Maintaining Windows in decent working order can be a full time job and it's a pain to have to download multiple programs to keep everything in check.

Pristy Utils 2009 is a collection of tools to maintain your PC. It features everything from a power scheme manager to a web management utility and Vista tweaker

The first Pristy Utils 2009 utility, System PowerDown serves to schedule shutdowns, restarts, suspensions and blocking sessions in the PC after a specified time. Web assistant is the second application which works as a quick shortcut for different Web related uses such as sending mails, files over the internet etc. The third tool is called PC detector. It displays all the information from your computer hardware in eight different sections: - CPU, screen, sound, memory, network, disk storage devices, and so on.

Finally, Pristy Utils 2009 has three applications for maintenance tasks - a cleaner to free RAM Memory, File Wipeout for secure deletion of files, and a desktop clock which is basically a widget for the desktop. More recently, Pristy Utils 2009 has been bolstered with a Vista booster that defrags your boot sequence. However, what this program is crying out for is a defragmentation tool - it's all very well cleaning up your hard drive but it doesn't speed them up which is where a defrag tool would come in really useful.

Pristy Utils 2009 is a great all round lightweight maintenance and web management tool although it lacks a few essentials.

Download Pristy Utils 2009 1.0.8 in Softonic

Sandboxie is an interesting alternative to traditional anti-virus/anti-spyware software. According to the developers, when you run a program on your computer, data flows from the hard disk to the program via read operations. The data is then processed and displayed, and finally flows back from the program to the hard disk via write operations. For example, if you run the Freecell program to play a game, it starts by reading the previously recorded statistics, displaying and altering them as you play the game, and finally writing them back to disk for future reference.

Sandboxie changes the rules such that write operations do not make it back to your hard disk. The key is the transient nature of the sandbox which makes it easy to get rid of everything in it. If you were to throw away the sandbox, by deleting everything in it, the sandboxed statistics would be gone for good, as if they had never been there in the first place. You maye in fact prefer to run your Web browser inside the sandbox most of the time. This way any incoming, unsolicited software (spyware, malware and the like) that you download, will be trapped in the sandbox. Changes made to your list of Favorites or Bookmarks, hijacking of your preferred start page, new and unwanted icons on your desktop - all these, and more, are trapped in and bound to the sandbox.

This is a very original solution to the perennial problems caused by adware, spyware and malware. However, it's dubious as to whether it can deal with the continual sophistication of such programs.

Download Sandboxie 3.30 in Softonic

You'd be surprised to see how much disk space you're wasting with duplicate files. In fact, you can actually check it with this tool. Duplicate File Detector scans your system and finds all duplicate files, no matter how hidden they are.

You can analyze the whole drive or set several specific folders, but beware of the filters the program uses as default, as they may sort out folders that you want to include in the scan. The process takes a while, but in exchange for your patience the program delivers a complete list of all duplicate files in your system. This list also offers a preview of each file, so you're sure of what you're going to delete before marking them.

Duplicate File Detector works with a wide range of file formats and can detect duplicates based on a large variety of criteria. In fact, there are so many configuration settings that it may feel a bit overwhelming at the beginning.

Download Duplicate File Detector 4.5 in Softonic

GAG allows you to boot up from a choice of 9 different operating systems. It can boot operating systems installed in primary and extended partitions on any available hard disk.

It doesn't need its own partition. It installs itself in the first track of the hard disk, which is reserved for this type of program. It has a timer to boot a default operating system (selectable by the user).

Hides the primary partitions which allows the user to have installed more than one DOS and/or Windows in the same hard disk. Can exchange disk drives, allowing to boot from the second, third... hard disk operating systems such as MS-DOS. Supports a great variety of keyboards (QWERTY, AZERTY, QWERTZ and DVORAK keyboards). Full support for hard disks up to 4 terabytes (4096 gigabytes).

