System Mechanic 11 released!

[Baldrick]

Just to advise any users or interested parties that iolo have just released System Mechanic 11.

[kdcdq]

Thanks to Baldrick, I just downloaded System Mechanic 11 from the Iolo website. I haven't installed it yet; I was just checking to see if the new release was available for download, and it IS....

[roger_m]

I tried out the free version last night, and was not impressed, as usual.

The registry cleaner still has issues with posatives, which should have been fixed a long time ago. Also, as usual they do their best to deceive and mislead thier customers, e.g. claiming it defragments memory (this is no possible!), and also being told that the paid version can fix 20,000 (perhaps 30,000) specific problems, which it most certainly can't. Of couse Iolo are not so kind as tell us exactly what there problems are.

I think it is perhaps best to call System Mechanic a scam. I can assure you that if you have any significant issues with your system, the chances of System Mechanic or indeed any such utility (e.g. TuneUp Utilities, Advanced SystemCare, Glary Utilitities) fixing them is very small.

What makes it worse is that free version states the paid version will fix thousands of problems - so users are tricked into thinking that when the free version doesn't fix their problem, the paid version will. I wonder if Iolo gives refunds to users who were mislead in to paying for the full version, and found it did not work nearly as well as promised?

What's new.

[philby]

Thought I'd add a comment about a recent experience with this software.

I went to help a guy who couldn't update Windows or upgrade his AV product.

After poking around a while, I found that Windows Installer had been removed from his installation.

So I went off to Google and found here that uninstalling System Mechanic and then reinstating certain registry entries as per post #3 should sort the issue - and it did!

Windows Installer was back and I did all the guy's updates / uninstalls / upgrades.

He was a well-intentioned chap who was only trying to look after his machine and thought that running this software on default settings would help him to this end - he had no idea of the damage it would do to his system.

No disrespect to the software intended - just a note of caution...

philby

[fax]

I had also bad experience in the past with this tool. Please watch out. Less you touch the registry better it is. Or if you really need to clean the registry just take a tool with a good user base like the free ccleaner (millions of users).

[denniz]

My experience with System Mechanic is also not good. Even on default settings it's cleaning and repair routines are to aggressive, which often leads to other problems. There support desk is also not good, they give useless answers which are no help at all.

If someone wishes to use this software, then you'd better set everything on manual cleaning and double check everything it wants to clean or repair.

[Baldrick]

Funny about the only comments posted here are negative.

My experiences, of using System Mechanic for some 7-8 years now, are all very positive bar one.

It terms of registry cleaning aggressiveness my experiences are the exact opposite to what is stated previously. IMHO and compared to a good number of other registry cleaners SM seems relatively mild in both terms of the numbers of 'issues' found and the type. I could (but will not) name 4 or 5 such cleaners that are far, far more aggressive and IMHO (again) more dangerous is used without proper precautions.

From my perspective SM has had a positive effect on my systems over the years and a part form the aforementioned issue (minor bug in terms of the SystemAnalyzer which they do not seem to be able to fix) I can honestly say I am very pleased with the product and would use nothing else at present (and I have downloaded and evaluated a number of the peer products around.

I would advise that people try the product(s), having imaged or backed up beforehand and then use the one they find that best suits their system.

With in my case is definitely...System Mechanic.

I think System Mechanic is probably the best overall maintenance suite and apart of minor issues with its registry cleaner detecting the same errors multiple times, I had only positive experiences with it.

However, at the moment I think I have the top software of each maintenance category, so I'm not interested in installing suites. Still, I keep a close eye to the development of System Mechanic.

As for Iolo's marketing - of course I don't like with some of their strategies, but at this market (the market of maintenance software) extreme honesty can completely destroy sales. So, one should be a little bit smart and don't fall for scare tactics.

[roger_m]

Originally Posted by Baldrick

It terms of registry cleaning aggressiveness my experiences are the exact opposite to what is stated previously. IMHO and compared to a good number of other registry cleaners SM seems relatively mild in both terms of the numbers of 'issues' found and the type. I could (but will not) name 4 or 5 such cleaners that are far, far more aggressive and IMHO (again) more dangerous is used without proper precautions.

Yes, the registry cleaner is not very aggressive - but in spite of this it does give some false posatives - so it is best not to use it.

From my perspective SM has had a positive effect on my systems over the years and a part form the aforementioned issue (minor bug in terms of the SystemAnalyzer which they do not seem to be able to fix) I can honestly say I am very pleased with the product and would use nothing else at present (and I have downloaded and evaluated a number of the peer products around.

