Customer Reviews

System Mechanic - Up to 3 PCs

5 star:		(56)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(33)

 

 

I used to love this product and always recommended it to other. But Iolo has become a very deceptive company and product has seriously degraded.

The most upsetting recent addition is Iolos silent change in product licensing. YOU CAN NO LONGER USE THE PRODUCT AFTER 1 YEAR. Really, once you buy the software, you'll notice a box in SM that tells you how many more days before you have to repurchase a license. Really Iolo, you're doing this to your customer. That's too bad.

Now on to my experience (keep in mind, I'm and IT support guy):
- I've spent over 8 hours trying to fix what SM did to my system. I'm not saying it caused serious damage, but it's definitely not very friendly to Windows 7.
- I've spent a couple hours on the phone with Iolo's support and they have me editing my Registry and other really nasty stuff the average person should not be doing.
- After all this, I've learned there is stuff that Iolo is doing in the background that is crashing my computer and the only way around this is to completely remove System Mechanic.

C'mon Iolo, I just wanna run this thing once in awhile to clean up my system. You've totally over complicated it and turned a great product into a nasty one.

Finally, its really hard to find, but by default, Iolo is sending information about your computer to themselves. Its on by default and really hard to find out how to turn it off.

So, my recommendation is look elsewhere. This used to be a great company and great product but they've really turned pretty evil and the product has degraded.

I don't write a lot of reviews either, by the way, I find comments like that irrelavant to consumers so forgive me for even posting it. I have operated Iolo's System Mechanic for just over a year now. I had no problems loading it. I have no problems using it. I have no problems with the way it updates. I know just enough about my computer to know that if I start tinkering with it, in an attempt to make it run faster, I can potentially do more harm than good. I can honestly say my computer runs better because I use it. I recently renewed my subscription for two more years and was pleased with the ease of my renewal process. During the renewal process Iolo provided me with pertinent information regarding my account, on the screen, before I had to perform a deep search for it. Oh, I can still operate my previously installed firewall and virus protection with System Mechanic.

Reading some of the reviews I was hesitant to purchase. I did finally buy it when it was bundled with network magic from liksys
(Network magic is so-so.I have installed it on 2 laptops and one PC (1 old but beloved acer single core 2 gb, one new dual core Toshiba laptop, and one HP dual core hard working much abused by multiple teens and 2 parent deskstop). The install was fast and the navigation is intuitive. I'm certainly not a geek or expert but I've been futzing with computers since the dinosaurs roamed the earth and Dos command codes had to be memorized. The menus give me a sense of control and security I haven't experienced with a computer in a long time. All 3 of my computers have improved their performance dramatically (although I'm skeptical about it being the advertised 300% improvement). While running the drive defragmenter it estimated 30-40 minutes to defrag a 750 GB hard drive but took 2.5 hours--not so bad really as I usually put this on overnight.The registry cleaner and optimizer worked fast and efficiently. It has a 1 click fix it all option for a complete computer "fix" that avoids that "should I really be checking all these boxes when I'm not sure what they'll do" kinda feeling. I couldn't be happier with the products performance across my 3 platforms. I'm buying another license to cover my 2 college age sons computers.Hopefully this will help slow down the every 1-1 1/2 year cry for a new laptop from them. It sounds like performance can vary but isn't this always the case with cmputers. I think with this product that this whole computer fad may just have a future.

System Mechanic uses an unsigned disk access device driver (elrawdsk.sys) for its maintenance, and I wonder if that was one of the causes for a system breakdown that subsequently required a complete restore of my hard drive. The disk defragmentation is suspiciously fast, although my PC did seem faster. Internet Optimization appears to apply the same adjustments whether under XP or Vista, even though Vista has a completely rewritten TCP/IP stack. Spyware detection on my system led to a false positive. The Iolo website has no technical information about how it works nor an online support forum, which makes it difficult to know if it's actions are safe. ActiveCare will run only after 5 minutes of idle (minimum), where it would be better to run in the background at low priority (especially in Vista with its improved I/O prioritization), if automatic maintenance was the key.