Download GAG 4.10 in Softonic

It's hard to imagine eMule being made any easier but easyMule does a pretty good job of it for those that find the world's number one P2P client a bit too complicated.

easyMule offers a sleek interface that looks almost identical to eMule but has obviously been stripped down. Conveniently, you can play files while you are downloading (as long as there's enough to read), which reduces the risk of downloading fake or corrupted files. In addition, easyMule features a safety disk buffer which protects your hard drive from malicious files before they manage to damage your system.

easyMule uses exactly the same P2P principle as eMule to connect to networks although not exactly the same servers. This brings one of the major weaknesses of easyMule to light - it doesn't really offer as many hits as eMule. However, it does offer a decent hit rate and download speeds are comparable.

easyMule is definitely easier than eMule to use although I can only imagine that young kids would really benefit from this as eMule is not a complicated program.

Download easyMule 1.03 in Softonic

Hard Drive Inspector is a powerful, convenient and effective program based on the S.M.A.R.T. technology, which allows controlling the state of your hard disk drives. Most computer users argue that the information stored on their computer is the most valuable element of the computer system.

With the help of the S.M.A.R.T. System, Hard Drive Inspector allows you to predict a possible failure of the HDD before this occurs. As access to electronic information becomes more and more vital in business and at home, Hard Drive Inspector allows exceeding the traditional limits of HDDs reliability, thus extending the level of valuable user data protection.

Hard Drive Inspector has a flexible option system, which allows you to customize the functionality of this utility, according to your needs. Hard Drive Inspector has an easy-to-use, nice-looking interface. It also offers many useful features, which make the S.M.A.R.T. monitoring process full-scale and easy.

Download Hard Drive Inspector 2.100 in Softonic

Preventing data loss is never an easy job because there are so many things that can go wrong but Active@ Disk Monitor goes a long way to giving you peace of mind.

Active@ Disk Monitor is a disk utility that checks and monitors the status of hard drives to help prevent data loss using S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology). This program relies on your hardware supporting SMART so if it doesn't, it won't be of much use to you.

Active@ Disk Monitor monitors hard disk parameters such as Temperature, Head Flying Height and Spin-Up Time but most importantly, notifies you when a critical moment is approaching on your hard drive. Active@ Disk Monitor also displays hard disk information, current S.M.A.R.T. attributes and the overall status of the hard disk's health.

The only problem you may experience is when Active@ Disk Monitor kicks in while you are using your PC - it can seriously slow down whatever you are doing if it performs a full scan.

Active@ Disk Monitor is a useful tool to warn of impending disk failure before the worst happens.

Download Active@ Disk Monitor 1.2.648 in Softonic

CCleaner is a small utility that will take care of a few of the important maintenance tasks that every computer user should carry out as regularly as possible to keep their systems in top shape. Fast, reliable and easy to use - CCleaner it's one of the best cleaning systems out there.

For me, the beauty of CCleaner is the speed at which it carries out the various scans and fixes. Its main purpose is to clean any unnecessary files from your hard-drive and on opening the program you see the various aspects of Windows that you can search through and clear. CCleaner will also detect your installed applications that may hold on to files which are no longer any use, such as Google Earth histories or Flash Player configurations.

The interface in CCleaner is very easy to navigate and before taking any action, you will always be asked to confirm that you are sure about what you want to do. There is a useful registry checker that will quickly check its integrity, and let you fix bad entries after making a backup. CCleaner uninstall and startup tools are handy to have and simply add to the usability of this very rounded little maintenance assistant.

The most recent release of CCleaner now works on Vista with Admin permissions where available and features various bug fixes and improvements to the translated versions.

CCleaner makes keeping your PC clean easy for beginners and experts alike. It's small, fast, comprehensive, and free to download it - get cleaning now!

Download CCleaner 2.11.636 in Softonic

Many Windows users stay with the standard applications included in the operating system for their most common tasks, like managing files with the integrated File Explorer. However, there are alternative file managers that can also help you to do the job – and sometimes even better than Windows Explorer! Total Commander is one of them.

