I uninstalled a previous GAOTD version, TweakRAM 5.8 Build 10.13, to install this newer one on my Windows ME system. This was a mistake, a step backwards! At least the previous version, which displayed the wrong memory and cpu usage among other issues, would at least run “politely”.

Upon launching this new version I got a never-ending series of identical windows titled “TweakRAM – application error”:

“Access violation at address 70042B14. Read of address 70042B14.”

They popped up about once a second, so I could not successfully click on the “close” button of the main application window to exit it. Eventually I had to terminate it (CTRL-ALT-DEL).

The same thing happened even after restarting, then stripping the system down to the minimum number of processes before launching TweakRAM 6.2.

I tried uninstalling it, rebooting, re-installing, but had the same result (again, on a minimal-loaded system, no anti-virus running or other non-essentials running).

I guess I can live without it…

Time and time again I could find actual linked to reviews of good freeware and open source software, with actual awards even, but almost never their was a linked to review on all those sharewares that claim to have won multiple awards.

In most cases those shareware creators only show the logo and don’t even provide an actual link to even the homepage of the ‘award’ giving site. Which means that it doesn’t even work as a traffic enhancement scheme for those sites that are so free with giving out ‘awards’.

This program is unneeded for 90% of the users. It isn’t worth it’s money. In short : over valued crap.

I would like to say though that apps like today’s offering are not at all useless.

In PCs with very low memory (especially older PCs with their RAM maxed out — so buying more RAM is not an option), having something like this running that periodically frees up RAM when the PC is idle does help.

How?

When this app forces Windows to free some memory now (which will offload the oldest-used memory blocks of oldest-used programs (or those that are minimized) to virtual memory (the pagefile)), Windows won’t have to do it later when you run a large program (like a video game).

Note though, the benefit is negated if you switch to the other program and need those memory blocks back. In my experience, observing people, this seldom happens.

If you have lots of RAM (e.g., Vista with 3GB, XP with 640Mb, Win98 with 384Mb), this app won’t help because the delays come from accessing the hard drive. What you want to do is to tune your file cache — apps like Cacheman, O&O CleverCache and Russinovich’s CacheSet do this for you. (I haven’t heard of any “File Cache Optimization Hoax” articles going around. :))