There are plenty of free alternatives which are safer: Wise Registry Cleaner, NTRegOpt, JkDefrag, ScanDefrag, FosiX Lite, File Shredder, Belarc Advisor, Tweak UI (XP) or WinBubbles (Vista), Seconfig (XP), SpeedGuide.net TCP/IP Optimizer (XP), and CCleaner.

First let me start out by saying my husband has a degree in Micro Computer Systems and I am an exIBMer of 10 years. My husband did a deep scan using System Mechanic and was given a result that said he needed to repair a start up problem. So regretfully he allowed it to go in and do a fix! He was never able to get back on his computer again until he had to reformat his hard drive and lose everything on there. THE Worst part was the customer help or lack of!!!!! We were told that a program engineer would have to be consulted and it would be about 3 days before they would get back to us. They never did, and when I tried to email them I would get stupid replies like go to start click and then choose control panel.....blah.....blah...blah. Can they not read!!! We can't even get into safe mode, your program has wiped out something in the start up program and we can't get passed looking at the bios info. Anyway, after a couple of ridiculous replies I told them not to bother any more that it was evident that they did not have the technical ability to handle the problem and they definitely weren't going to help us even though it was their problem. I wouldn't recommend this program to anyone. They have a lot of fancy graphics to make you think their progam is really doing something great. Now tell me after I do a check on my computer and it replies I need to do this and that I allow it to and then the next day I basically get the same you need to fix this and that again. It's just a bunch of junk. If you buy this program even after reading this, all I can say is please be careful.

I purchased this software for one of our laptops that was acting a bit sluggish. I decided to install the software on my business desk top computer since I had purchased the 3 license software package of System Mechanic. The software installed fine and I ran the analysis of my computer as it suggested. It came up with 3 problems and 1 warning. It asked me if I wanted it to fix them, I said yes. MISTAKE! It fixed the first problem which was getting rid of clutter. It fixed the second problem which was making a back-up of my registry. For the third problem, it indicated it would need to reboot my system and then it did(I had no input). It looked like it was rebooting but then a black dos looking screen came up that said across the top-CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! If you have a 64-bit system this will irreparably damage your hard-drive. If you have a 64-bit system or you don't know, type N below, remove the disk and reboot your system. I followed these directions and upon reboot another screen came up that said it was compressing software, etc.. After this screen disappeared, it acted as if windows was going to start but nothing came up but a black screen and my cursor. It will not even boot up in any of the safe modes.

Called customer support that immediately and reached a call center in India. I explained the situation to the gentlemen on the phone and he indicated that there was some type of conflict with my computer and the software and this caused the problem. He indicated that for an additional 200 dollars he may be able to resolve the problem. As you can only imagine when he said that I immediately saw nothing but red. He insisted that there was nothing wrong with the software and the problem was with my computer and he had never had a single problem with their software. I asked to speak with his supervisor. This gentlemen indicated that there was something wrong with my computer since I had purchased the software to begin with which again made me furious. I asked him if System Mechanic was designed for defective computers only or would it also help an already reasonably running computer run BETTER! The supervisor indicated it would help an already reasonably running computer run better. It was clear to me I would get no where with the call center and I also could barely understand what they were saying so I decided to call tech support the next day during normal business hours.

The next day I called tech support. The lady on the phone was very helpful and sympathized with my situation. She took all the information down about my make and model of computer and said someone would be contacting us with in 24 to 48 hours. Two days later no one from the company had called us so I called them back frustrated that no one had called me back. The person on the phone apologized and said that someone would call me back by the close of business pacific standard time (making it 7:00 PM my time). By 7:30 PM no one had called back me back as they had indicated they would.

The next day I called the tech support number in the afternoon after I got home from work. I immediately asked for a supervisor. The lady on the phone indicated there was no supervisors available and did not know when one would be available. I then called the customer support number and asked for a supervisor. The gentlemen on the phone indicated that no supervisors were available. I asked for the number for the corporate headquarters of the company and he indicated they did not have a phone number. I then said you mean there are no phones in the corporate headquarters? He indicated that the number I had called was the number for the corporate headquarters. I then said you mean to tell me there is no supervisor from customer service, or tech support available to which he replied no they are not available. I said how would you know you didn't even attempt to find out if they were available at which time he hung the phone up.