First of all, be warned that Total Commander is intended for medium to advanced users, and especially for those who like working mainly via keyboard shortcuts. It's not that Total Commander can't be used with your mouse; it's just that it's optimized to be keyboard-controlled.

Total Commander doesn't have what we could describe as an eye-catching design. In fact, it looks pretty dull. It does, however, support three possible views (Full, Brief and Tree) and also uses a double-pane interface, which seem to be quite a common characteristic among other alternative file managers.

This double pane allows you to perform file management tasks like moving and copying in a much more comfortable way. But Total Commander has other aces up its sleeve. It includes extra integrated applications like an FTP client, a ZIP viewer, a renaming tool, a disk space analyzer and a file synchronizer. Another great tool I found to be especially interesting is one that allows you to control, manage and edit file associations so they're not suddenly messed up by a program that you just installed.

Like we said before, Total Commander is intended to be used mainly with your keyboard. This is why it offers handy shortcuts for common tasks like viewing, editing, copying, moving or deleting files. But if you find it hard to abandon your mouse, don't worry: you can use the icons on the program's toolbar as shortcuts for Notepad, Wordpad and the Control Panel, and also add your own shortcuts to your favorite applications via the Configuration > Button bar menu. In fact, Total Commander has such an exhaustive configuration menu that you'll be able to tweak every single detail of the program.

In all, Total Commander is an excellent application that could almost be described as a professional file manager for the advanced user. If you prefer more simple apps then you’d better stick to Windows Explorer.

Download Total Commander 7.04a in Softonic

SpeedFan is a freeware program that monitors voltages, fan speeds and temperatures in computers with hardware monitor chips. SpeedFan can even access S.M.A.R.T. info for those hard disks that support this feature and show hard disk temperatures. SpeedFan supports SCSI disks too. SpeedFan can even change the FSB on some hardware (but this should be considered a bonus feature).

At the lowest level, SpeedFan is a hardware monitor software that can access temperature sensors, but its main feature is that it can change fan speeds (depending on the capabilities of your sensor chip and your hardware) according to the temperatures inside your PC, thus reducing noise and power consumption.

Download SpeedFan 4.35 in Softonic

Wise Disk Cleaner is a utility that helps to locate and eliminate those temporary archives that, with time, can litter your hard drive to critical point. The app can clear a wide range of different types of files including temporary Internet files, Windows updates, temporary user files, system files, and redundant archives.

One of the best things about Wise Disk Cleaner is that it allows you to add your own folders with temporary files not in use or those that you simply want to eliminate when executing the program. The program is very simple to use, and it's just a case of running a quick scan of your files then marking those that you wish to eliminate.

Download Wise Disk Cleaner 3.6.4 in Softonic

PC Tools Disk Suite attempts to cover all possible angles when it comes to hard drive management.

PC Tools Disk Suite offers all in one hard drive management that integrates disk optimization, a cleanup tool, a defrag utility and even a partitioning and backup tool in one well presented and easy to use pack. Like most PC Tools products, the interface is the same as used across the entire line of products and clearly presents the options available to you.

As is to be expected, the cleanup and optimize feature of PC Tools Disk Suite aims to reduce unnecessary files and indicates how much free disk space it's recovered for you at any one time. The defrag tool reorganizes files on your disk and should speed up your system and it supports both FAT and NTFS drives. It's nice that you can select whether to defrag quickly or slowly in PC Tools Disk Suite although the fast defrag doesn't seem to make much difference at all. On the other hand, the long defrag does take a while and you¡'d be best to use it overnight.

The PC Tools Disk Suite Backup feature allows you select which files you want to backup regularly either manually or via scheduler and finally the Partition feature allows you to create, merge, split, resize, delete, copy, and move partitions. However, you'd be highly advised to backup all your data using the total backup option on PC Tools Disk Suite as disk partitions can result in lost or corrupted data very easily if you don't know what you are doing.

