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Medic! Medic!
A Review of First Aid '97
by Ron Enderland
Boy, weren’t we glad when Windows 95 came along? I mean, for the first time ever, we could run a GUI with no fear of system crashes!
Okay, I’ll just pause a moment to let the laughter die down . . .
As you Win95ers are painfully aware, the 32-bit system is better than 3.1, but is by no means crashproof. You can do a Ctrl+Alt+Del to shut down a locked app and keep going, but that doesn’t change the fact that you are still very vulnerable to Windows’ foibles.
Enter First Aid 97.
First Aid 97 is the successor to the well-received First Aid 95. It makes great claims as to what it can do for your system. How well does it live up to the claims? Pretty darned well, really. Read on . . .
The program’s self-installation seems to take forever. It is doing lots of research as it injects itself into your system. You can have a trial version of CyberMedia’s Oil Change added at installation time. You’ll have to install this if you want FA97 to update itself, as it can every month or so.New applications are added to its database of information. Using this, it can run detailed checks on your various apps’ health. You can also add Dr. Solomon’s FindVirus at this time, if you wish.
I decided to let FA97 show me its stuff as far as crash-catching is concerned.
You Access 7.0 users are well aware of this sometimes finicky database’s tendency to die when certain keystrokes are entered. So, with my medic hovering in the background, I hit that "New Form" button that always causes Access death. A window instantly appeared with this boast: "First Aid just caught a crash!" I clicked a button to get back into Access. It was still running, albeit with the drop-down menus goofed up. But, hey! I could save my work, shut it down, and reboot the system!
That, of course, is the necessary next step in case FA97 stops a crash for you. Reboot that smart box and give those exhausted system resources a chance to be recharged.
You can double-click on the blue cross in your system tray to bring FA97 up to full screen. Here, you can run several system checks.
The best all-around one is "Check-Up," which runs a full gamut of tests. These include those for hardware conflicts, Windows system files, applications, performance, and many more. If problems exist, you are informed of what they are and what FA97 can do about them.
My favorite feature of this program is its ability to go into that nasty Registry and spot irregularities that need attention. Most of these are caused by unsuccessful uninstalls and by your deleting programs that don’t have the uninstall feature. FA97 will relentlessly track down those dead ends and inform you of their existence, waiting patiently for your instructions as to how to handle them. "Do I find the missing apps? Or do I delete every last trace of them from that daunting Registry?"
You’ll be pleased with the increased performance that your system will receive just from this feature alone.
FA97 does a whole lot more, also. Keeping this review to a reasonable length precludes me from going any farther, but let me sum it up thusly: If you want to spend the best 35 bucks that you possibly can, as far as system health is concerned, then buy this product.
Internet Hotel Scorecard
| Product: | First Aid '97 |
| Company: | CyberMedia |
| Cost: | $34.95 |
System Requirements:
IBM Compatible 386 or higher PC,
8 MB RAM,
17 MB hard disk space,
256 color VGA or higher monitor,
Internet connection for certain enhanced features.
Breakdown:
Ease of Use 4
Quality 5
Concept 4
Interface 4
Overall Score:
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