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Review of Stardock's TweakVista

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the needs-all-the-help-it-can-get dept.

mikemuch writes "The new TweakVista utility from Stardock surfaces some of Vista's more obscure settings, giving access to diagnostics and making suggestions for services that you should be running. ExtremeTech's review of TweakVista generally likes the software, and though it's called version 0.9, it is for sale — $19.95 — and feels feature-complete. More suggestions on system optimization, however, would be helpful. From the review: 'According to TweakVista, on July 1st, the "Windows Shell Services DLL service took 651ms longer to shut down than usual." That's nice. Other than this stark presentation, there's no digestible information as to why the shell services DLL took over half a second longer to shut down. And there's no hint as to what to do about it.'"

5 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. Vista For Dummies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Chapter 1:

    Stick with XP.

    The End.

  2. It's called debugging. by Short+Circuit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Other than this stark presentation, there's no digestible information as to why the shell services DLL took over half a second longer to shut down. And there's no hint as to what to do about it. It's called debugging. You recognize a symptom, identify the problem, fix the problem. The software solves step 1; It recognizes when your computer is running slower than usual. Then it helps you with step 2; It gives you an idea of where to look to fix it.

    Without the software, you'd still be wondering why your computer took a half-second longer to shut down, not why a particular process took longer. With the software, you can focus on the process, paying less attention to the computer as a whole.

    The software doesn't fix your computer, it's a diagnostic aid.
    --
    tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
  3. Performance Center. by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The "took longer to shut down" messages are from Windows itself. They're exactly what you get from the Performance Center. It's actually very useful when you're trying to find out which applications are making your startup or shutdown times go slow. It's something that Vista has done right, actually.

  4. Re:Amazing... by MontyApollo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They have to charge $20 since not many people (relatively speaking) will purchase it. If they knew 50 million people were going to purchase, then they could charge a lot less.

  5. Startup by Mazin07 · · Score: 5, Funny

    As one of the screenshots clearly shows, the guy's computer is infested with Norton AntiVirus and iTunes. Don't worry, I have a utility that can remove programs like those, and it only costs $19.95.