Ashampoo PowerUp Deluxe 1.3 beta

CNET editors' review

Reviewed by: CNET Staff

Along with necessary support for Windows Vista, Version 3 of Ashampoo PowerUp sports a new look and adds useful features such as automatic backups for restoring previous configurations and a Risk Level Monitor that displays the potential dangers of certain tweaks. It's not perfect, but a well-designed interface that logically organizes PC settings, strong performance, and a very extensive list of customization options help earn the product a top rating.

The Windows tweaks available in Ashampoo PowerUp are too numerous to list, but if you've ever wanted to customize the number of rows in your Alt Tab panel, turn off autostart for disc drives and portable devices, remove your username from the Start menu, or disable sending error reports in Office 2007, you're covered. The interface is divided into six main sections: Home, for system overview, backups, and preferences; Optimize, for fine-tuning your system, drives, network, and software programs; Clean Up, for cleaning your Registry and securely deleting files; Customize, for a wide range of tweaks for your desktop, Windows Explorer, icons, and more; Manage, for handling your AutoStart options, Windows Services, and running processes; and Information, which includes details about your PC configuration.

Under the Home -> Assistant tab, there is a helpful new Profiles option that lets you set your PC for Performance, Security, or a balance of the two. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any way to save our own customized profiles, which would be very useful for computers with more than one user. The new backup feature is logical and worked great. The new benchmarking features are interesting for comparing your PC setup with other configurations, but the final score would benefit with a bit more explanation.

We occasionally saw German dialog boxes ("Ja" or "Nein") when making tweaks with PowerUp 3, but there were no major stability problems, and resource usage was respectable. The trial alone offers full functionality for 10 days; registering for a free Ashampoo account adds an extra 30 days. That's a minor annoyance when compared with the generous 40-day evaluation period. We still highly recommend Ashampoo PowerUp for Windows users.

Publisher's description

From Ashampoo :

With Ashampoo PowerUp 2000 you can tweak your system's standard settings, as well as the many hidden options and functions of Windows. It contains an intuitive interface that integrates the configuration options, additional modules, and your own favorite tools and utilities in one easy-to-use package. Configure Windows NT and 2000 to behave the way you want them to, eliminate annoyances, and get more functionality. Interactive help includes context-sensitive information on all functions. Multiple configurations of profiles enables you to reconfigure the entire system by loading a file.

Note: This program is for use on Windows 98/Me systems only. This is a 30-day trial. After 30 days the program may be registered for $19.95, or rented in 30-day increments for $4.94 each. Click here for screenshot.

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