents, for what it's worth. Any feedback or recommendations welcome!

Member Avatar for Catweazle

Oh don't mind me. I have a particular 'bee in the bonnet' in relation to Norton products ;)

If you use them and have success with them, then fine.

It's the extraordinarily large number of people who have problems with their products that gets me riled, and when I track down solutions to the problems that cross my desk I find that the same issues get replicated year after year, version after version! Conflicts with other software, installation and uninstall issues, system slowdowns, the list goes on....

I'm sure they're working to resolve the problems which exist. Late last year (or perhaps earlier this year, I can't quite recall) they purchased the rights to PowerQuest Drive Image. The purchase wasn't to buy out a competitor to 'Ghost'. It was to obtain the rights to a better code base.

Norton Internet Security, in tandem with Norton AntiVirus, is the slowest operating software firewall and antivirus combination in existence, and I'm sure they'll address THAT issue some day. Perhaps they'll make changes to LiveUpdate, to resolve the problems people have been experiencing since NAV2002 or perhaps even earlier!

Like I said, don't mind me. I'm just a cynical and embittered old Techie!

Member Avatar for nanosani

I've used system mechanic mechanic pro ... and it has been quite helpful to me.

Member Avatar for Montrell274

I use standalone anti-virus (AVG Antivirus Guard) and standalone firewall (ZoneAlarm Pro) and neither fails. As for utility suite, I use System Mechanic Pro for the fun of it.l

Member Avatar for thepom11

I also find stand alone to be the answer, av-pc-cillin, both spybot and spyblaster, and my uninstaller is the original quarterdeck cleansweep.It is a very good product but the company was purchased by symentec (norton) and is no longer sold as original. if you can find a copy i reccomend it.

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