1. CCleaner

CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is without doubt the best and the most popular tool for Windows optimization and cleanup. It consists of almost all the modules for optimizing and cleaning Windows including a registry cleaner, an uninstaller and temporary files cleaner with a plethora of options which includes cleaning the history and temporary files for most of the popular programs including Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari, Google Chrome, Adobe products, Microsoft Office and a lot of others. CCleaner includes an option to take a backup of system settings before proceeding with the cleaning and optimization process. This enables you to easily restore everything to its original state if anything goes wrong. It also includes a drive wiper which can securely erase the contents of any drive and make it irrecoverable.

The down side of CCleaner is that some options like adding the CCleaner option to the Recycle bin, check for updates automatically etc. are already checked during installation. I think it should be up to the user to select them if he needs to.

2. FCleaner

FCleaner is a very close competitor to CCleaner. I like the graphical user interface of FCleaner as it is easier to use than CCleaner because it uses a three dimensional menu approach. The uninstaller module of FCleaner is far more advanced and offers to repair or remove a software in addition to the traditional uninstallation methods. It also includes a startup manager for optimizing and cleaning Windows startup. Another feature that I like is RAMRush. Windows does a pretty good job in optimizing the usage of memory but there are applications which will leak some memory which makes it unusable. RAMRush does the job of cleaning those patches of memory leaked by running programs.

3. Glary Utilities

Glary Utilities is another software to keep Windows in good shape. While it has features very similar to the above given utilities, it becomes superior to both of them by offering one additional feature, the 1-click maintenance. You can just click the 1-click maintenance button to analyze the system for problems. The modules consist of registry cleaner, shortcuts fixer, startup manager, temporary files cleaner, tracks eraser and spyware remover. Glary Utilities will automatically create a system restore point before proceeding to the cleanup and optimization process. If you feel anything has gone wrong, you can easily restore you system to the previous state.

The down side of Glary Utilities is that it offers to install the Ask.com toolbar during installation and this option is checked by default.

More Alternatives

While the above mentioned software are the best and the most used free tools for optimization, there are others worth mentioning:

WinUtilities is a close competitor to Glary Utilities with almost all the same functionality including 1-click maintenance.

SlimCleaner includes some additional features to the traditional ones like file shredder, hijack log etc.

SKTools Lite is specifically made for smartphones having Windows Phone Operating System.

Please note that you should always backup your registry before running any of these tools as these tools can cause some of the programs to malfunction. This is very rare and I have never seen any adverse effects but care should always be taken in this regard.

What do you use to keep your Windows in shape? Tell us your choice through comments.

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You can click the Analyze button to scan your registry for duplicate and issues. It also checks your Internet activity for redundant files and traces of your privacy records. Once it has finished scanning, you can then click the “Fix and Clean” button to clean it up.

Miscellaneous Tools

The Miscellaneous Tools section contains some of the most useful tools that you will ever need to tweak your system for best performance and efficiency.

Auto Shutdown – Allows you to set a timer to log off/shutdown/hibernate your computer.

CD Autorun – Have you ever hated the autorun popup whenever you insert a CD? Well, you can now disable the autorun feature. Other than that, you can also change the default CD and DVD player.

Process Manager – Allows you to view the running processes and kill those that are not in use. You can also set priority for each task.

TweakNow Shortcut – With TweakNow Shortcut, you can create a custom shortcut for a CPU intensive application. When you activate this shortcut, it will prioritize the application startup and free up extra RAM for the application. This is useful in the situation when you are already running several applications and you need to open another CPU-intensive application.

RAM Optimizer – An useful tool that will free up RAM whenever they are not in use.

Virtual Desktop – Enable up to 4 virtual desktop for your Windows desktop

System Information

Here is where you can find out plenty of information for your system, from the motherboard, hard disk, CPU, network, video to the version of Windows that you are using.

Windows Cleaner

There are several things that you can clean up in this area. You can clean your Hard Drive, clean up the startup items, clean up the registry, defragment the registry, uninstall an application or even analyze your hard disk for the folder that take up the most space.

Windows Secret

The title doesn’t really tell you what this tool does. Well, it allows you to configure the options for some of the popular and frequently accessed applications. There is a whole big bunch of things that you can tweak, from the windows login screen to the default search engine in Internet Explorer, and even setting your own logo for OEM manufacturer.

Conclusion

As I mentioned from the start, this is easily the most comprehensive tweak application that I have ever come across. Unless you like hacking into the registry all the time, this tool is going to be very useful to you.

Download TweakNow PowerPack

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Before we proceed on to do a backup of your registry, I would advise you to run a registry cleaner program to clean up your registry. This is to ensure that all the useless registry entries left by third party software are removed and you have a lean mean backup.

Backing up your registry

Once you have cleaned up your registry, follow the steps below to backup your registry.

• Press Windows key + R
• Type regedit

• The registry window will appear. At the top of the list, select “Computer”. Go to File->Export.

• Choose a location to save your reg file.

That’s it. You have just backup your registry. Remember to keep this backup reg file in safe place.

Restoring your registry

In the event that something happened and you want to restore your registry, simply double-click on the backup reg file or go to File->Import in the registry window.

Note: The above steps will work for Windows XP and Vista as well.

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Needless to say, the windows registry tends to be in a mess most of the time.

As a Windows user, you also might have noticed Windows becoming progressively slower as you use it, installing and removing software, going about your daily business. One of the reasons for this is because the Windows registry tends to get bloated with stale entries and such, over time and since it is stored in the memory as long as the computer is being used, it slows down the whole computer.

There are a lot of utilities available to help you clean up the registry and most of them do the job pretty well. One of them that I tried recently (and was pretty impressed with) is Auslogics’ Registry Defrag.

Registry Defrag is a no nonsense, no frills application. Download and install it from the above link and you’re all set (almost).

When run Registry Defrag for the first time, it reads the registry, analyses it and tells you the approximate gains that you’ll get by running the utility.

Once you click on Defrag, Registry Defrag schedules the defrag to take place on the next reboot of Windows. It’ll ask you to let it reboot windows, so that it can work on the registry, without Windows bothering it. Or you can keep working and reboot later at your convenience.

If you’re the kind of user who installs and removes a lot of software and are convinced that reinstalling Windows is the only way to remove the crud, try giving Registry Defrag a try.

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