PC Tools Disk Suite is an incredibly comprehensive suite that covers all the major areas you need to keep your PC in tip top condition.

Download PC Tools Disk Suite in Softonic

You probably don't realize how much drive space you're wasting with duplicate files until you scan it for the first time with a program like NoClone.

This tool has been especially designed to find any duplicate files on your hard drive, with a quite high percentage of success. You can choose between scanning the whole disk or just one certain folder, and of course, select the template used by the program to decide which files are duplicate and which not.

I think these templates are the main strength of NoClone: there are quite a few to choose from, including duplicate email messages and duplicate MP3 files. Also, you can create your own template by deciding the elements and features NoClone should compare in each file to decide whether they're duplicates or not, which is very useful is none of the templates included suits your needs.

Once NoClone finishes scanning the system, it displays a list with all the duplicate files found and enables you to delete them straight away, saving precious hard drive space. There's even a contest on the developer's website to see who saves the most space thanks to NoClone. The program also exports the list to several formats (XML, CSV or XLS; no HTML or TXT, surprisingly).

NoClone is a quick and easy way to find duplicate files on your hard drive, delete them and bring all those megabytes back.

Download NoClone 2007 4.1.35 in Softonic

Defragging your hard drive is one of the easiest and simplest ways to make your system run faster and reduce hard drive wear and tear.

Puran Defrag is a very simple defrag utility which defrags files and optimizes your system, which means it collect all the fragments of a file and puts them back together in a more ordered and logical form. Puran Defrag also moves frequently used files and all directories to a faster disk area which theoretically should speed up your drive.

Puran Defrag can be used while you are working although it doesn't exactly make life easy on slower machines because the reorganising of files will inevitably slow down certain applications - it's highly recommended you allow Puran Defrag to work overnight or while you are not using your PC. To help you in this respect, Puran Defrag allows you to automatically schedule the defragging of your drive every boot, once a week, on a specific day of the month or even every half hour.

Puran Defrag is an extremely simple defragger which should result in some system improvements although you may find that it's painfully slow if you hard drive requires a lot of defragging.

Download Puran Defrag 5.0 in Softonic

Advanced System Cleaner is a powerful utility to free up valuable disk space by analyzing disk space, uninstalling applications, cleaning up those unwanted garbage files, find duplicate files on your disk, cleanup invalid information in your Registry to improving system performance, protects your privacy by removing all the unwanted traces in your system. It safely removes cookies, history, recent documents history, any hidden user traces, and more with just a click.

Every day your hard drive gets littered with file fragments and debris you can't see. Unwanted files from daily usage and Internet surfing can build up over time, slowing down your system's performance and leaving a trail of your Web-browsing habits for anyone to see.

Download Advanced System Cleaner 1.8.1 in Softonic

If you're working on a FAT drive and have either accidentally deleted or lost data, then Disk Doctors FAT Data Recovery might be able to help.

You can use Disk Doctors FAT Data Recovery software to recover data from FAT16, FAT32, drives as well as recovery from the FAT partitions created on any other OS supporting FAT file system. Disk Doctors FAT Data Recovery uses a very simple wizard to take you through the recovery process so there's no danger of doing something you might regret - like format your drive accidentally or something.

Disk Doctors FAT Data Recovery is therefore simple enough for beginners and those without any technical know-how to use. Disk Doctors FAT Data Recovery is compatible with most major hard drive types including IDE/AT, SATA, SCSI and USB Flash Drives. It's particularly useful for those that have missing or lost data due to a failed partition or from a drive that hasn't been formatted properly.

Disk Doctors FAT Data Recovery is a simple and easy solution for anyone that has had the worst happen to them while using a FAT drive.

Download Disk Doctors FAT Data Recovery in Softonic

Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery can instantly recover deleted files emptied from the Recycle Bin or that have been lost due to accidental formatting or re-partitioning of a hard drive.

Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery can also help in the case of viruses, and unexpected system or software malfunctions. Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery is designed with beginners in mind so there's some useful tips and hints to get you started although there's nothing complicated about it anyway. Simply browse to the drive or folders that have been affected and let Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery scan to see what it can recover.

Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery is a simple but effective solution for anyone that's lost data in a folder or drive and doesn't know which type of drive they are using or doesn't know where to start with file recovery.

Download Disk Doctors Instant File Recovery in Softonic

Disk wiping or hard drive clearing can be necessary for a number of reasons such as to install a new operating system or to simply maintain your privacy.

Disk Doctors Data Sanitizer is an ultra effective solution which helps you remove every last shred of data on your hard drive. The reason is that many deletion tools only delete the file structure from your hard drive so you can't see it anymore but in effect, it still exists. Data recovery software can therefore often recover it if needed which is why it's not a particularly safe way of deleting data. Note that Disk Doctors Data Sanitizer aims to eliminate any risk of file recovery so use it with care.

Disk Doctors Data Sanitizer eliminates data files at the heart of directories and shreds data beyond recovery. Disk Doctors Data Sanitizer offers 9 types of disk wiping which include Fast Zero Overwrite (for quick deletes) and Random Overwrite (which scrubs out data repeatedly to ensure it's gone). Disk Doctors Data Sanitizer also offers a series of ultra secure deletions such as "US Navy" and "US Department of Defense" deletion methods which basically emulate those used by such organizations.

Disk Doctors Data Sanitizer is a very secure way to delete data from your drive and ensure that data recovery software doesn't discover anything.

Download Disk Doctors Data Sanitizer 1.0.0 in Softonic

We've all had the horrible feeling of deleting an important file by mistake. But you don't have to resign yourself to losing it forever thanks to Disk Doctors Undelete.

Disk Doctors Undelete is designed to recover data from hard drives, flash drives, USB drives, ZIP, SD Cards, MMC, and Firewire drives. The disk scanning technology within Disk Doctors Undelete allows it to perform deep scans to rescue important files from both FAT and NTFS file systems.

Thanks to the wizard-based interface, you can start scanning with Disk Doctors Undelete quickly and easily. You simply select the logical drive you want to recover data from, 'Next' and the program will return a list of files that have been deleted from your PC. This is displayed in tree structure format, and you can highlight any of the files or folders to peruse them. There's also a search tool that lets you enter a filename or partial filename to search for.

Unfortunately, the files I deleted in my tests weren't picked up by Disk Doctors Undelete. This could be that I wasn't searching in the right directory, but navigation in the tree structure view can become quite confusing.

Disk Doctors Undelete is an interesting and potentially powerful app, slightly let down by the poor searching interface.

Download Disk Doctors Undelete 1.0.0 in Softonic

Protecting yourself against the worst is something that all PC users should do since you never know when your hard drive might just decide to die on you.

Paragon Drive Backup is an all-in-one backup utility that gives you a host of backup options in a few clicks. By using Paragon Drive Backup, you can fairly simply undo software malfunctions or crashes, and safeguard your data. Not only that, but Paragon Drive Backup optimizes storage utilization to keep your system running at top speed.

For instance, Paragon Drive Backup can help you free up lost disk space via the Smart Backup option which can help detect those areas of your hard drive which are being wasted or underutilized. What's most useful about Paragon Drive Backup is that it enables you to create a rescue drive - even one that can fit on a USB stick - so that your system can be restored via the USB drive if it fails.

There are so many other backup options with Paragon Drive Backup that's it's impossible to list them all but they include booting from a Backup Capsule, file filter and it now supports backups to Blu-Ray.

Paragon Drive Backup is an extremely comprehensive backup tool that probably goes beyond what the average user needs but for serious backups, it's a top notch solution.

Download Paragon Drive Backup Personal Edition 9.0 in Softonic