Nuts & Bolts - Feb/Mar '98

Nuts & Bolts

For years, Norton's Utilities has been king of the hill. Now, it has some stiff competition. Nuts & Bolts from Helix Software contains all of the utilities in Norton's and then some.

The utilities in the Nuts & Bolts package are arranged into four categories: Repair/Recover, Clean/Optimize, Prevent/Protect, and Secure/Manage. You can access all utilities from the buttons on the Nuts & Bolts Central window or you can run them individually from your Windows 95 Start menu. Many of the utilities will run under both Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. However, several of the utilities, particularly those related to the Win 95 Registry, work in Win 95 only.

There are four utilities in the Repair/Recover category. Disk Minder repairs a damaged hard disk. It is similar to Win 95's ScanDisk, but more powerful. For example, it will repair damaged boot sectors and partition tables, something ScanDisk cannot do (although I wouldn't recommend doing this unless you really know what you're doing). Image/Restore saves an image of critical sections of your hard disk, which you can use to recover from an accidental format or complete erasure of your hard disk. Rescue creates copies of important system files on floppy disks. You can then use these Rescue disks to recover from a hard disk disaster (you'll likely need a good backup of your data as well). Discover displays system information and runs benchmark tests on your system.

The Clean/Optimize category includes five utilities, most of which work only in Win 95. Cleanup Wizard, which is the only utility in this group to work under both Win 3.1 and 95, finds duplicate, old, or unused files which you can delete, compress, or move to another drive. DiskTune defragments your hard drive. The Registry Wizard cleans, repairs, and optimizes your Win 95 Registry. Make sure you make a backup of your Registry first! I let the Wizard "tune" my Registry and I wasn't able to use WordPerfect 6.2 for DOS until I restored the backup (something got changed in the video area). Registry Pro, which is not available on the Nuts & Bolts Central window, but is available on your Start menu after installation of Nuts & Bolts, allows you to manually troubleshoot, edit, and repair the Win 95 Registry. The Shortcut Wizard cleans and repairs Win 95 Shortcuts.

There are also four utilities in the Prevent/Protect group. A copy of Cheyenne's Virus Scan is included so you can scan for viruses on your hard disk. Bomb Shelter gives you a chance to save your data should your operating system crash. WinGauge displays remaining system resources in several graphical displays. It provides warnings should your resources get too low. I think the gauges are a little amateurish, though. The last utility in this category, TrashGuard, protects deleted files, including files deleted by DOS or 16-bit applications, something the Win 95 Recycle Bin cannot do.

The last group is Secure/Manage. EZ Setup allows you to customize the Win 95 desktop. Launch Pad gives you quick access to your favorite applications (although I prefer to just use Win 95 Desktop Shortcuts). Stronghold encrypts sensitive files. Shredder permanently deletes files so that they cannot be undeleted. It also performs a "security wipe" on your free disk space (just in case there are pieces of a sensitive file lingering somewhere on your hard disk). Zip Manager lets you work easily with ZIP and other disk compression files.

Helix Software Company
(800) 451-0551
www.helixsoftware.com
Windows 3.1 (some programs), 95

$55

Reviewed by Richard C. Belthoff, Jr., attorney, Grier & Grier, Charlotte, N.C.

Feb/Mar '98 Issue