How good is Tune-Up Utilities?

The only good tool in tune up utilities is the disk space explorer (it is the best one I have ever seen for windows)

the registry cleaner is likely to cause many issues with windows

the optimizations are likely to cause issues and reduce performance

the recommendations/ tips are mostly useless

the undelete tool works ok has a great UI but there are many free tools that do a better job but with out such a good UI

it also adds random useless startup items (which waste additional system resources).

If you use it, only use the disk space explorer

I've been using it for a couple years as well. Never encountered an issue due to the registry cleaner, though never noticed a speed up either. The optimizations are good, I used to do them manually, so this is convenient, as Razor512 said, the disk space explorer is awesome, and the other tools are just handy to have in an all-in-one, easy to use interface. To add to that, the Turbo Boost seems to really speed up my netbook. (Though, not noticeable on my desktops.)

@razor512 maybe because you and @yarvaxea are both on different systems. I'm in Windows 7 x64 and yes, there's a big performance boost. If you're on a crappy OS like XP professional though, you wouldn't notice anything better since things are really crappy no matter what

I use TuneUp Utilities 2011 mainly to maintain the PC hassle Free. and with it I only need to RUN one process to monitor the condition of my laptop rather than running different process for every service.

Tune Up disc space explorer - IS A BIG HELP finding out which is the largest file to delete. and thus help me free space.

The defragmenter IS THE SAFEST OF ALL defragmenting softwares I've used.

1-click maintenance ALLOWS ME TO REVIEW ANY CHANGES before I click it., I uncheck things I don't want to change.

I also like the Styler, cause it provides a single GUI for customizing Windows. and the changes it makes are all safe.

StartUp process from tuneup? NO there's only one.

i like the TuneUp Program deactivator. and start up manager. but I back up this function with WINPATROL PLUS

the disc Defragmenting service is owkay too. but since I have diskeeper, i no longer use it.

and here's the great thing YOU can undo EVERYTHING tune up has done too your system or you can choose which one to Undo using the Optimization report. if you choose to. but Ive never done that cause i'm happy with it.

there are useless things though, but they won't interfere with performance

Disc Doctor - is pretty useless because it uses the window's function and serves only as a "trigger" and advisor.

Turbo mode - is useful too but it kinda limits the capability of your machine. so I seldom use it., I use gamebooster instead.

I've been using it for more than a year since the 2010 edition and happy to upgrade to 2011.

The thing is there is no need to pay for a program like tune up utilities if you are only interested is disabling useless startup items. Windows comes with those tools, and there many guides

On my XP pro system, it has no recommendations for startup items because I already have most services and virtually all startup items disabled (except the afterburner program for my videocard overclocking)

It may help someone who doesn't know that they have to monitor their startup (eg those people who when you go to fix their pc because it is running slow and it takes 10 minutes to startup because they have like 100 additional startup items taking up all available memory, forcing the system to rely on virtual memory.

Also a OS any OS where a program can make it faster, means the os is not good and is not optimized.

The issue with programs that attempt to clean or fix registry issues, is they rely on a database of known good registry entries and any differences are considered to be an error. The problem with this is when this process goes wrong, it rarely effects window in many cases, instead it will effect a program that you use, eg you will run a registry cleaner and everything will seem fine then one day you will launch maya, or 3ds max, or adobe after effects, and you will work on a project then all of a sudden it will crash because it cant properly initiate mental ray, or a codec when encoding, and by that time the backup may have been removed, or other programs may have been updated where restoring a backup to fix 1 program, will break 5 others.

And worst is they can damage OS by removing a needed registry key, eg some programs may make changes to the OS to better tailor to the program, eg changing certain network settings to keep the OS from hanging when doing a port scan on a large range of IP addresses, a registry cleaner may see the changes as an error and simply remove the key (registry cleaners/ repair tools do not restore default values in most cases)

Anyway, I wish they would release a standalone copy of the disk space explorer. I have tried over 20 different disk explorers and have not found anything better than the one that comes with tune up utilities.

The other tweaks in tune up utilities are good, just avoid the registry based ones.

The two features that I couldn't live without are being able to disable programs and Turbo Mode. The only reason to disable a program instead of uninstalling it would be if you still need it but not very often. Just disable the program, use it when you need it, and disable it again once you're done. Turbo Mode turns off visual effects and other taxing system processes for when you really need a performance boost. This is REALLY helpful for netbooks and older computers.