14 DAY TRIAL // The system information tools are a real pleasure for me to discover, use and review. Of course, some are better than the others, but the average quality and features - when we talk about such programs - keeps going up, and that can only be a good thing. My subject here made me think, at first, that I have another basic information tool here with only some information to be viewed and maybe printed, but after a while I was amazed to discover there's much more to it, as we'll see next...
My new toy that I've got right here is called simply K1, but has nothing to do with mountains, single person kayak racing, the Soviet K1 tank or the combat sport. This program is completely free to use, its last version is labeled 1.0.6, but looks and feels better than most programs having such small "ages". The installation kit has only 939KB in size, and the setup process finishes in a flash, without any trouble for you. Now, let's go to the interface and features, as usual.
As I was just saying, this program seems a basic one. That is only valid if you consider that small means basic, but this is not the case here. When starting K1 you will face a really small window, that's true, but this is a small power package that we'll discover together...
The small interface that we have here has a menu bar, a work area where the information is displayed into a tree view, and an info panel that displays current CPU and memory load, system uptime, the number of running processes and open programs. Besides all this, you can enable this program to start with Windows using the Autorun button or take a snapshot of its window.
Surprisingly, the first item encountered in the menu bar is called Options and not File, as it usually happens. This menu takes care of more interesting tasks, and I'll get them one by one...
Every system information tool should have the possibility to save reports, and K1 can send them through email or save them as plain text files. If you're wondering whether...the answer is unfortunately "no", K1 won't save the reports as HTML, XLS or CVS files, but I am sure this is only a matter of time.
There's a very good amount of system tools included in this program, and I can enumerate a cleaner, an optimizer, and an entire platoon of various tools. Just read this: password generator, shortcut maker, online network tools such as ping, traceroute or DNS lookup, and even more.
If you think it's over, well...I've only just begun! Next menu is called "More information", and here you can check installed programs, hotfixes, running processes, the list of codecs in your system, protected files and more.
At last, the Computer menu lets you shut down your computer, log off, send it to stand by or get a quick overview using the Summary command (or by pressing the F2 key).
K1 is another one of those "little big" programs that I got to enjoy a lot, and there's only one more thing to say: get it while it's free!
The Good
This program is free, small, easy to use yet powerful. The information it provides is excellent for a beginner and everything can only go up.
The Bad
The program's window has a fixed size and, once you expand the tree's branches, it will be pretty hard to read the information displayed in it. Information about some items is not at its best yet (for example you don't get SMART status for your hard drives), and there's no built in Help system.
The Truth
I have nothing more to say than "much more than what you expected at a first glance". Try out this one; you have to at least like it!
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
