Labs

There's a lot to like about TuneUp Utilities 2008. It sports a logical, user-friendly interface that can be immediately understood.Rather than leaving you floundering in a sea of options, it asks simple questions about how you use your PC, then does the rest for you.For instance, if you mainly use office applications, the system optimisation tool will make changes to your settings to maximise performance in that area. Unlike some of the other suites, TuneUp doesn't add to the problems it's trying to solve by adding yet another icon to your system tray and loading itself on startup. Instead, it offers to schedule a periodic junk file and Registry scan.

We appreciated TuneUp's excellent disaster prevention measures. It automatically backs up your Registry and temporary files before making any changes, meaning they can be restored quickly and easily should the worst happen. All the tools were also compatible with Windows Vista - Advanced System Optimiser, for example, failed to meet this requirement.

This is a well thought-out utility suite with an especially good 'one click' maintenance tool.