The Hardware Detective - Software Review - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, June, 2000 by Dave Johnson

HOC RATING 1 2 3 4 5 6

WinCheckIt 6.5

* Requirements: Win 95/98/NT 4.0, 15MB hard disk space, CD-ROM drive * List Price: $50 * Manufacturer: TouchStone Software Corp., 877-877-2467, www.touchstonesoftware.com

WINCHECKIT HAS NEVER HAD THE SAME high profile as more multipurpose competitors like Symantec's Norton SystemWorks, but it's been reliably diagnosing and troubleshooting PCs for a decade. At the heart of this newest release is a set of tools for determining just what kinds of hardware problems you may have. But WinCheckIt doesn't stop at informing you of a problem--the program helps you resolve it pronto.

You can choose which tests to run from a navigation bar along the left of WinCheckIt's browserlike screen; the Home button takes you back to the main screen if you get lost. WinCheckIt tests your PC's memory, motherboard, communication ports, disk drives, and display subsystems. Problems are clearly explained, and you can click a button that opens the appropriate Control Panel or Windows troubleshooting screen to help fix the issue.

WinCheckIt readily found an improperly installed modem, a bad device driver, and a slew of other problems on our Pentium II desktop; it also recommended some obvious tune-ups, like clearing out an overfilled Windows/Temp folder and running a long-overdue scan and defragmentation of the hard disk. We were dismayed when the program refused to run most of its tests on another, Athlon-powered PC; tech support's answer was that they hadn't tested every AMD chip, and timing problems might occur on some.

WinCheckIt can run a disk cleanup utility to free more storage space, though we didn't like its default of pruning files without permission. Though the serial port test worked best with loop-back plugs attached to the ports, TouchStone doesn't supply any. And some of its tests are less valuable than others--Y2K is long past, for example.

If you have one of the mainstream utility suites, you probably don't need a diagnostic specialist like WinCheckIt, but it's a worthy way to track down solutions to mysterious problems.

[pros] Comfy interface; emphasis on problem-solving

[cons] Better for troubleshooting than for daily maintenance; some AMD issues

RATINGS

HOME OFFICE COMPUTING rates products on a scale of 1 to 10--with few 9's or 10's--based on value, performance, innovation (medals go to rare standouts in these areas), ease of use, and suitability for home offices. The [pros] and [cons] symbols indicate pros and cons.