Dr. Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit is a healthy dose of preventive medicine that will help keep your Windows 95 system free of crippling-or even just plain annoying-viruses. This cure-all kit has several components, including WinGuard, which you can set to run at Win95's startup. WinGuard lurks in the background and checks the health of files as you access them. You can also manually run a virus check from Dr. Solomon's dialog box and scan any drive-including your floppy-for more than 9,800 known malicious critters.
The good doctor also provides an online encyclopedia of about 300 common viruses. It's interesting reading in itself, and when Dr. Solomon nabs a nasty before it can put the hurt on your hard disk, you can look it up and see what peril you just escaped. Besides a description of each bug's evil intent, the encyclopedia explains how it works and if there are any known variations.
A Scheduler lets you set up regular scans that will kick off without your intervention. And if your reading preferences tend toward hexadecimal, you can select Inspect from the Advanced menu and peer into the darkest recesses of a file or disk.
Dr. Solomon's past releases have been effective vaccinations against destructive viruses. With the amount of downloading and file swapping we do these days, the need for effective detection is greater than ever.
Dr. Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows 95
Price: $125
Pros: Ease of use
Cons: None significant
Platforms: Windows 3.x, 95
Dr. Solomon's Software
888-DR-SOLOMON, 617-273-7400
WinMag Box Score 5
As you ring out your old apps and ring in new Win95 versions, CleanSweep makes it easy to clear the clutter and keep your system up-to-date. The tabs in CleanSweep 95's dialog box divvy up its functions clearly.
From the Program tab, you can delete, archive, back up and move files, or transport them to other computers. The Cleanup tab scours your system by finding duplicate and orphan files, redundant DLLs and infrequently used files. You can use Restore to fetch files you've backed up, moved or transported, while View lets you look at logs to see just what you've done.
Wizards lead the way. For example, when you uninstall a program, you click your way through steps that include suggestions for using CleanSweep effectively-and safely. Just before your final click, CleanSweep stops for confirmation and tells you how much space you'll gain.
CleanSweep 95
Price: $29.95
Pros: Tabbed interface; step-by-step guidance
Cons: None significant
Platforms: Windows 3.x, 95, NT
Disk Space: 2MB
RAM: 4MB
Quarterdeck Corp.
800-354-3222, 310-309-3700
WinMag Box Score 4
Keyboard Express, a keyboard macro utility, can put you in the express lane to working more efficiently. The program lets you substitute a couple of hotkeys for a series of keystrokes, and also lets you edit your keystrokes within the macro. You can define 288 hotkeys of up to 5,000 keystrokes apiece, although you won't be able to use any hotkey combinations already employed by your applications' shortcut keys.
You can capture strokes as you type or enter key presses directly. If you make a mistake during a macro recording session, simply finish the macro, then edit. Keyboard Express' editor has its own shortcuts for commonly used keys.
Keyboard Express won't respond to mouse movements.
Keyboard Express 1.1
Price: $24.95
Pros: Editable macros
Cons: Doesn't capture mouse movements
Platforms: Windows 3.x, 95
Disk Space: 765KB
RAM: 4MB
Insight Software Solutions
801-295-1890, fax 801-299-1781
WinMag Box Score 4
Seagate Backup for Windows 95 includes the features that Windows 95's Backup applet lacks and that Windows 3.x backup programs simply can't handle. It fills Win95's backup gaps with features such as Registry backup and support for a variety of tape units, and it's not flustered by the long filenames that trip up Win 3.x backups.
The program provides two equally easy ways of selecting files to back up. You can use the Backup Wizard, or manually select drives, directories and files (modified or normal) by clicking on check marks in an Explorer-like hierarchical tree display. You can either run your backup immediately or queue it up for later execution using the program's scheduler. The scheduler lets you set times for regular unattended backups and define backup parameters such as "all files in the Document directory" or "all files on drive C."
Seagate Backup supports a range of backup devices-including parallel, SCSI and floppies-but does not work with older QIC 40 devices. The program doesn't recognize existing backup sets when adding new files to a tape because the software uses a different catalog system.
Seagate Backup 1.1 for Windows 95
Price: $99
Pros: Installation; performance
Cons: No QIC 40 support
Platforms: Windows 95
Disk Space: 2MB
RAM: 8MB
Seagate Software
800-327-2232, 407-333-7500
WinMag Box Score 4.5
Zipping-the compression of a group of files- can reduce online time and save money. But to many people, zipping is a tough new experience, with incomplete or difficult-to-use utilities. MicroHelp Zip brings drag-and-drop simplicity to the zip world, and it's a pleasure to use.
MicroHelp builds in many of the most popular zip tools, such as the ability to create multi-disk zipped files or self-extracting files that can be expanded by simply double-clicking on the file itself. The package offers File Manager/Explorer-like management in the lower half of a resizable window; click on the folder, and the program displays the list of files. You create zipped archives by selecting files and then dragging them to the Archive View in the upper pane.
In addition to converting .TAR, G-zipped .TAR and .LZH files, there's support for UUencode and UUdecode, all of which makes files from most any system easily readable. You only have to extract the files you need, not the entire archive.
