The program slowed my computer, caused conflicts. How do I know? No conflicts or snail speed before I installed or after I took it out. Cleaning all the goop out of your computer helps a lot more than this program! It sure didn't work for me!!

I love the MemOptimizer program. It has help me solve problems with memory management on my PC. Will buy a copy for my laptop when I get it back.

Stupid fing. All what this tool do - allocate large memory block to force Windows dump all memory to the swap file.

I prefer Ccleaner for clearing out trash from the HDD, followed by a defrag with Diskeeper to organize the files. Then a scan by a couple of malware scanners to round off the afternoon. Anything more is just overkill; all these funny registry cleaners and 'optimizers' are too dangerous to use: you may end up breaking your windows install. RAM 'optimizers' are merely snake-oil.

BTW, to the poster a few posts above; Perfectdisk is an unstable program and a real leech when it comes to using resources. It did not get along with the windows screensaver on my machine and had a bad habit of freezing for a few seconds at a time for no apparent reason, so I uninstalled it after a few runs. It also takes way too long to defrag, and I detect no noticeable performance improvement from it's file placement. It's not for me; I'll stick with Diskeeper which is fast, light on resources and solidly stable.

Also, FYI: it's not the only 'Vista certified' defragger...the previous version of diskeeper was also vista certified. The current version also has VSS compatibility.

DO NOT USE THIS ONE: WARNING, Hardly optimises anything,will SLOW your computer to a crawl whatever system you have. My XP slowed down more than 80% after the download and no improvement at all- avoid!

Surprised Giveaway not testing anything and letting these "B" (BAD) programs slip out, will dump this site as I have tried other programs and all but one-Glary Utilities has proven anything worthwhile to keep. Disappointed in Giveaway no matter what their marketing rationale-be careful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@78:

>>"I am running the program right now, and I say you should ignore some of the previous posters, this program is VERY USEFUL!!! I accidently left Firefox running this morning with a dozen tabs. Normally my machine would have slowed to a crawl from Firefox memory leaks and I’d have had to use process explorer to kill Firefox. Instead I found my machine to be snappy and responsive. This program HELPS WITH FIREFOX MEMORY LEAKS!!!

It also has a nice built in task manager for quick-kill of unresponsive programs,a built in “boost program” which will try to clear some memory before you launch the program you specify, and while I normally would say to just “let Windows handle it” and do on my non Internet machines, Firefox is just to lousy with memory management when left to its own(and I love my extensions too much to give up FF)."<<




I don't understand why FF runs so slow for you *unless* you have a really old system. I regularly have a dozen firefox tabs open. And with only 512 RAM, and still running a Pentium 4 too....and no problems with slowing. Maybe you have bloatware/spyware/virus issues; it seems weird?

Gotta 2nd the poster who mentioned the dreaded Norton Security...my pc was very much slowed before I got wise and completely removed it (a major undertaking in itself lol)

Excellent. I am using 2kpro on a 7 yo dell inspiron 2500. I use it for business and research. Any little improvement in speed is welcome. By necessity I have to use several kinds of programs, many files open. This has made a noticeable improvement. As far as Vista, spare me!

Peace

Paul Glynn

Pointstone Thanks for commenting and reading comments about the application.

#79, Observant, what version of Windows are you running that doesn't have at least IE 4? I had to hunt around on the website for Web Fragmentation Analyzer, I never use marketing tools. You can analyze your disk with the Windows defragmenter, although in XP the fragmentation numbers are off by an order of magnitude (probably the fault of the Diskeeper morons who supplied the code rather than the Microsoft morons). Absolutely the only way to find out what sort of an improvement you would gain by fully defragmenting your disks is to download trial software and defragment them. The major defragmenters all use different algorithms; personally, I think PerfectDisk has the best overall in terms of balancing optimal layout versus optimal re-defragmentation performance, free-space consolidation, a long track record of outstanding quality, by far the best at defragmenting when there is very little free space, very low resource utilization, the only Microsoft-certified disk defragmenter for Vista (and has been for a long time), and the best value. You could also check out O&O Software's O&O Defrag, http://www.oo-software.com/ . I have nothing good to say about Diskeeper, but you can try it if you want to. As far as I'm concerned, other brands don't even qualify (nothing can brick your computer and trash your data faster than a defective disk defragmenter). Because the different brands use different placement algorithms, the initial defragmentation can take a very long time, even if you defragmented your drive with another product. I initially recommend full defragmentation, then offline system files defragmentation, then another full defragmentation, in order to get your drives fully defragmented and the files placed in accordance with the algorithms that the product uses. After that, you can just do scheduled defrags (except Diskeeper, which runs all the time), with occasional offline defrags. In general, you won't get a good idea of how long a typical defrag will take until the third defrag (the initial defrag can be extremely long, the second can be somewhat long). The magazine reviews are biased (in favor of advertisers) and useless; no review that I have ever read (no matter which defragmenter if favors) has setup a test that's anywhere near what you would encounter with long-term use of a particular product, with partition sizes and data which are anything like what you have on your computer. Performance is what you observe, it's not some silly tables, graphs, and numbers which the marketing morons at each company force the coders to put into each product.

