SystemBoosterXP

CNET Editors' review

This utility speeds program access for select systems, but it offers negligible improvement to other systems, especially for novice users.

There is little to SpeedBoosterXP's Options Screen but a few selection items. The basic, but informative, Help file explains each setting well enough for novice users. SpeedBoosterXP prefetches files into memory to speed their access. The utility offers a default option set that may help some users, but many will notice little or no system improvement. The key is knowing which files to load into memory, and that is best accomplished by experienced users.

Creating a custom option set can result in a greater performance boost, and takes little time to set. You merely choose which drive, folders, or files to offer up for prefetching; then pick a priority and refresh rate. Oddly, editing the default profile offers a slightly different set of options. It will take you some time to find the options that work for your system. However, the seven-day demo provides far too little time to accurately gauge this program's benefit.

Some settings used by SpeedBoosterXP are available through normal Windows commands, provided you have the experience to know the proper settings. While we found little to no improvement in our test machines, we feel select users could benefit from this app. For that reason, we recommend testing it on your system. At worst, you'll uninstall it after a few days. At best, you'll discover enough improvement to warrant registration.

Publisher's Description

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All User Reviews
  • All versions:

    2.9 stars

    out of 9 votes

    • 5 star: 2
    • 4 star: 3
    • 3 star: 0
    • 2 star: 0
    • 1 star: 4
  • Current version:

    2.2 stars

    out of 6 votes

    • 5 star: 1
    • 4 star: 1
    • 3 star: 0
    • 2 star: 0
    • 1 star: 4
  • My rating:

    0 stars

    Write review

Results 1-6 of 6

  • 1.0 stars

    "Garbage"

    April 19, 2008  |   By noneed2login

    Version: SystemBoosterXP 2

    Pros

    Nothing. At. All.

    Cons

    This software doesn't work, plain and simple. The idea COULD work in a limited sense if implemented properly.

    I like how CNET implies that those who don't see a benefit with this turdware are computer illiterates, but then they end their review by saying "we found little to no improvement in our test machines". They found "little to no improvement", yet they still give it four stars? Hello? Is this thing on?

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  • 4.0 stars

    "A fair boost"

    April 13, 2007  |   By arfer111

    Version: SystemBoosterXP 2

    Pros

    Seems to be more noticeable in someways more than others,it increases page rendering quite a lot,others hardly at all,depends how you have the profile set up i suppose.Overall decent enough,altho if yo system a bit slow may to consider additional memory

    Cons

    No use running this unless your system has a decent amount of spare RAM ,it can take 75 meg plus.

    Reply to this review

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  • 1.0 stars

    "Deceitware"

    March 1, 2007  |   By nitinbali

    Version: SystemBoosterXP 2

    Pros

    Let me think...

    Can I get back to you on that?

    Cons

    It's a waste of money. This utility DOES improve the performance of some systems, but let's look at why. Well, those systems aren't taking advantage of all the memory they have available, and SystemBoosterXP is caching files in memory for them.

    The problem is that Windows can do the same thing, if you have the memory for it. And if you don't have enough memory for it in your system, then NOTHING can help you.

    But what you can do, rather than spending $20 on a third-party utility, is enable the LargeSystemCache registry setting (a Google search will reveal more info on that--and you don't need to edit the registry manually, nor use any third-party utility. Simply go into System Properties/Advanced/Performance/Advanced, and set "Adjust for best performance of System cache".)

    If you do that, and disable or at least shrink and fix the size of your paging file, you will get more performance than you would have out of SystemBoosterXP. But again, you need enough memory to do that--for Windows XP, that means at least 1.0 GB, and preferably more.

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  • 1.0 stars

    "1 finger up! :P"

    February 5, 2007  |   By blablupp

    Version: SystemBoosterXP 2

    Pros

    It didn't wipe out my hard drive.

    One finger up--guess which one!

    Cons

    It didn't do anything...it claims to.

    Reply to this review

    Was this review helpful? (9) (3)

  • 5.0 stars

    "10 fingers up! :P"

    October 21, 2006  |   By flamez the hedgehog

    Version: SystemBoosterXP 2

    Pros

    Speed my computer up like a demon! If you think this is a waste, you have problems!

    Cons

    nothing!!!!

    Reply to this review Read reply (1)

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  • 1.0 stars

    "Useless"

    April 12, 2006  |   By   

    Version: SystemBoosterXP 2

    Pros

    None

    Cons

    Waste of money. Waste of time. Waste of disk space. Waste of processor cycles and disk activity.

    This thing did absolutely nothing for me.

    Reply to this review Read reply (1)

    Was this review helpful? (7) (3)

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SystemBoosterXP