Most Popular in System Resources Tune-Up.

Mother Board Moniter

Is your PC getting toasty? Is your CPU getting charred and your motherboard melting? Okay, I'm exaggerating, but if your components are reaching a potentially damaging temperature, Motherboard Monitor can let you know. This free program monitors and reports on the temperatures inside your PC case using the built-in sensors on the processor and motherboard. If things get too warm, it can sound an alarm and automatically shut your PC down before anything gets damaged.

It's a great tool if you build your own PCs because it can tell you if your system is overheating due to insufficient ventilation. It can also monitor the voltages that your power supply is outputting, warning you if they fall below a certain level. In these days of power-hungry graphics cards (sometimes in pairs with up to four GPUs) and the practice of loading a case with drives, an overextended power supply can lead to crashes and data loss, so it?s good to know that the power supply is up to the job.

However, it doesn't work with all motherboards: Some won't report back a temperature, and the author stopped updating the program in 2004. But it's still usefull for anyone who has built their own system, or who has added components to their system and is concerned about how hot they get

Tweak UI

Tweak UI gives you access to a number of settings that are hidden away in Windows. It is part of the oddly named PowerToys utilities that are provided by Microsoft itself (although it doesn't support them).

Tweak UI allows you to change the way Windows looks and works. For instance, you can change things like the speed at which the mouse wheel scrolls and if a specific user should be automatically logged in whenever you start up Windows (a big timesaver if you are the only person to use a PC, and hate having to type your password every time you reboot).

It can also assign commands to keys in Windows Explorer; a big plus if you frequently have to copy lots of files.

Windows XP Service Pack 2

Note: Microsoft has redirected the old XP Service Pack 2 page to the newer SP 3. The vendor is no longer offering SP2 as a separate download.

It's an unsafe world out there for Windows-based computers. Microsoft wants to address the problem with its new megapatch, Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. Does it succeed? Not entirely. But the big fix does so much to close security holes and to make protecting your PC simpler that it's still an essential upgrade.

This giant patch--the biggest single update since Windows XP itself was released--promises to cure many of the known security ills that have befallen XP since it debuted in late 2001, and to preemptively put a stop to a still-unknown number of others.

But it's not just a big security fix; SP2 makes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth networks easier to navigate, adds new features to Tablet and Media Center PCs, and updates XP's multimedia components. It all comes in a 220MB package that (at press time, when we saw only the Release Candidate 2 beta version) installs in under an hour over broadband.

Description of Clean System Directory

As you put your computer through its paces, installing and uninstalling software, your System folder gathers a ton of DLL files. Over time, you'll accumulate DLL files you no longer need, hogging disk space and causing your system to run sluggishly. Clean System Directory scans your system looking for all references to DLL files in your System directory. When it finds DLL files that have no programs calling them, it lets you take them out of the system directory and delete them, saving disk space and improving system performance. Be sure to store DLLs in a separate folder for awhile before deleting them. That way you can get them back if necessary.

Note: This program is not for WinME, WinNT, Win2000 or later.

CCleaner

Somewhere under the layers of software detritus, your PC is vigorous and eager to work. CCleaner searches through a number of programs and removes useless files. It's highly configurable, allowing you to select which problems to look for and which items to ignore.

Many cleaners scrub out just your browser cache or your temporary files folder, but CCleaner goes further. It cleans temporary files from common third-party applications as well. The vendor's list of cleaned programs includes Adobe products (Flash Player, Photoshop, and Reader to name a few), Ad-Aware SE, eMule, Firefox, Google Toolbar, Kazaa, Microsoft Office, Nero, Norton Antivirus, OpenOffice, Real Player, WinAce, Windows Media Player, WinRAR, WinZip, and Google, Windows Live, and Yahoo Toolbars.

CCleaner goes beyond the basic wash and polish with extra mini-tools. A registry scanner removes old and unused entries, including ActiveX Controls, fonts, installers, shared DLLs, fonts, help files, application paths, icons, unused file extensions, and invalid shortcuts. CCleaner also includes an uninstaller and a list of deletable startup entry keys (the latter is something you'll want to evaluate carefully before removing a mystery key that turns out to be helpful.)

Note: CCleaner includes an optional Yahoo toolbar that you may choose to install along with the program. Installing this toolbar may trigger alerts from some antispyware programs. CCleaner's makers assert that CCleaner is spyware-free. This file is donationware. If you donate a certain amount (ten pounds sterling or 20 USD at the time I write this) through the vendor's site, the vendor pledges to send you links to all new releases before they're publicly available for download.