MicroHelp Zip
Price: $29.95
Pros: Ease of use
Cons: None significant
Platforms: Windows 3.x, 95
Disk Space: 780KB
RAM: 4MB
MicroHelp
800-777-3322, 770-516-0899
WinMag Box Score 4.5
KEYview is something like Windows 95's Quick View on steroids. It's a tremendously powerful utility that not only lets you preview just about every file format around, but allows you to compress, encode or decode, format-convert and mail files.
Both 16- and 32-bit versions of KEYview come in the same box, and the 32-bit version runs on Windows 95 and NT indiscriminately. Once installed, the program doesn't visibly change the way you work in Windows-until you right-click on a document icon. Then two new context menu items appear: View With KEYview, which opens the clicked document in KEYview's multiple-format viewer; and KEYview Utilities.
KEYview isn't restricted to text documents-it also supports viewing QuickTime, .AVI, .MPG, .WAV and MIDI files. The program also integrates itself seamlessly with many other programs.
KEYview 5.0
Price: $49.95
Pros: Integrates with many common apps; powerful features for Internet users
Cons: Almost too much to use at once
Platforms: Windows 3.x, 95, NT
Disk Space: 8MB
RAM: 8MB
FTP Software
800-282-4FTP, 508-685-4000
WinMag Box Score 4.5
Windows drivers for color ink jet printers are, to put it politely, mediocre. Substitute those found in LaserTools' ColorFast, and you'll have far more control over the quality and speed of your color output.
ColorFast will speed printer performance, although our tests showed the degree of improvement depends on the model of printer, file type and settings you've chosen. A Hewlett-Packard 660C printed an average of 20 percent faster with ColorFast drivers.
What's really stunning about a ColorFast upgrade is the print-quality improvement; reds are truer, for example. ColorFast also resolves detail-dropping, a common Win95 printer deficiency.
ColorFast's vastly superior color printing has a downside, however. It doesn't do nearly as well with monochrome output such as business-letter text.
ColorFast 1.0
Price: $40
Pros: Improves output detail and color
Cons: May slightly degrade monochrome output; speed enhancement varies
Platforms: Windows 3.x, 95
Disk Space: 200KB
LaserTools Corp.
510-420-1319, fax 510-420-1150
WinMag Box Score 4
Kurzweil's Voice 2.0 makes it possible to "speak" your text faster and-most important-more accurately than you can input it on a keyboard.
The best results come after you "enroll" the system, training it to recognize your own speech. After enrollment, the software will compile your speaker profile, which took about an hour on an AST Pentium 200. The program learns as you dictate.
You give system commands using continuous dictation, without pauses between words. To put text on the screen, you add a sharp, short pause between each word-"as.if.they.were.separated.by.periods."
As you speak into the microphone, Kurzweil Voice displays your words in a small window. It offers numbered suggestions for sounds it doesn't understand.
There are dozens of commands to simulate keys or move around an application, too: "Enter key," "down arrow" and "page down" do just what you'd expect. "Open Word" starts the app and opens a new document. Kurzweil's controls remain the same in any application, and support for more than two dozen apps comes right in the box "Get.ready.Start.talking."
Kurzweil Voice 2.0
Price: $695; upgrade, $295
Pros: Excellent recognition
Cons: Less forgiving of soft or slurred speech
Platforms: Windows 3.x, 95
Disk Space: 35MB
RAM: 16MB for 30,000-word vocabulary; 24MB for 60,000 words
Kurzweil Applied Intelligence
800-380-1234, 617-893-5151
WinMag Box Score 4.5
PowerDesk organizes your work tools and puts them on your Desktop within easy reach of a mouse click. You can integrate the PowerDesk toolbar with Windows 95's taskbar or use it as a separate window on your desktop.
System monitors watch CPU usage, threads, available memory and available disk space, plus system, user and GDI resources. You can specify how often you want the monitors updated and display them as bars or moving graphs.
PowerDesk's multi-view feature lets you switch among up to 16 virtual screens, which you customize by adjusting their color and size, hotkeys and applications. System shortcuts to shut down or restart your computer, restart Windows, log on as another user or change screen resolution can also be added to the toolbar. It's even possible to display up to seven clocks set for different time zones.
PowerDesk 1.1
Price: $49.95
Pros: Multi-window access
Cons: None significant
Platforms: Windows 95
MicroHelp
800-777-3322, 770-516-0899
WinMag Box Score 4.5
We tested the MouseWorks productivity-enhancing utility with Kensington's Expert Mouse, which is actually a large trackball with four buttons. The two-button Kensington Mouse and four-button Kensington Thinking Mouse also work with MouseWorks.
You can assign a nearly limitless range of options to any of the four buttons and combinations of the lower two buttons. It's possible to set MouseWorks so that when you click a button, a predefined string of keystrokes is entered (such as your name and address). A button can also simulate a combination of mouse buttons and keystrokes, such as Shift+click.
A particularly neat trick is saving in a file the actions you define for the buttons. Thus, you can set operations for specific applications and then switch between definition files accordingly.
Kensington Expert Mouse/MouseWorks
Price: Ships with Kensington 2- and 4-button mice; upgrade free via the Web; diskette,
$19.95
Pros: Ease of use; features
Cons: Only for Kensington mice
Platforms: Windows 3.x, 95
Kensington Technology Group
800-535-4242, 415-572-2700
WinMag Box Score 4.5