PC advice Needed

I'm not a fan of SSD's either.

Photoshop doesn't need a lot of cores see.....
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-Photoshop-CC-Multi-Core-Perform...

"Most actions in Photoshop are either single threaded or lightly threaded"

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This is a free program that cleans up PC Memory...
https://www.henrypp.org/product/memreduct

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Algi

Thanks for pointing that out, but the text on the linked page says "Application it is compatible with Windows XP SP3 and higher operating systems, but some general features available only since Windows Vista" and all our machines are on W7 or W10, and so it probably wouldn't be of too much use to me/us.

Also I have IOLO System Mechanic Pro running on all the Windows machines (for home use, you can put it on as many machines as you like for the same price!) and in "automatic" mode that does a fairly good job in the background of keeping the "debris", including memory, clean.

System Mechanic Pro may do a similar job. I only ever used it on an old XP machine not on my 64bit Windows 7 machine, because it's got loads of memory. It did used to clear up a lot of memory.

The description (because it's free software) doesn't look like it's been updated, but the top details give ... Supported OS: Windows XP (SP 3), Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10

There's a portable version which can be tried and deleted if of no use.

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System Mechanic Pro rendered my PC unbootable. Luckily I was able to roll it back.
The issue with it is it fiddled with the registry seemingly without knowing what it's doing! In general registry cleaners are best avoided.

I think that both hard drive fragmentation and registry bloating is a much smaller issue nowadays with the latest operating systems, so probably not worth worrying about, or at least only once a year or so.

I use ccleaner regularly, it’s free with an upgrade to pro level for a modest cost. Never had problems with wiping search history and temporary files, registry cleaning and defragging. Also secure disc wipe should you need that. Pro version is programmable to run in the background.

Having used System Mechanic Pro for about 4-5 yrs on a number of W7/W10 machines, I, luckily, have never had that problem.

The only real problem encountered was a netbook that just "stopped" after SM Pro loaded and showed an ad which would not clear - since that was "fixed" there have been no further problems, and SM Pro has enabled me to "resuscitate" a couple of machines that had slowed to a total crawl.

OTOH, the constant ads to "add more time" at a discount have bugged me on several machines - but there is a way of switching the ads off.

Overall, my view is that - balancing the "bad" against the "good" features - it is good value, especially if you can use the "many PC's for one subscription" feature (currently I have it on 7 PC's, one of which belongs to my stepdaughter who lives 10 miles away but which I have to "sort out" from time to time).

I tried several of these "clean-up" utilities over the years, with mixed results. Oddly, I'm now receiving daily emails from System Mechanic telling me my subscription will lapse unless I renew my payment details before August 30 2014. Haven't used it in years and no sign of direct debits. Mystery.

Apologies – can't find a way to edit the above post on my tablet. The program at the root of the mystery is Iolo System Checkup, not System Mechanic, although I've used both.

IIRC System Checkup is a cutdown version (and I thought it is now the free "taster" version) of System Mechanic -