Could you comment on the use of computer tune-up utilities, such as those suggested when doing internet searches in Google? Do these utilities serve a useful purpose to improve and maintain the performance of my computer? I am using Windows XP.

When searching Google (or other search engines) for a computer problem you will almost always see advertisements down the right-hand side and along the top for various computer tune-up utilities. These utilities promise the world, ranging from fixing registry problems to making the computer run faster. Most of these utilities will scan your computer for free but then require you to purchase the full software (for around $50) to fix the identified problems. In my experience these programs are not useful and generally cause more problems than they solve. As an example, many registry cleaning programs go overboard and remove registry entries which are required causing serious significant problems. On the other hand, many other utilities don’t do anything really at all and are simply a waste of money. If you are experiencing computer problems or errors it is fairly unlikely that these utilities will solve the problem. As such, I always recommend that sensible manual computer maintenance is always better than these attempted “quick-fixes”. As a rule of thumb, run regular antivirus and anti-malware scans, be careful as to what software you install, and keep the computer neat (e.g. uninstalling programs you don’t require, keeping the system and programs up-to-date). These will result in much better long term computer performance than these utilities can provide.