PC Handyman review

Norton has a long and established reputation in the PC industry for being a Windows and DOS wizard and now Windows 95 has given his most famous product more challenges.

There's also a new, less techie breed of user who need help too - because let's face it, even Windows 95 falls over pretty often.

Norton Utilities 2 is the new Windows 95 and NT version of the old favourite. It's been spruced up and had some extras added. There are four main new features. Most important are the Registry Tracker and Registry Editor. Both of these let you tinker within a previously fairly incomprehensible area. Norton File Compare gives you an easy way to compare files, such as differing versions of CONFIG.SYS. Finally, the System Genie is an easy-to-use guide on how to get the most out of Windows 95 or NT4. The other major enhancement is Live Update, which can download the latest patches and extras direct from the web into Utilities.

The main Norton Utilities window works a bit like a dashboard, with various 'sensors' that take live readings of different aspects of PC usage. These range from the useful - how much hard disk space you have, how fragmented the hard drive is - to rather esoteric, like cache hits and Internet ping speed times.

Apart from this core control panel, Utilities has plenty of other programs. Many of them are replacements for core Windows system tools, such as Speed Disk, which replaces Disk Defragmenter, and Disk Doctor, which replaces Scandisk. These are generally more fully featured than the Microsoft equivalents, but the performance benefits differ little.

If you want to get serious with your PC, Norton Utilities lets you do it. There are DOS utilities, a Norton Companion PC tutor on the CD, online help, and lots of sensors. It creates Rescue disks, monitors for viruses, checks your hard disk integrity and disk image, tracks the Registry, benchmarks your system, even beefs up the Recycle Bin. If anything's going on in Windows, Utilities knows about it.

PC Handyman contains much of the power of Norton Utilities but wraps it up in an easy-to-use interface. The PC Handyman is supposed to be your 'computer friend' who helps you fix things. What this means in practice is you see a picture of a PC, and tell PC Handyman what isn't working. You then narrow down the problem through a series of questions.

Sometimes, usually if your problem just requires an adjustment to the system, PC Handyman can fix it automatically. More often, instructions appear, which you can print out. If your problem is serious, then often you're told to 'contact a computer professional'. For some hardware problems PC Handyman does supply technical support phone numbers - shame they're based in the US. But in the main PC Handyman's advice is very thorough.

What PC Handyman does do which is impressive, is borrow some of Norton Utilities background tasks, such as scanning for viruses and checking your hard disk's integrity. When this happens, a face pops up on your desktop which can give you info on the process. Also, if your PC hangs and you restart, PC Handyman will try to figure out why it happened.

While both of these apps are good choices for making your PC run a little more smoothly, which one you choose should just depend on personal preference. There's nothing in Norton Utilities that's hard to understand, it's just presented in a more 'adult' way. If you're genuinely baffled by PCs, and want a helping hand to get you more involved, then PC Handyman would be a better bet. As it stands, I'd recommend Norton Utilities, unless you're a total novice.