Every Friday at 5:30 p.m. I usually devote an hour or so to clearing my desk
and preparing for the next week. At precisely that time (because I asked it to
do so) Norton SystemWorks pops up on my screen and runs a One Button
Checkup on my machine; it examines the Windows Registry, checks for the
integrity of programs, looks for corruption or other damage, queries Norton
AntiVirus to see when last the machine was scanned for viruses, searches for
orphaned shortcuts to programs or data that has been deleted or moved, and
cleans out assorted garbage, including temporary files. You can see the
results of one such checkup in Figure 19-4.One Button Checkup takes about 10 minutes to complete on a modern
machine. At 6 p.m. my machine automatically initiates a Norton AntiVirus
scan; that process on a well-populated 40GB hard drive can take one to two
hours to complete, and I leave it to process by itself. (If I’m going to leave the
office I turn off the monitor and leave the computer to run by itself.)Finally, I have Diskeeper run a defragmentation session on Sunday at 4 p.m.,
which is usually a time when I make a point to explore the world outside of
my office. If defragging is done weekly, the process usually takes less than an
hour on a large drive; if the system has been left to its own for a month or
more, or if there is a relatively small amount of available working space,
defragging can take several hours to complete.Another utility suite with similar features is System Mechanic Pro. In its ver-
sion 5.0 and later it includes similar system maintenance facilities, antivirus
protection, and undeleted functions. This product’s major shortcoming is its
small market share; the ubiquitous Norton/Symantec suites have better and
quicker reactions to new virus outbreaks.Figure 19-4:
Norton
System
Works’ One
Button
Checkup is
the opening
salvo of
my weekly
health scan
for each
of the
computers
in my office,
including
my laptop.296 Part V: The Software Side of Life