Norton Utilities Editor's Review

Keep your PC running in top condition with this must have Windows utility package.

I remember back in the day when Norton Utilities was actually written by Peter Norton. They were THE set of utilities to have for your DOS based PC, and in many ways today, offer a great deal of protection and peace of mind. That's why I feel that this PC based, Windows utility package is a must have.

Norton Utilities helps your PC run like new. With them you can speed up PC performance and boot time, fix common PC problems with a single mouse click, reduces launch time of applications by optimizing the registry, increase storage and performance by defragmenting and cleaning up the hard drive and of course, recuing accidentally deleted files. It's a package that most every Windows user should seriously consider purchasing.

Norton Disk Doctor identifies and fixes potential problems that can lead to hard drive crashes. You can use it to save your bacon, should you start experiencing random data errors in files you know are uncorrupted elsewhere. Norton UnErase lets you quickly restore accidentally deleted files that may be hidden on your hard drive, provided they space they occupy hasn't been overwritten with other data. Norton Smart Updates keeps Norton Utilities up-to-date by automatically installing product updates. Startup Manager improves PC boot time by choosing which programs will load at startup time and Norton Service Manager optimizes active Windows services so applications can run simultaneously without your PC experiencing any slowdowns.

Pros: Awesome utilities, providing value and peace of mind in keeping your data intact and your system running as intended.

Cons: Some components are very system intensive

Conclusion: Norton software has been known to be a bit bloated and can be a bit of a burden on underpowered systems. Modern TSR, dashboards and sidebar widgets are known to be memory hogs and system intensive. Items like Speed Disk work very well, but don't work well with SSD's, as defragging them can lead to device damage.

If you have need of a utility package for Windows, this is perhaps the no-brainer of the decade. Norton Utilities is a must have and a sure winner, at nearly any and every price point.