I do not dobut that. However, I have no time for software publishers who feel the need to resort to mistruths and highly exaggerated claims in order to sell their products. A good example of this (one of many) is a few years back they were claiming System Mechanic would make your system run just as fast as when it was brand new - a highly unlikely scenario. What is somewhat funny is that in the labs section of their website it even had a report on the effect of System Mecahnic on a computer, and it showed that it would increase performance - but would not being it back to the original speed.

[rob108]

What about this new feature called "Accelewrite" for optimizing hard drives and Solid State Drives. I have an SSD with TRIM support. Should I disable the Accelewrite feature with TRIM? It says it benefits SSD's but if you have an SSD with TRIM perhaps it's better to leave it disabled. Not enough info about SSD's and System Mechanic drive maintenance.

[Noob]

It's been a long time since i last tried any kind of system optimizing software.

[superssjdan]

I've had System Mechanic since the beginning.To the uninformed user,it can do loads of damage if you let it.As i have software that mirrors it's functions like diskeeper,ccleaner,jvpowertools,i only install and run it maybe twice a year for it's registry cleaning function as it picks up a few things some other's may leave behind,and even then i go entry by entry and then decide.When using software like this,imaging software is a must incase you let iolo go too far.Has lots of useful tools if you don't already run similar ones.But as for most of iolo's claims,pure and simple marketing hogwash.Most of the time now,i use WSA clean tool weekly and maybe jvpowertools once a month as that is far safer than letting iolo do it's thing.If you don't already own it,there are better and safer alternatives

[Brandonn2010]

I've read bad things about this, not just here. However, it seems to have a lot of nice features. Would it be considered safe as long as the registry cleaner isn't used, or are there other potentially unsafe things it does?

Also, the RAM defragger makes no sense; it is flash memory and can't get fragmented lol.

[superssjdan]

In the past i've had to reset internet explorer due to some of what iolo does.Of course the most dangerous thing is the registry cleaner.Most of the entries it comes up with arent really issues at all.Phony if you will.I inspect each entry 1 by 1 and then decide,but if you really don't know what is safe and unsafe,this program can be a nightmare.Most things in System Mechanic can be allowed to run automatically without any user interaction and the only thing you may have to do is reboot the system on occasion.This is when it's at it's most dangerous ...if you configure to do anything automatically.If you want something safer i would recommend CCleaner for tracks and the like and i also use JvPowertools for the registry cleaner.Unless you do alot of installing or uninstalling,i would only run a reg cleaner maybe a few times a year.Quarterly would probably be reasonable.Most importantly,back up your pc to an external before doing anything.

[Baldrick]

Originally Posted by superssjdan

I've had System Mechanic since the beginning.To the uninformed user,it can do loads of damage if you let it.As i have software that mirrors it's functions like diskeeper,ccleaner,jvpowertools,i only install and run it maybe twice a year for it's registry cleaning function as it picks up a few things some other's may leave behind,and even then i go entry by entry and then decide.When using software like this,imaging software is a must incase you let iolo go too far.Has lots of useful tools if you don't already run similar ones.But as for most of iolo's claims,pure and simple marketing hogwash.Most of the time now,i use WSA clean tool weekly and maybe jvpowertools once a month as that is far safer than letting iolo do it's thing.If you don't already own it,there are better and safer alternatives

Interesting but I have had far more trouble with jv16 Powertool's Registry Cleaner than that available in SM. As I have stated before I think that the SM version is rather tame and less dangerous than the others as you cannot tailor what it will work on...it also seems to find a lot less than jv16 (and I mean a lot less...one example of a run was SM = 32 issues whilst jv16 = 367 issues...and that does not include the old MRU List chestnut).

But I suppose that all our systems are different so it is a case of 'try it out and then make your choice'

[roger_m]

Originally Posted by Baldrick

Interesting but I have had far more trouble with jv16 Powertool's Registry Cleaner than that available in SM. As I have stated before I think that the SM version is rather tame and less dangerous than the others as you cannot tailor what it will work on...it also seems to find a lot less than jv16 (and I mean a lot less...one example of a run was SM = 32 issues whilst jv16 = 367 issues...and that does not include the old MRU List chestnut).

Both registry cleaners will sometimes incorrectly indentify legitimate registry keys as being errors. Unless you have the time, and knowledge to verify the results - it is best to not use either of them, and use a safe registry cleaner or avoid cleaning the registry alltogether.

[Dark Shadow]

Caution with system mechanic or you just might need a mechanic.