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Lately, I’ve heard a lot of talk about “Registry Boosters” and “PC speeder upper’s” and fix-it programs. They make big claims, and it seems that a lot of their customers refuse to accept that they paid for something that was either a scam or completely useless.

I have decided to put some of these programs to the test. The idea is simple; under various conditions, run the program “scan”- probably watching the program with process monitor. Then ensure everything works properly.

The test I have decided on so far will use a VMWare Workstation Guest OS, namely, XP Pro.

For each program I wish to test, I will start with a CLEAN install of the XP SP3 OS.

First, I will run the program right away- right after the clean install. Then, after another clean install (I will probably make a clean install Image) I install a number of common applications; MS Office XP, Visual Studio, and a few freeware programs such as IMGBurn. Then I will run the “booster” again. Making sure to test each program afterwards.

Each run will be monitored with Process Monitor; I’ve found that some of these “Scam” programs hardly access the registry at all, and simply make a claims of bad entries. Obviously, these are complete scams. There are also programs that do very little but are purported to make the PC much faster, a claim that I aim to disprove based on the fact that it simply doesn’t make sense. IF it does make the PC faster it is not in the order reported and likely has a few trade-offs that either aren’t reported or simply aren’t known.

I am uncertain what programs I will test with this method; suggestions are welcome. It won’t be hard to develop a list, however, through a quick web search. Also, I aim to put the copy of System Mechanic andFix-it Utilities I have to work, too. See just how “comprehensive” these utilities really are.