I am very keen to have a clean fast running PC and well maintained PC, as well as the usual Internet Security software (F-Secure Security 2008) I have the following maintenance software System Mechanic, Ashampoo WinOptermiser 4, Ashampoo Magical Defrag 2, Reg Cure, XP Repair Pro 2007, Registry Booster, System Tweaker, SpeedUp My PC 3.

There doesnt seem to be any advice out there on what one needs to honestly keep a PC running right and which tools to use. Do I need the tools I have or am I being a complete Geek and over cautious on keeping the PC clean, as you run one, and then another tool will still find faults with the registry etc.Have I thrown my money down the drain and and will I damage the OS by running so many maintence tools. I am running Vista Ultimate.
Advice from you techies out there very welcome.

all i use is avg anti-virus plus firewall avg anti-spyware and tuneup utilities.
these keep my computer protected and running fast tuneup utilities is a very good program it fixes registry errors defrags registry fixes other erors on your comp and lots of other things

I think you have gone overboard with the cleanup and tweaking utilities, you will find that the functionality of each piece of software is very much the same and the odd registry inconsistency that one doesn't find doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

The purpose of a lot of these pieces of software is to bring together a lot of functionality already provided by Vista under one simple interface, with slight improved performance and maybe a few extra features. They are aimed at being user friendly and providing a lot more information about the changes you are making where as quite a bit of the freeware available presumes you know what your doing and simply gives you the means to do it, if you understand what I am talking about. They also provide automation in doing tasks that some readers would find daunting.

All of the software mentioned above is reputable software and they won't do any damage to your PC, but if a few of them have "Real Time" features that constantly run (I'm not overly familiar with the features of the software you have mentioned), then these could cause conflicts.

To keep your PC running well, these are the things I usually recommend:
* Don't have too many programs starting when your computer starts, because when they do this, people don't usually close them once they have started. This means that unnecessary background processes are running and hogging system resources. Unnecessary startup programs are things such as P2P File Sharing Programs, Media Players e.g. QuickTime, RealPlayer and iTunes automatically loading their System Tray easy access menus at start up, etc

*Defragment your hard drive every now again (maybe every month or less frequently) to stop file fragmentation and speed up file access.

*Get rid of temporary files every week or less frequently to gain extra disk space. This can be done using Disk Cleanup located in the Accessories menu.

These are just basic things you can do to keep your computer running smoothly and will work effectively if your computer is adequately protected and updated. A complete article I wrote about cleaning up and speeding up your computer can be found here and you may find this helpful.

If you learn a bit more about the features of the software you have, you will be able to find out which software really benefits you and does what you want it to do.

Hope this info helps

Hi Owen

Thank you for your help I have read your article on D-A-L so this afternoon I have cleaning both my PC and the wife's PC, it was certainly an experience I did not realise how much muck acclimates some of my fans and filters were blocked, I blame it on my 3 border collies as they lie down beside my PC and they do bring in dirt into the house.

I have added your on site on to my favorites list as I have not had time to get into it yet, any way thank you for your advice and your assistance it is great to get assistance from a professional. I find that there is so much advertising of sofware and conflicting reviews it is difficult to make decisions as what is the best software to get, once again thank you for your help and D-A-L in general, who have given me help since I joined the site. I will just keep the Ashampoo suite and the System Mechanic as they seem to be the best ones and delete the rest.

Thank you very much for that, and your welcome

I understand your problem with dogs, we own a dog walking and pet sitting business where dogs come to stay with us or are walked from their own home and we take in two dogs as well as our own two (a working co-cker spaniel and a border collie cross). I certainly know about the mess that causes

I wouldn't bother with my site to be honest, it's really out of date, about 4 years to be precise. I have an update in the pipeline thats been there for 4 years aswell, never got round to it due to school and college commitments. It will be updated one day .