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Microsoft Quietly Previews PC Advisor Repair Tool

Posted by timothy on from the give-that-bob-a-blowtorch-and-a-monocle dept.

notthatwillsmith writes "On Friday, Microsoft invited members of the Windows Feedback Program to try out a preview of a new application, the Microsoft PC Advisor. The new tool promises to 'continuously monitor your PC for problems and give you the solutions to fix them, in real time.' After testing on several Vista machines with a variety of problems, Maximum PC has written a full report on the Microsoft PC Advisor. The short version? Like every other 'PC Repair' tool they've tested, the new apps signal-to-noise ratio is quite bad, and it misses the obvious and important problems, like out-of-date videocard drivers."

2 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Error Reporting by Toreo+asesino · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...is good at advising to upgrade out of date drivers if they cause problems.

    I've had it diagnose a bunch of dodgy drivers with success before; I'm not quite sure what the angle on this tool is.

    --
    throw new NoSignatureException();
  2. Misleading Article, Product Not "Launched" Yet by Marcaen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The thing that seems to not be addressed is that this tool is specifically targeted for a small number of people. The software itself is not "beta", however the issues and problems that it searches for and repairs should be considered beta. The whole point of releasing this to a small, specifically invited group of people is to fine tune and make the detection and repair database much more useful before it is ready for the general population. The following is taken directly from the invitation email:

    "As part of this study, you would download and install the Microsoft PC Advisor application and provide feedback on the impact on your Windows Vista PC through 3 brief surveys over the next 6 months"

    For a product that is at least 6 months away from being released to the general public, this article is no more than a misrepresentation of the goals of the software at this point in time. And as the "invited" users use the tool, they will have the chance to provide feedback to help improve the capabilities of the utility.

    That being said, this tool will never be a useful tool for power users that already know how to tweak their systems and update software, and the final release database may not be much better in the end anyway. But if that is the case, write an article at that point Will Smith, not when a product has barely begun building a database and is on an invitation only basis. I like to bash Micro$oft as much as anyone else, but this article is FUD. I'm guessing that Will had this passed along to him from a third party with some missing information, at least I hope, it is the worst piece of "journalism" I have seen from the man.

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    Marcaen