Labs

It's clear from the title where its main emphasis lies, and Registry Mechanic didn't disappoint when it came to repairing our Registry. Its no-nonsense approach was reflected in the fact that it completed a full scan faster than any other utility. A system restore point was created automatically, so we had no concerns about making the changes suggested. The user interface is as sleek and simple to use as TuneUp's, and although it doesn't provide the same variety of optimisation tools, we liked its speed and simplicity. Within a few minutes we'd backed up, fixed and compacted our Registry.

Although Registry Mechanic stays open as a background task to monitor Registry changes, we found this used minimal system resources and, crucially, could be disabled instantly when not required. The system optimisation tool applies tweaks and patches to the Registry that are designed to improve performance in one click.

Although it does less than other suites, Registry Mechanic tackles the one function that's absent within Windows, and we found it gave the most noticeable improvement in startup times and system responsiveness of all the programs on test.