#70, Fubar, raxco.com says:

"We're Sorry!
The Raxco Web Fragmentation Analyzer requires the use of Microsoft Internet Explorer V4.x or higher as well as JavaScript to be enabled"

Thanks, but no thanks!

Well ive tried this version as well as the Glary Utilities version and others, and i cant see any noticeable improvement. The memory recovery was so miniscule, it simply made no sense to keep. If fact i think Windows was doing a better job of keeping "Free" ram.
Sorry. It may have an impact on those with smaller ram, but i have plenty to spare.

I am running the program right now, and I say you should ignore some of the previous posters, this program is VERY USEFUL!!! I accidently left Firefox running this morning with a dozen tabs. Normally my machine would have slowed to a crawl from Firefox memory leaks and I'd have had to use process explorer to kill Firefox. Instead I found my machine to be snappy and responsive. This program HELPS WITH FIREFOX MEMORY LEAKS!!!

It also has a nice built in task manager for quick-kill of unresponsive programs,a built in "boost program" which will try to clear some memory before you launch the program you specify, and while I normally would say to just "let Windows handle it" and do on my non Internet machines, Firefox is just to lousy with memory management when left to its own(and I love my extensions too much to give up FF).

I have tried Glary Utilities(Thanks GAOTD!) and have the previous memory cleaner also(Thanks again!) and while Glary is good for cleaning temp files, neither of the two previous mentioned memory cleaners holds a candle to this one. I repeat THIS HELPS WITH FIREFOX MEMORY LEAKS!!! Thanks GAOTD, and keep the excellent programs coming.

Now,if you could get the full version of Xplorer2(hint,hint) I would be a VERY happy camper,LOL!Either way,thanks again GAOTD for the wonderful program and I can't wait to see what you and your sister site have tomorrow.

#8, #1, good job. Very funny. :)

But yeah, memory optimisers are mostly useless.

Paolo I just read your post and to me it sounds like a lot of marketing bs from Pointstone in order to help sell their crappy software. It is definately not worth the $19.95 they sell it for. For little more than that you can buy more RAM...


BTW I am a registered user of Pointstone's program System Cleaner 5 and have found it to be very buggy.

Hey it work great for me. Speeded up my XP in no time. Prevented crashes as far as I can tell. Like I said great!

I agree in part that swapping memory to disk would increase the performance of the machine. I use MemTurbo. Although it is not a freeware, it does other things too. Three things are needed for performance: 1. the memory needs to be defrag. The fragmentation of memory can cause the "out of memory" errors. It condenses the used memory so the remaining memory can be used by other application. This has always been a problem with computers. 2. The point already taken above is "memory leaks". If this application free up these memory leaks, this, too, would enhance the performance of the PC and help make it faster. 3. Moving memory to the swap file is good to a point. I know that constantly moving data from the swap file and to / from memory is a performance issue. This will slow the PC some. There needs to be a balance of how much you move to the swap file. Some utilities like MemTurbo can help.

I have a PC with 2.5Gb of memory, so the memory issue is not a problem. Increasing the memory to at least 1Gb would greatly increase performance too. Also mentioned is to delete the "temp" files. After that, defrag the hard drive. This is obvious to most, but I mention it for the ones using this application think that just this application would help them. Only after doing that would this application help.


I choose not to install this application, since I already have an application I am comfortable using.

What are blaming people speaking about? Too well informed already to spend time and go to the publisher homepage and read how the program works? The problems addressed are real and the proposed solution consistent and effective. Personally I got sound performace boost and no problems so far on a RAM constrained Windows XP.

