Product Reviews

Considering the popularity of Norton software products, Symantec probably has almost as large an installed base of users as Microsoft. Norton Utilities alone has for many years been a favourite of serious users looking to keep their PCs in tip-top shape, while Norton AntiVirus provides one of the highest levels of protection against infection. In fact, every Norton product has a useful place on today's PCs, although you'll need to dig deep to buy them all individually. SystemWorks remedies this problem by packaging all the current Norton products in one box for around half the price. For a mere £89 you get five of the best with Norton Utilities 3, AntiVirus 5, Uninstall Deluxe, CrashGuard 3 and Web Services. You should note, however, that SystemWorks is only available for Windows 95 and 98.

Installation is straightforward and offers a number of options to the user. You canæselect individual components, choose the typical version with all the main ingredients or go for the complete option, which adds a few extra utilities. Unfortunately, the latter choice will lose you a whopping 115Mb of disk space - rather amusing considering one of the main tasks of SystemWorks is to free up resources. There's no real integration between the separate products either, although a SystemWorks menu providesæeasy access to each one.

Norton Utilities

Norton Utilities is the main reason why SystemWorks has limited operating system support, since it only works with Windows 95 and 98. System Doctor is the most prominent feature. It provides a user-definable floating toolbar of graphs, charts and speedometers which show system performance and available resources. The system is scanned at regular intervals and you can decide how often readings are taken for each individual graph. It even keeps a record of events, so you can view a history of activity. System Doctor works hand in hand with WinDoctor, which pops up and advises whenever a problem is encountered. Scans are run on the Registry, the installed hardware and on the software and it can automatically fix errors.

If your PC feels sluggish, the Optimisation Wizard can help by checking your Registry, swapping file settings and customising them to suit. Speed Disk also comes to the rescue, as it will physically move frequently used files and applications to the beginning of your hard disk for improved load times. Run times will depend on the size and condition of your hard disk. Speed Disk took nearly 30 minutes to optimise the 1.5Gb hard disk on my Windows 98 test system.

The System Information section provides tabbed folders for accessing and viewingæeach resource. The Internet tab, for example, will show details such as the Dial-Up Networking history and WinSock module versions, although I was none too pleased to see it showing the last successful log-on details with my ISP username and password revealed for all to see.

Before you start playing with SystemWorks it would be advisable to make a rescue disk set. This contains critical information, such as CMOS data and hard disk partition information and can be invaluable in the event of a major system crash. The system will be booted into DOS mode where you can recover accidentally deleted files, repair disk errors and even unformat disks, provided that the Quick Format option was originally used. You can also get a poorly system back into Windows 95 or 98 using a rescue set combination of bootable floppy and Zip disk. I found boot time was around nine minutes using a parallel port Zip drive, and system response was horribly slow.

Norton Uninstall Deluxe

Although it can't beat CleanSweep Deluxe 4 (reviewed issue 52, p205), Norton Uninstall Deluxe (NUD) still provides a healthy list of features designed to keep your hard disk free of unwanted software. There are a number of similarities. Like CleanSweep, NUD uses a background utility to look for installation programs starting and to record changes made when a new application is copied down. One unique feature is InstallGuard, which records all changes made during the installation process and stores them in a backup file. Should you want subsequently to remove the new software, InstallGuard can return your system to its previous condition, although this will only work for the last application you installed.

NUD can also uninstall applications

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by analysing them and removing all associated files and Registry entries. A backup copy is maintained so you can restore the software if you later change your mind. Alternatively, you can relocate programs onto anotheræhard disk or partition using the Move option. The Copy option is very similar to CleanSweep's Transport, since it allows applications to be packaged into self-extracting archives for installation on another system. Do be careful with this option, though. While it can deal with small applications, I found that it made a mess of large program suites.

There's a certain amount of duplication of labour across NUD and Norton Utilities, as the former also offers a Disk CleanUp option. Both will identify temporary and infrequently used files as candidates for deletion, while NUD goes one step further, by emptying browser caches and looking for lost clusters, duplicate files and unused Registry entries.

Norton AntiVirus

Anti-virus software is fast becoming a must-have utility, and Norton AntiVirus (NAV) is one of the best. Your system is protected by an Auto-Protect real-time scanner that can be accessed for configuration from the System Tray. Any files that are opened, copied or moved are checked first before you can access them, and executables won't be allowed to run if Auto-Protect spots any viral code in their make-up. Internet downloads get the same treatment, and NAV includes Netscape Navigator plug-ins plus protection against dubious ActiveX code and Java applications. Auto-Protect also scans the floppy disk drive at system shutdown to make sure you haven't left a disk loaded.

For greater protection, NAV includes Symantec's Bloodhound heuristic scanning technology, which looks for strange behaviour and may identify a new virus not in the signature file. The inoculation feature has been cut down. Previous versions of NAV let you create a checksum of program file contents for verification when accessed. If the result didn't match, then the file must have been modified. This is now missing, although NAV still uses inoculation to protect the hard disk boot records.

The main NAV program provides on-demand scanning that can be extended to mapped as well as local drives. NAV acquitted itself well during testing, as it identified all 50 test viruses thrown at it, which included boot sector, multipartite and polymorphic varieties. Word and Excel macro viruses were also dispatched efficiently, leaving genuine macros intact. However, it was unable to repair a number of files and it's here that the value of backup becomes apparent. The only way to clean them is to restore them from a clean copy.

If an infection does occur, a Wizard will guide you gently through the repair process. Unfortunately, when an infected floppy disk is identified, you get an ugly DOS screen menu allowing to you run immediate repairs or ignore the problem. Choose the latter and NAV grants full access to the disk, so allowing the virus to live another day to cause potential mayhem.

Norton CrashGuard and LiveUpdate

Norton CrashGuard is designed to stop data loss when an application freezes or fails. It monitors both 16- and 32-bit applications and will intercept and trap a crash. It will then try to fix the problem so you can save your data. If a program freezes on you then Anti-Freeze should be able to help, as it adds an extra button to the Close Program window. Select the culprit and Anti-Freeze will have a go at getting it running again. Full statistics are maintained, so you'll soon see which software is causing the most grief.

A standard feature across all the bundled products is LiveUpdate, which checks Symantec's Web site for SystemWorks upgrades and automatically downloads and installs them. Web Services take this a stage further with LiveUpdate Pro by checking your system configuration and comparing it with an index on the same Web site to see if there are any useful product upgrades or hardware drivers available. After a 20-minute wait, LiveUpdate Pro came back with a list of updates and drivers that were applicable to my system, although it was disappointing to see no new hardware drivers and a software list heavily biased towards Microsoft products. Note also that Web Services is only free for the first six months, after which it costs £30 per year to continue.

Serious users will find a place for virtually all of SystemWorks on their PCs. Norton Utilities is still the best troubleshooting and diagnostic tool around and the idiosyncrasies of Windows 95 and 98 make this even more valuable. Viruses will have a tough time with NAV, and cover disc clutter and demo applications can easily be kept under control with Norton Uninstall. The average user may not want to mess up their Desktop with the entire suite, but at least they can pick and choose which utilities they want to play with. Overall, SystemWorks is a bumper bundle of excellent utilities at a giveaway price.