14 DAY TRIAL // Advanced users know exactly what their computer is made from. They know the size of each partition, how many are installed on the system, the CPU power the computer is using, the amount of RAM available, not to mention the software installed.
A beginner may feel a bit overwhelmed by all these details and shuts them out. But sometimes you need some information on the hardware installed on your computer in order to learn if your machine is ready for the new trends in software and gaming or if you have the required video and audio codecs to play a clip or a song on the latest album of your favorite band.
An advanced user would have no problem with this kind of issues as experience and the computer knowledge accumulated over the years have a say in this case and they know exactly where to look. But now every type of user gets the chance to learn a little something about their computers as the system information applications have invaded the Internet.
Ceremu System Checker is a nifty looking tool designed to provide you with information on the computer it is installed on. There is no complicated task in handling it as all the options are available from the main application window and the greatest effort in order to get the desired information is to click the appropriate button.
There is no price tag as the software is absolutely free of charge. The program is WYSIWYG so do not expect anything else than what there is on display. All the options are arranged in plain view and they are coming down from the left upper part of the interface to the bottom right corner. No additional windows will be opened, no matter what function you activate, except for the reports.
The software welcomes you with a list of skins designed to change its looks in case the default colors do not appeal to you. The choices vary from Orange gold, Blue night or Green forever to grey stone, All green and All orange. The effect will be immediate so you can change it on the spot without restarting the application.
First information tip is about the system. Ceremu does not give in-depth details in this sense but provides useful information about the operating system, RAM installed, CPU manufacturer and speed, the amount of free RAM as well as all the disks available and some information on them (type of storage media, name/label, total size, free space and serial number).
Running the application on Vista and knowing the exact configuration of the test computer reveals that the information is confusing. The OS displayed in my case (as you can clearly see from the pictures below) is WinXP, but the version is 6.0 and the build is 6000 and there is no service pack. Every piece of information except for the name of the operating system is accurate as the build, version and service pack number refer to Windows Vista.
On XP these details were accurate and no inconsistency between the information provided by the software and that of the system was detected. However, Ceremu seems to have trouble with displaying the details for floppy disks as on both systems they were erroneous.
Moving onward to Folders section, the most important folders on your system will be displayed. What is interesting in this section is that it allows you to find out the applications associated with a certain file extension. All you have to do is input the extension and press "Find App associated with" button and the complete path to the application will be displayed in the adequate field.
The display settings are next in the list. Here the user is presented with information on the graphic card, screen resolution, color depth and refresh frequency. And if your graphic card supports two monitors you will be provided with information on both of them.
Instead of going to Fonts in Control Panel you can check out the same section in Ceremu System Checker. It will list all the installed fonts and double-clicking on one of them will show the styles it supports. This information is not that accurate either as my system has 209 fonts installed and the software shows only 167 of them. So I went to an XP test system to check again and on that system there were 79 fonts and the software showed only 61.
Video section of the application will show you all the codecs available on your system and inform you of the DivX status. The list depends on the variety of video formats supported on your system. There is no other information here and clicking/right clicking on the items results in absolutely no response from the software. The same is available in the Audio section, but here the audio devices on your system will be displayed.
All the information displayed by the software can be sent to a printer or saved on the computer in a RTF file. Print Results section gives you the chance to choose the details to be included in the report, for both hardware components and software.
The search tool included in the application allows you to look for a certain file. However, you will have to type in the exact name of the files and provide the drive to be searched on. So what's the use? You can open the files from here instead of going to the file manager and waste more time.
The Good
Ceremu System Checker is very easy to use and comes totally free of charge. The impressive skins let you change the aspect of the GUI the way you want it.
The Bad
The information retrieved is not as accurate as one would think, and to be frank, I was expecting a bit more of it. Almost everything shown by Ceremu System Checker can be learned by taking a look at Windows' Control Panel.
The Truth
Great looking but it comes short when we refer to providing accurate information. But we should appreciate the effort of providing so many skins and overlook the spelling mistakes in both the application window and help menu.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
