Monday, December 8, 2014

PRODUCT REVIEW: GLARY UTILITIES PRO - TODAY ONLY $11.99 [12/9/14]

About six years ago, a techie friend suggested I get Glary Utilities - a free program that was basically a registry cleaner and a temporary file cleaner.... so I did.  Ran it once or twice a week and it would find an error here and a problem there... I really couldn't see much effect on how my computer worked but it didn't hurt anything.  This past year, for some unknown reason, I upgraded to the PRO version.... about $20 I think, and it MAY be for three computers....this weekend it paid for itself 50 times over.

My computer had been dragging.... getting slower and slower.... I'm out in the country and my net beams from an abandoned fire tower across the water to a receiver mounted on the side of the house.  I can see the fire tower so the signal doesn't have far to shoot.  There are about 5 families that are permanent residents on this system but when all the weekenders are down with iPads and laptops, the bandwidth (are you impressed I know that word?!  LOL) has to be shared.  After Thanksgiving, my computer didn't speed back up.... and on Thursday morning, I couldn't get ANYTHING to open.... not the internet, not my Excel program, not even Skype.

Panic!  A VIRUS!  Tried to run Bitdefender - it wouldn't open.  Tried to run Malwarebytes.... wouldn't open.  All the stuff I tried to open said 'Not Responding' and I couldn't even X them closed.  Couldn't close them with Task Manager because - IT WOULDN'T OPEN!  Rebooted 4-5 times, same results, and the last time I got the error message from hell - my hard disk was damaged.... The only program I'd not tried was Glary - because I didn't think I had a registry problem.... but I clicked on it and after about 10 minutes, IT OPENED!  I looked at my options and all were checked except 'disk repair'... I unclicked everything and clicked disk repair on and hit 'scan' AND IT STARTED RUNNING....  I watched as it analyzed files.... PAINFULLY SLOWLY.... and after a few minutes it rebooted my computer.  I logged back in and restarted Glary.... and it started analyzing files again.  Bear in mind - I had no idea what I was doing but at least I could see that something was happening.

I started keeping track of the number of files it was analyzing and each time I restarted the program, it would analyze a few MORE files.  I probably restarted Glary 20 times in the course of the weekend, and each time the file count increased - so something was happening.  In the mean time, I'm reading Consumer Reports on computers, and talking to people about what to buy.

This morning, the log-on screen was up so I signed in and opened Glary AGAIN.  Then I sat down at my antique Dell laptop I bought just after the turn of the century, went to Amazon, and bought a new Dell - $1000 I really hadn't planned to spend this month.

Breathed a deep sigh, and looked at my pitiful HP, and saw what looked like an old DOS screen..... black with pixel letters - files flying by too fast to read.... This lasted several minutes.  OH DEAR!  Then the computer closed down.

Rebooted..... and the log-on came up.  I put in my password and hit return.... OMG - in an instant, my desktop was showing.... I clicked my Chrome button and bam-bam-bam-bam.... my home pate, blogger page, twitter page, email, and facebook page all opened!!!  Clicked on Excel - boom!  It opened!  Skype - whooooosh!  OPENED! Sent a message on Skype - IT WORKED!  Opened my blogger page - IT WORKED!  Excel - WORKED!

JUST WOW!  I dashed back to my antique Dell, pulled up Amazon - and cancelled the order for the new computer!

I'm typing THIS on the 'GLARY REPAIRED' machine, and so far, so good!  I'm sure I lost SOMETHING..... but I have Carbonite backup, so I'm not concerned.

I don't know what Glary did..... I just know that without their 'disk repair' feature, I'd be out $1000.... MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ME - FROM GLARY UTILITIES PRO!!!!  Best $20 I ever spent!
Try the free version.... but buy the PRO version....




2 comments:

  1. sometimes, stuff just works like advertised . . and more. congrats on getting it done. :)

    rb

    ReplyDelete

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