14 DAY TRIAL // It is hard to find a free application that will keep your computer clean without threatening the system stability. And yet there are some softwares that have been created by good faith developers that will work like a charm on your computer and clean the registry of invalid entries or the drives of temporary files and even duplicates with an accuracy hard to match.
Magic Speed is supposed to be such an application, designed to optimize the computer memory, delete temporary files, manage the startup items and fix registry errors. The application is free; however, using the software will not come at no cost.
The design of the wizard included for easy using the program is absolutely fantastic. For a neophyte the presentation package could be the breaking point to eliminate any doubt regarding the utility and functionality of the program.
The first utility presented is the startup manager that displays all the applications meant to startup with Windows. There are three icons available to differentiate among them: a check mark on a green background (designating system processes), a question mark on a blue background (for the processes of the user) and an "x" mark on a red background (designating viruses that will load with Windows). At my first use of the application it detected three viruses that loaded with my OS. Good thing that the items were displayed and any user can check on the accuracy of the detection.
The items described by Magic Speed as viruses belonged to applications installed by me and scanning them with anti virus softwares resulted in clean files presenting absolutely no threat to the system. Only two processes belonged to the system (very hard to believe) and all the rest of the items were labeled as "User choice" (including "cftmon.exe", a process part of Micrtosoft Office suite, but a system process nevertheless).
The detection of PC problems is also doubtful as Magic Speed found 72 problems (most of the COM/ActiveX entries) where WinOptimizer 4 detected 14 and EasyCleaner only five. The fact that you are not provided with the path to the problems makes the fixing process as risky as playing Russian roulette.
Magic Speed's pi?ce de r?sistance is the PC cleaning tool. It is designed to remove the temporary files and registry values from your computer. It seems the tool does not have solid knowledge on what a temporary file is or maybe the logic was that everything you have stored on C: is temporary, since it can be deleted. Testing Magic Speed took longer than I expected as it also involved restoring my Windows image after the cleaning process took place. In fact, testing this tool was not a complete process, as I stopped it before it may have decided to wipe the other volumes of my disk.
After stopping the operation my system was stubborn enough to work, but everything on the desktop was gone, and so were the files in Program Files. I thought a reboot of the system would make things settle and then I would see the damage. My wish came true early as the system never rebooted and kept asking me to install some DLL.
Tweaking the system for maximum efficiency was never tested and will never be tested by Softpedia. But a brief presentation can be made. Windows tweaks supposedly lets the user turn on or off the following: automatically unloading unused libraries, reloading on system failure, tracking Windows XP users, not using swap file for system kernel storage, automatic Explorer startup if there are errors and automatic service startup if stuck.
At the bottom of system tuning options there is a recommendation saying that all the features should be on.
For boosting Windows Magic Speed provides a memory defragmentation tool and running WinBoost at startup. These features never got to be tested, but they should be OK. However, I do not recommend using them unless you are planning on reviving a system that is already due for an OS reinstall.
The Good
The looks of the first screen of the software, which is quite original. The application really boosted and cleaned my system, as reinstalling Windows always has this effect on computers.
The Bad
Well, besides the fact that I spent almost half a day finding the disk I had my Windows image stored on and installing all the softwares I needed?
The Truth
I sincerely recommend suggesting Magic Speed to someone you want to cut off any relation with. I stopped testing any of its utilities after the PC clean. And when I say PC clean I really mean it. All there will be left after the operation are the folders of the installed files.
However, if you really want to test the application, create a backup image of drive C: first and store it on a DVD or another hard disk that cannot be reached by Magic Speed.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