Quote from http://www.pointstone.com/products/MemOptimizer/keyfeatures.asp

MemOptimizer™ strives to increase your system performance by performing four critical functions:

* Defragmenting your physical RAM. By defragmenting your physical RAM, the layout of your virtual memory more closely matches the layout of your physical memory. This increases your memory cache hit rate and improves locality of reference for data, thereby increasing the efficiency of the L1 and L2 caches present on your processor or motherboard.
* Increasing the amount of RAM available. MemOptimizer™ attempts to reclaim RAM from the operating system and applications, so that when the application you are currently using needs memory, it is readily available. This avoids costly swap file access and paging, decreases load time and improves application performance.

* Recovering memory leaks. By recovering memory that was allocated and forgotten (leaked) by the operating system and poorly behaved applications, MemOptimizer™ can increase the amount of both physical and virtual memory available for use.
* Flushing unused libraries and DLLs. Many applications and portions of the operating system load libraries that are infrequently used or not used at all; to improve performance, MemOptimizer™ safely flushes these DLLs and libraries out to the system paging file, freeing up the RAM normally used by them. While in this state, they are immediately and transparently reloaded if needed.

When there are so many better memory optimisers on the web, why go for one that's so basic and overpriced?

My reccomendation is to use FreeRAM XP Pro. It supports all Windows versions except Vista and it's freeware. It's features include: Automatic Freeing of ram after a given amount of time or at a certain usage, manual freeing, creation of shortcuts that free resources BEFORE running the program, and Restart/Shutdown options for when the normal ones don't work. FreeRAM XP Pro was given a top rating of 5 out of 5 by Download.com, so what have you got to use?

Just a warning though: DO NOT use the "Force Restart" or "Force Shutdown" options provided in the Tools Menu. These do NOT use the safe method for shutting down the computer, so they CAN damage the data on it (I did this once, and it corrupted my registry and made my computer unusable). There is no warranty for this product, so be careful how you use it.

#6, zhuk, the article you quoted contains numerous technical errors and inaccuracies, but the conclusion is correct.
#34, Phil, your comments are also filled with numerous technical errors and inaccuracies.

Instead of useless RAM optimizers, see my comments about MemoryCleaner and virtual memory optimization (especially for Windows XP):
http://forum.bladedthoth.com/viewtopic.php?p=192#192

#14, Sudo Machi, there are several reasons why PC's slow down as programs are added. The applications may add running processes. If you don't need them to run all the time, most programs can be configured not to start with Windows. You can also use Microsoft AutoRuns to stop unnecessary processes from running:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/autoruns.mspx
As you add more data to a hard disk, several things happen. Average access times increase, simply because there's more data to seek across. Windows (at least XP and up) starts more slowly, because it checks the disk file structures, and there's more to check. Most high-capacity drives experience a significant performance drop as the drives fill (depending upon data layout algorithms). Hard drives are constant angular velocity devices. Linear velocity is much higher on the outer tracks/cylinders than the inner tracks/cylinders. In order to maximize storage capacity, the drives attempt to maintain similar data density across the platters. So there are more sectors per track/cylinder and data transfer rates are higher on the outer tracks/cylinders than the inner ones. Additionally, this results in more track-to-track seeks on the inner cylinders due to their lower capacity. Most drives fill from the outside cylinders to the inside cylinders, so performance drops significantly as the drive fills. Additionally, data fragmentation is a problem--not just general file fragmentation, but page files, directories, etc. Windows' disk defragmenter is poor. The one and only disk defragmenter I recommend is Raxco PerfectDisk:
http://raxco.com/
For home users, it's $40, but there are frequent promotions (check the website and subscribe to the newsletter), and a free trial is available. I don't recommend the Rx Suite, unless you buy it bundled with the full version of PerfectDisk, since the Rx Suite's defragmenter is a stripped-down version. PerfectDisk can be configured to defragment system files offline.

I installed this last night and didnt know how to use it. This morning it has already saved me 73MB. Computer seems to be running alot better than before. Still trying to work out what all the buttons works for.

I still dont know how to use as per my question back and #27.

Thanks GOTD.

Using a memory optimizer is NEVER a substitute for extra memory - reading zhuks comments explain why.

Unfortunately a lot of people here a missing the point - if you can't add extra memory to your system, there should be no need to use garbage like this.

There is no need to use memory optimizers on XP or Vista due to better memory management compared to previous versions of windows. Even on windows 98 and earlier a memory manager proabably won't be of much help.

This quote comes from the home page of RAMpage which is a free memory optimizer:

"Under some circumstances, freeing memory may improve the stability of Windows 95, and possibly also Windows 98 and ME. In theory, RAMpage shouldn't make any difference on Windows NT, 2000 or XP, though I have had some reports that suggest it helps."

