TuneUp Utilities 2012 12.0.3600.104

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on April 09, 2012

TuneUp Utilities 2012 presents a wide range of useful system maintenance and optimization tools in one interface. Some tools you'll use to regularly clean your system, while others only need to be run only once in a while or if you have a specific Windows problem. The 2012 version of TuneUp Utilities also includes the Program Deactivator, which disables unused programs until you need them, and Economy Mode, which can help laptop users improve battery life. TuneUp Utilities is free to try for 15 days. A nag screen tracks the trial period.

TuneUp Utilities keeps things simple with its 1-Click Maintenance scan feature, which combines tools for deleting temporary files, cleaning and defragmenting the registry, removing broken shortcuts, optimizing system startup and shutdown, and defragmenting hard drives. The scan recommended various actions, but we liked that you could exclude any you didn't want to implement. The program's main interface toggles between a summary overview and a tabbed Category view. Creating a Profile let us save our system maintenance preferences as well as configure the optional Economy Mode and Turbo Mode. The Program Deactivator made specific recommendations for restoring system performance, such as disabling and uninstalling unused programs. TuneUp Utilities also recommended changing our browser and display settings to reduce performance-hogging processes. The Fix Problems tab offers a number useful fixes for common Windows problem like desktop icon errors. Under Settings, we could integrate the Disk Space Explorer and Shredder (secure delete) tools into Windows context menus and the Undelete tool with the Recycle Bin. Some users have reported difficulty uninstalling TuneUp Utilities during or after the trial period, but we had no such troubles, and the product uninstalled cleanly and completely.

We just scratched the surface TuneUp Utilities 2012's features since many are used for specific errors or issues, but we found the program to be a simple way to perform basic but necessary maintenance. While experienced Windows users may prefer separate freeware applications to an all-in-one approach, others will like the recommendations and tweaks packaged together in TuneUp Utilities 2012.

TuneUp Utilities 2013 - Clean and optimize your PC for better performance - Download Video Previews:

Publisher's Description

From TuneUp:

The easy and complete all-round PC optimization workout. More than 30 tools guarantee PCs maintain peak performance when working, playing, and gaming. Even when not needed, background processes, services, and scheduled tasks will often be running. With the new TuneUp Program Deactivator, you can turn off programs on demand, completely automatically, thus reducing the demands on your PC. The result: that "Windows like it was on the very first day" feeling. The brand-new Economy Mode offers extra mobility--just with the click of a button. It extends battery run-time on notebooks, netbooks and tablet PCs running Windows by up to 30%, while also reducing energy consumption by up to 30%. And it even optimizes power management under Windows.

Forget annoying time spent waiting, slow response times, unstable systems, and frequent crashes. The tuning suite in TuneUp Utilities includes a range of easy-to-use tools to reliably improve the performance of your PC. Turbo Mode, for example, enables you to shut down over 70 applications that bring your PC to a crawl with just a single click. In addition, proven maintenance features allow you to perform a full registry clean-up. A special rating function checks the usefulness of programs at any time. This provides a sound basis for decisions when installing and deactivating programs, or adding and removing autostart entries. Plus there's the Optimization Status feature which enables you to check the effectiveness of tuning steps carried out. The classic features of TuneUp Utilities at a glance: 1-Click Maintenance and Automatic Maintenance for all-around maintenance of your PC; Reliable hard disk defragmentation, for even better performance; TuneUp Registry Cleaner for intensive Windows registry cleaning; Live Optimization to bring your active programs and games up to top speed; Gain hard disk space by removing unnecessary data.

What's new in this version: Version 12.0.3600.104 updates: some Bugfixes and Performance Improvements.