I have now been without my business desk top computer for 5 days and have got ZERO help from this company in resolving my problem. My computer worked PERFECTLY before I installed System Mechanic on the machine. I in the strongest of terms DONOT recommend this product or any product this company makes to anyone. I thought I was doing something to make my computer more efficient and ended up making the machine a worthless paper weight.

I wish I could rate in negative stars for this product. On AOL I got a pop-up message offering System Mechanic for 30 days for free with the promise that it would make my computer run faster. I gave them my information and downloaded it and it said I had several registry errors that it would correct. Whatever it did my computer shut down and would not start up again. When I called iolo technical support - it was like talking to one of the Three Stooges. After about ten minutes the tech told me he had other customers waiting and hung up. I tried to contact them again because I had given them my credit card info and they finally said they had nothing to do with billing. Finally I had to call AOL to get them to cancel the service so they wouldn't start charging me a monthly fee at the end of the 30 day free trial. If you are looking for a something to make your computer crash, you would be better off using a hammer then buying System Mechanic - it's cheaper and can do the same thing without all of the hassles and phone calls.

Take this as a WARNING!. This software has been plagued with bugs causing shutdown errors and disabling Wanted startup processes. If that is not bad enough, Customer support is Non existant. After 5 problem reports, Iolo doesn't even bother to respond.

How this product ever got Editors Coice Awards is suspect.

I have been using SM for nearly 5 years now. I first purchased it when my primary computer began acting sluggish -- it was in need of maintenance but I had no idea what. For me, SM was a god-send ... it breathed new life into an aging machine and allowed me to keep it up and running for 4 more years. I love the product so much that I've used the trial version on my elder parents' machines. I also use it on my DH's machine ... and he's an IT professional. I now have new machine, and one of my first installs was ... you guessed it, SM 9 for Win7.

That said, some words of advice when using SM.

--> Back-up your registry & system before the first install.
--> Check online for updates, especially after the first install.
--> Always, always, always back-up your system & registry before any major changes to you computer, including the ones that SM makes/suggests.
--> Don't use Active Care. Instead, use the individual tools or tool groups.
--> Make changes incrementally. Reboot after making a change & re-analyze for recommendations. Evaluate.
--> Before you make a change, do some research and understand a bit about what the change/fix is. Just because a program suggests a change/fix, doesn't mean that you should make it.
--> SM Standard is probably sufficient. I've previously owned SM Pro and never used the additional features. However, SM Pro is non-subscription pricing but SM Standard is yearly subscription (at least as of the last I checked).
--> Price the SM 3-PC license versions. I've found this to be one of the best values -- only problem, the clock on all the licenses starts ticking on the first install & activation.

That said, SM is a great all-in-one maintenance utility -- it's a worthwhile investment in your computer, and it just might improve your knowledge about PCs. That's what it's done for me.

Highly recommended!

I did a clean install of Windows 7 (and updates), MS Office, ESET NOD32, MailWasher Pro and Firefox.
Then I installed System Mechanic 10.5 and I defy anybody to explain this report:

PC Report - Problems Detected by System Mechanic®
Date of report: 9/20/2011 4:06:14 PM
Date of analysis: 9/20/2011 3:46:41 PM (Includes deep analysis results)
Machine name: LAPTOP-PC
Detected problems

The following issues are reducing your PC's performance, security, or stability:

Your computer has 3.62 GB of system clutter
Your computer has 656 registry problems
Your computer has 2 unnecessary startup items
Your computer has 13 repairable security vulnerabilities
Your Internet configuration is not optimized for maximum speed
Your system drive (C:) has 50,338 misaligned files (59.13 GB)
The registry has never been backed up
Your Tune-up Definitions are out of date

Before installing SM I created a restore point and this product digs it's claws in so deep even two restore point prior would still show registry entries of the product.

IMO, stay away from it.