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Clairvaux
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On the face of other contributors’ unusually critical reviews, and the generally cautious approach one must have with all those “optimisation” programs, I was very surprised to discover how little information there is on the publisher’s site. No manual, no knowledge base, no FAQ, no forum, no explanation of how this software is different from all others which claim to do the same thing, no precise claims of achievable speed increase. This is very curious, to say the least, for such a technical piece of software.

Even the “buy” page is remarkably mute about what you actually get. Is the full price a life licence ? A yearly renewable fee ? Does the licence cover several computers ? several users ? can it be transferred from one computer to another ? you just don’t know.

The installation page hints about a free trial version, and also about a free working version opposed to a paid-for, fuller one, but it’s just that : hints. Only one package is offered for download.

By rummaging around on the website, you can escape, if you’re lucky, to a Dutch-language site which seems to have more information and might be the the original publisher’s site, but no full English-language site ? for a software product ? in 2017 ?

Generally speaking, what do those products do ? Defragment ? This has been automatic in Windows for a long time. “Clean registry” ? It’s highly controversial, and if you really want to do that, there are either uninstallers such as Revo, which record install then clean registry by just undoing what has been recorded, or C-Cleaner, which is widely recognised to be a safe registry cleaner if you must absolutely do that unguided. Limit the number of programs starting up with Windows ? Windows itself can do that, and there are plenty of reputable, free third-party programs doing it as well (C-Cleaner being one of them).

What I would like to know, but the publishers of such optimisation programs never tell, is whether they can cure the “software rot” that seems to creep on Windows systems after a certain time, slow you down and make reinstall the only apparent option. I guess they can’t. Preventing one or two not-critical programs to launch at startup, this I can do myself.