1.3 The purpose of utilities and utility suites

Some examples of utility programs include:

I. Virus scanning software
II. Backup software
III. Scandisk
IV. Disk defragmenter

I. Virus Scanning Software
Is a utility program designed to protect our computer from computer viruses. Virus scanning software is critical to users, due to the number of computer viruses (small computer programs created to disrupt and destroy computer files and/or operating system software). Virus scanning software scans our disk each time we insert it into a computer. We should have a good virus scanning software package installed and the virus scanning software needs to be updated on a regular basis (usually monthly). Updates insure that our virus scanning software will protect us from the most recent viruses. Virus scanning packages come with directions on how to receive updates to our software!

1.3 The purpose of utilities and utility suites

II. Backup software
Is software that assists us in backing up our files and even the entire computer hard drive. It is important for us to back up our files regularly. We should backup our valuable data on our hard drive.

III. Scandisk
Is a utility provided with Windows computers. Scandisk scans our disks to see if there are any potential problems on the disk, such as bad disk areas. Since disks are magnetic media, all disks, including our hard drive can be corrupted.

IV. Disk Defragmenter software
Reorganizes our disk drives. After files are saved, deleted and resaved again, the disk can become fragmented --- available space is in small blocks located throughout the disk. Disk defragmenters gather those free spots and put them together to enable us to continue to save our data in the most efficient manner.

1.3 The purpose of utilities and utility suites

In the 1980s the only package of programs for fixing and troubleshooting a computer was “Norton”. Now we can choose from more than a dozen suites to clean, protect, tune, tweak, optimize, and defragment your system. Now, with opensource technology, we can even have free utility suites. One example was Enteractive’s WinCleaner Complete PC Care. Examples of utility suites that are recommended include:

- Diskeeper available at www.diskeeper.com
- System Mechanic 6 Professional available at www.iolo.com
- Norton SystemWorks 2006 Premier available at www.symantec.com
- TuneUp Utilities 2006 available at www.tune-up.com
- Vcom SystemSuite 6 Professional available at www.v-com.com

When we want to choose a utility suite we will compare them with a set of criteria such as: Firewall, Antivirus, Antispyware, Registry cleaner, Shortcut cleaner, Edit system settings, Disk defragger, Disk checker, Removes clutter, Memory defragger, Network optimizer, Browser optimizer, Internet history cleaner, System diagnostics, Process explorer, Task scheduler, System restore, File undeleter, Rescue disk, Uninstall tools, File compression and of course the price.