Utility Programs

COMP1260 > System Software

Introduction A Utility Program (or System Program) is a small program, which is designed to perform a small task or a set of tasks that support the Operating System. Utility Programs let the end-user manage and tune the Operating System, Hardware, Software or Application Software. Most modern Operating Systems, such as Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Mac OS X have integrated utility programs.

...by students Do you need to use all of these programs? The short answer to this question is “Not really”. In my personal experience, the utility software is rarely used, with the exception of Anti-virus software and compressing utilities. The backup feature is useful only sometimes, as you rarely need to backup all of the data on your computer, and the files that you do need to backup can usually just be copied on an external hard drive or burned on a DVD. Defragmentation will only make a noticeable difference if your disk is really fragmented. It is good to defragment your hard drive once in a while if you install and uninstall a lot of programs, but in my experience setting a schedule to defragment every week or even month is a bit of overkill. Nowadays, with every computer having an Internet connection, you would want to have some kind of an Anti-virus program. However, the type of utility that I personally use all the time is a compression utility – WinRar. It’s very convenient, especially when working on a group project. You can use it to just compress the whole folder with all the files and send them to your group members, rather than attaching each file individually. It also decreases the file size, so it takes less time to upload and download. This makes it useful when creating backups as well.

Software

Backup and Restore

Although it is not used very often, Backup and Restore programs can be some of the most useful utilities. They allow you to create a copy of your data, (called a backup) which can be used to restore your information in case of a data loss. Since we have to copy all of the data we backup, there are considerable storage requirements. To save space, on your hard drive, your can store the backup on an external hard drive or on DVDs. This will also ensure that your data is safe if the hard drive on your computer crashes. All modern Operating Systems are packed with back-up utilities: Backup for Windows, Time Machine for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, etc.

To backup your data in Windows, you first need to open the Backup utility.

1. Go to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup.
2. Choose if you want to backup all the data of the computer, system state, or just selected files and folders, then click Next.
3. Choose the name and a destination for the backup file and click Next.

To restore the data, the process is almost the same.

1. Start up the Backup utility and choose restore.
2. Choose the backup file.
3. Choose the files you want to restore.

You can also schedule a backup to be performed regularly, by going to the Scheduling tab and setting up the time and dates when the backup should be performed.

Defragmentation

Another common utility program is Disk Defragmenter. This program can detect files that are not stored in one contiguous location on your hard drive. It uses this ability to move related files together in one location. This increases the efficiency of your hard drive by minimizing the time it takes to the reading head to the correct location on the disk. Consider a reading head on record player - if the songs we want to play are close together on the record, we don't have to move the head around very much to play the songs we would like to hear. If the songs are far apart, we have to move the head longer distances to play the same songs (which takes more time). Similarly, if parts of one file on a hard drive are stored in several different locations on the disk, the reading head has to jump around, which takes more time than reading a file continuously.

To open Disk Defragmenter in Windows:

1. Go to Start -> All programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Defragmenter.
2. Once there, click Analyze. Defragmenter will quickly check the disk and tell you if it needs defragmenting.
3. Click Defragment if you decide you would like to defragment your disk.

The defragmentation utility on Windows Vista supports scheduling, so you can set your computer to automatically defragment the disk at the time and day you choose.

Other utility programs

There are a lot of utility programs written to help the user manage and tune the computer. In Windows, the default Utility Programs are located in Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools, but there are many more programs available online.

Another backup utility that comes with Windows XP and Vista is System Restore (System Tools -> System Restore). It automatically creates restore points when you change system files (by installing new software, for example) and allows restoration of the system files to their previous state. You can also create restore points manually, which is a good idea to do before you perform any major changes to your system.

Virus Scanners – programs that scan the files on your computer and check if they are infected with viruses. In case a virus is found, the program can usually remove it. Most popular virus scanners are Norton, McAfee and AVG. Trend OfficeScan AntiVirus is also provided by U of M to all students via Softwarexpress.

Compression utilities – programs that can put one or multiple files into one file, while also compressing their size, thus saving space on a disk. Later on, when needed, you can extract the contents of the compressed file back. Most popular formats are Zip and Rar, and there are many utility programs available that work with these formats.

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