Since RAMpage a free program the developer has no need to make false claims about their program in order to sell copies...


There is one memory optimizer which I do like however. IoBit SmartRAM. This seems to use SetProcessWorkingSetSize API and when using its smart ram compression it gets running programs to free up unused allocated ram rather than just allocating a large block of ram which 99% of memory optimizer do. Also it is free.

http://www.iobit.com/files/beta/SmartRAM.exe

It is only a beta version at the moment.

There's one simple reason for RAM optimizer not remotely being as efficient as they claim to be.
We have to read the term RAM other than normally used.
In the context of memory optimizing it's NOT the random access memory but instead the Ripped off Amount (of) Money. :)

TIP: you want to clean your memory? simple, reboot your computer.

Thanks but no thanks.
My PCs are running rather nicely and I will keep it that way using the procedures as written in the toturial of the computer you are using. Follow that and WHA-LA the PC is running quickly again. Takes only a few minutes to do and no worry of downloading a software program and it's possible bad side effects.

Thank you anyway, GAOTD

Aww come on, 20 USD for this! are the developers that hard up that they need to pretend that its a wonderful program?
The only thing it manages to do is waste everybodies time!!!!

ha-ha-ha
yet another memory optimizer.

do not install this crap! ^)

#39. As for this company knowing more about memory then Microsoft, given Microsoft problems with secuity I would bet they do know more the Micrsoft.

#47
Having installed .net for instance, your computer will show a high activity for a long time.
(depending on how much programs you are running)
This command (%windir%\system32\rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks) will shorten this period.

Ram optimizers area totally different thing.They force all possible pages in RAM to the page file.
:-)

Nice hint jim! (@58)


@51 (thomas)

Well i can't take the credit for that cut-n-paste expose of the ol' memory optimizer hoax....not my words!


Give your thanks to Jeremy Collake at bitsum technologies instead ;)

Installed it, and it doesn't seem to improve anything. Worse, after about 5 hours of not really doing anything on my laptop, the program flakes out and crashes, giving me a repeating error box that wouldn't go away until I killed the procress(I'm in XP).

Fail.

Nowadays, the solution is simply more RAM and a fixed size paging file to avoid disk thrashing. For more RAM, go buy it. For the fixed size paging file(XP):
1. R-Click My Computer and choose Properties from the context menu
2. choose the Advanced tab
3. click on the Perfomance Settings button
4. go to the Advanced tab
5. click the Change button under Virtual Memory
6. set both the Initial and Maximum size to the Recommended size listed below, which should be 150% (IE 1.5 times) the amount of actual RAM you have installed
7. Click the Set button, and click OK all the way back out

If you have slowdown issues, open the task manager(Ctrl-Shift-Esc), go to the Performance tab, and check the PF Usage. If it's more than the amount of RAM that you have, you need to close programs or buy more RAM to match your program workload.

That's it - no optimizer program necessary.

Hey - this worked great. I was a bit skeptical at first until I read some of the reviews. It helped in making my computer much faster. It out performed a program I already have from MSI. THNX GAOTD.

If your pc is running slow, cleaning out your registry, removing spyware, temp files, and preventing unnecessary programs from starting on windows startup will do wonders for you.

Use http://www.ccleaner.com/ CCleaner to clean out your registry, temp files (It removed 3.5gb of temp files for me), and spyware.

Couple that with Spybot Search and Destroy http://www.spybot.net/en/spybotsd/index.html, Adaware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad_aware_free.php, and AVG's free spyware removal program http://free.grisoft.com/doc/download-free-anti-spyware/us/frt/0 which also allows you to remove starting processes and your pc will run much faster. Running a virus scan never hurts either.. and you can find one free from AVG.

Wow, not another RAM "optimizier".
When will people understand that the only way to optimize the RAM is to BUY some more?

# 14 says "Since installing many of the fine GIveAwayOfTheDay programs, my PC started SLOWING down incrediblty… Does anyone have any suggestions of how to improve this? I tried Glary utilities, MemOptimizer etc… any “real gooed suggestions? TX."

.....................................................................
I strongly suggest you uninstall almost ALL of the "utilities" and programs you have loaded on your machine.
The 2 biggest reasons that a computer slows down are - 1) corrupted registry and 2) not ebough hard drive space
If you don't have at least 15% free on your hdd - it's time to do some house cleaning and/or buy a bigger hard drive.

