The big question, of course, is whether it’s worth it.

From here you have two choices – if you’re fairly compos mentis with your PC you can then take steps to manually resolve these problems, or you could click the “Fix Errors Now” button.Ĭhoosing the latter whisks you to a registration screen – enter your details, click Next and then choose whether or not to pay $10 for a one-time fix, or $30 for a “premium” option, which basically gives you 12 months subscription to the program’s fix-it services, which are based on the same technology as iolo's award-winning System Mechanic tool. Once complete, the results are displayed in a new, larger window – you can expand each section where problems are found to discover what the recommended solutions are. It scans your computer for problems, running nine quick tests in all: internet speed, memory levels, startup speed, Registry errors, drive corruption, security holes, drive clutter, internet clutter and shortcuts check. Mindful of this, iolo’s System Checkup is designed to be run manually by the user whenever they deem fit. This approach is almost too much – in most cases, the drag of having such a tool running in the background is more hassle than simply checking every month or so yourself to see what problems may have built up over that relatively short period of time. Some programs offer to constantly monitor your PC for problems, alerting you to issues and fixing them as they occur.

Windows has most of the tools you need to diagnose and fix problems built in, but they’re not exactly intuitive to use and you need a fair degree of technical competence to locate them, never mind use them. Every computer needs a regular maintenance schedule to prevent minor problems snowballing into something more major.

Iolo system checkup