[nextpage title=”Introduction”]
Notice: this article is a spontaneous recommendation. We did not receive any kind of incentive from Driver Booster or its parent company to recommend this program. We are publishing it because we believe it can be useful to our readers.
After years using a computer, the operating system accumulates remnants of programs that were installed and removed, useless programs and files, and small problems that, while not preventing the computer from working, certainly occupy disk space and can let the computer slower.
There are several programs to “clean up” your computer. One that we find interesting and we recommend is Advanced System Care, from the same developers of the Driver Booster, which we recommended a few days ago.
Besides cleaning the operating system, this program has one advantage over its competitors: it also scans and solves security problems on the computer verifying, for example, if there are important updates that were not installed.
The program is free, but there is a Pro version (paid), which offers some additional features (which we will mention on the next page), and the automatic operating system maintenance from time to time.
At the initial screen of the program (see Figure 1) you should select which scans and corrections the programs must do, and then click “Scan”. Notice that not all options are checked by default. This is for two reasons. First, running all the scans is a very time demanding task, particularly if you choose “Disk Scan”. Second, if you have an SSD, you should not defragment it (“Disk Optimization” option), because doing so will reduce the SSD lifespan (because it does several write cycles), and SSDs do not need to be defragmented. So, we recommend you to check all options, except for the “Disk Optimization” if you have an SSD.
Figure 1: scan options selection
In our case, the program identified more than 4,000 programs, which is impressive. Click “Repair” to correct all the problems found.
Figure 2: list of the problems found
Figure 3: repair completed
The program also offers a huge quantity of additional scan and repair options, present on the “Toolbox” menu, which we recommend you to run after. Let’s see them.
[nextpage title=”Tools”]
The “Toolbox” menu presents additional functionalities. Some of them are targeted to specific situations, like storage units checking (“Disk Doctor”), deleted files recover (“Undelete”), and the secure file deleting (“File Shredder”). Other ones, extremely useful and important, are only available at the paid version of the program (“Win Fix”, “Registry Cleaner”, “Smart RAM”, “Internet Booster”, and “Disk Cleaner”). But even on the free version there are some useful options that we recommend to be used, and that are not automatically run in the problem scan and repair.
Figure 4: tools (part 1)
Figure 5: tools (part 2)
The functions we recommend you run are the following:
- IOBit Uninstaller: another software from the same developer, that we recommend to remove programs and to check if parts of removed programs were completely eliminated from the computer.
- Driver Booster: program to update all the drivers on the computer. Click here to read our tutorial on this program.
- Startup Manager: to optimize by a single click the items that are automatically loaded at the operating system initialization, accelerating the operating system load. Just click “Optimize”. This tool allows you to chronometer the operating system load, so you can check if there was (or there wasn’t) improvement after the optimization.
- Program Deactivator: similar to the previous option, but manually. By selecting the program you want to deactivate, Advanced System Care shows, in a chart on the bottom of the screen, how much the operating system loading can be optimized. You can also use the chronometer of the previous tool to verify the efficacy of your optimizations.
- Empty Folder Scanner: looks for empty folders in the storage units to improve the computer organization.
- Shortcut Fixer: locates Windows shortcuts that do not point to a valid file. This improves that organization of the computer, and frees up a little disk space.
- Cloned Files Scanner: locates duplicated files, so you can free up disk space. Just be careful here, because some files are duplicated by purpose (backup files, for example).
Advanced System Care also comes with a software updater, available on the “Action Center” tab, to keep the programs on your computer always updated. See Figure 6. You can activate automatic updates clicking on “Activate automatic updates”. Obviously, it is limited to the programs that Advanced System Care knows.
Figure 6: software updater module
If you are a professional or an advanced user, you can explore all the options and tools present on Advanced System Case, because there are other useful options beyond the ones we mentioned, and some of them can be useful for the situation you are trying to solve.
[nextpage title=”Memory and CPU usage monitoring”]
With Advanced System Care installed, there will appear at the upper right corner of your desktop a memory and CPU monitor. Clicking on the broom icon cleans unused data and program fragments that are still stored in the RAM, freeing more memory. Clicking at the “+”, this monitor is expanded. Check Figures 7 and 8.
Figure 7: memory and CPU monitor (compact)
Figure 8: memory and CPU monitor (expanded)
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