Hope that helps.

maybe some of you guys don´t know but with vista u are able to plug in a usb memory stick (if the memory is fast enough) and configure windows to use this additional memory as part of the system,I am not sure, maybe this is only available for vista premium and above, but a 2 gig memory stick is pretty cheap these days,certainly something worth playing around with,I read about it a while ago but forgot until just now.

Once again, I recommand RAMpage (freeware) because it works well for me:
http://www.jfitz.com/software/RAMpage/

Wow, holy smokes!
Thanks zhuk! I am soooo glad I read your review, or I think I would have probably downloaded this. You ever considered coming on here permanently? You are like way smart man! lol
you could save everyone ALOT of problems on here. Thanks for the review, and making it so clear. Have an awesome day!

To 4. "#

RAM optimizers are notorious for crashing systems. They cause chaching problems, cause excessive interrupts, and slow down vital system processes.

Need more RAM? Ebay has 128mg for $15."

There are problem; what if computer have ram limit? My laptop have 96mt ram limit, so I cannot put more ram to it, and I not have any money to buy new... So stfu

The only proper way to solve RAM related performance problems is to buy more RAM and restart your machine once a day if you have programs that aren't behaving like they should. These programs are garbage.

This is great for a computer which has RD RAM. a pair of 512 (1GB) sticks costs around $200 unless going on ebay and buying a used pair.

Does anyone know how this program differs from the Windows command:
'%windir%\system32\rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks' ?

This is the same thing as tweek ram, and neither one do what they say that they are supposed to do. There are much better ways to free up your memory than using things like these. I am not even wasting my time downloading this one. Next please.

"Dr. Greenthumb" (#31): Don't blame Pointstone just because you were fired for snapping your carrot to the sound of porn when you should have been working.

If anything, this programme puts the brakes on, no acceleration at all.

Here's a VERY effective similar Utility, preceeded by it's Website's description:
"It is different than most if not all memory
cleaners out there for a couple of reasons...it doesn't remain resident(!). Start it, it'll do its job and then it's done, execution ends."

Brilliantly simple! :-) How can you beat that, good folks at Pointstone? Wouldn't THAT feature seem an essential Option in yours, perhaps? After all, how often does one really need to "free" ram in a session, in modern computers?

Review it at: http://88.191.26.34/computers_are_fun/sweepram/

Great day!

I had no problem with the install and it is automatically registered to GAOTD.

When the overview window is open, it looks strikingly like the Windows Task Manager performance screen (not like the cute little speedometer shown). I tried to find other skins on the pointstone website but couldn't. In fact, there was no mention of MemOptimizer there either. It's probably totally discontinued.

It seems to do as it promises and clears pysical and virtual memory but most of the other options available in MemOptimizer are the same as those in Windows Task Manager. When I tried to end or kill a running process, it wouldn't work with MemOpt and gave an error message but worked flawlessly with the Windows Task Manager.


One nice thing though, when I uninstalled it I discovered that it is one of those applications where the company offers you a free full version just so they wont lose you as a customer. So if you really like it after today, just download and install the trial version and uninstall it. Doing that will pop you right into the pointstone screen with that offer. By the way this is how I got a full no cost version of RoboForm Pro.

Thanks James(# 29). I was intrigued by your comment about the Instant Memory Cleaner you mention (Vasilios Software) and have tried it out under XP. It does wonders! (Memory consumption instantly reduced from 54% to 29% : I can hardly believe it.) Great site (http://www.vasileios.gr/freesoft/index.html), by the way. I am in no way knocking GAOTD or the product they are giving out today, just letting everyone know.

We would like to thank for all the feedback posted so far, keep it coming. We will be looking at all the comments posted to further improve MemOptimizer in the future.

Also, if you have any suggestions you would like to make privately feel free to contact us directly.

Comment #1 is not possible! These types of programs were useful in DOS when computers had 1 MB of memory or less and couldn't even use all of that without an added memory manager. Today most computers have 1,000 to 4,000 times that amount of memory. For Windows they are useless at best and harmful at worst. These guys somehow know more about managing memory than Microsoft? Yeah, right!

To #31, we welcome all suggestions, good or bad, and criticism about our products but calling us liars is stretching it.

We make no claim about Total Privacy protecting from proxy servers. All the program features are well described and everyone is welcome to try it for free for 15 days to see if it fits it's needs. The fact that some big companies purchased site licenses and are even looking at a Corporate version that runs as a service seems to indicate that the way we positioned Total Privacy (personal and corporate privacy protection) is indeed how the users see it.