Ashampoo WinOptimizer 17 – Windows Optimization and Maintenance

Ashampoo WinOptimizer 17 is a program for cleaning and optimizing the Windows operating system, improving computer performance, consisting of a large number of tools. This is a kind of “Swiss army knife”, which has everything you need to optimize your PC.

During operation, a large amount of unnecessary data accumulates in the Windows operating system, applications and the system change confidentiality and privacy settings, and computer performance drops. The user needs to take action to bring Windows to an optimal state for comfortable work on the computer.

There are two ways to maintain the performance of a PC: regular self-maintenance of the system or the use of a specialized application that will help the user optimize the system. One such program is Ashampoo WinOptimizer, a powerful application for maintaining and maintaining Windows in the proper order.

Key Features of Ashampoo WinOptimizer 17

Ashampoo WinOptimizer 17 contains 38 modules that analyze the operating system, change Windows settings, system privacy and security settings, and optimize computer performance. The program performs optimization and cleaning automatically, or manually when the user independently launches the program or the corresponding tool in the application.

Key features of Ashampoo WinOptimizer 17:

• Clean up and remove junk files from PC.
• Windows optimization.
• Support for secure boot.
• Scheduler for system maintenance and optimization.
• 38 modules that solve various tasks on the computer.
• Removing unnecessary programs.
• System status monitoring.
• Search for hidden data streams in ADS-scanner.
• Earlier warning about possible failures.
• Privacy protection.
• Automatic system optimization with one click.

Ashampoo WinOptimizer 17 can be downloaded from the official website of the German company Ashampoo (paid application). After the installation is complete, run the program on your computer, Ashampoo WinOptimizer works in Russian.

Ashampoo WinOptimizer 17 Interface

Ashampoo WinOptimizer 17 main window displays 8 main computer optimization tools:

• Browser Traces – Clear browsing data.
• Unnecessary Registry Entries – Find and remove empty registry values.
• Junk files – delete unnecessary, junk data.
• Broken Links – Remove broken links.
• Unnecessary Running Services – Disable unnecessary Windows services.
• Unnecessary startup items – disable applications that start with Windows.
• Custom security settings – Change your security and privacy settings.

If you move the switch in the item “Perform analysis at startup”, the program will analyze the state of the system every time it starts on a PC.

While using Ashampoo WinOptimizer 17, additional information, hints and suggestions are displayed in the application windows.

In the left part of the main program window there are tabs with sections for accessing the program modules. Let us dwell on the functions of some sections in more detail.

Section “Automation”

The “Automation” section contains modules that can be enabled to perform automatic actions:

• Auto-cleaning – deletion of temporary files, traces of the work of programs and in the browser, performed immediately after the application is closed.
• Live-Tuner – improved application launch, process termination, prioritization.
• Game-Booster – disable unnecessary processes and programs during the launch of the game, and then re-enable disabled applications after exiting the game.

Automatic cleaning removes unnecessary data, prevents their reappearance. “Live-Tuner” speeds up the launch of programs, allows you to manually set the priority of running processes. To improve speed and performance in games, the “Game-Booster” module disables applications that are useless during the game.

Section “All modules”

The All Modules section contains all the tools included with Ashampoo WinOptimizer 17. From this section, you can quickly access the desired tool in the application.

The program modules are collected in six general sections: “System Maintenance”, “Performance”, “Windows Settings”, System Analysis, “File Utilities”, “Administration”.

The System Maintenance section contains modules:

• Cleaning your system – removing unnecessary data.
• Free up space – delete unnecessary files: logs, logs, memory dumps, etc.
• Registry Cleaner – Registry optimization: remove references to non-existent files, history lists, incorrect file formats, etc.
• Destruction of traces of the Internet – complete removal of traces of activity on the Internet.
• Disk Defragmenter – Perform disk defragmentation to improve the performance of your PC.
• Registry defragmentation – reducing the size of the registry, compression by removing empty lines.

The Performance section has the following features that affect the overall performance of your computer:

• Manage Windows services – stop or start services, select the type of service start.
• Optimizing the boot process – disabling unnecessary items from startup to improve system performance.
• Network settings optimization – automatic or manual optimization of network settings.
• Managing running processes – terminating processes, changing the priority of starting a process.
• Uninstall Applications – Remove unnecessary programs from your computer.
• Optimizing the system for SSD – disabling some features that adversely affect the SSD drive.

From the “Windows Settings” section, you can change some operating system settings:

• Manage system settings – Change general startup, Windows, and application settings.
• Privacy settings – Manage your privacy settings when using your PC.
• Win10 Privacy Settings – Changing Windows Privacy Settings
• Editing program bindings – changing file associations in the OS.
• Customize the right-click menu – disable unnecessary items in the Explorer context menu.
• Manage browser extensions – remove unnecessary extensions from browsers.

In the “System Analysis” section, an analysis of Windows is carried out, with the help of which you can find out and then fix the “bottlenecks” of the operating system:

• Displaying information about the system – general information about the operating system, installed programs, computer hardware.
• Detection of resource eaters – analysis of the distribution of disk space occupied by files.
• Run a system test – test the system for performance.
• Testing Your Hard Drives – Testing hard drives.
• View hard drive status – information about the status of hard drives.
• System Font Management – Manage Windows system fonts.

The “File Utilities” section contains utilities necessary for working with files:

• Secure file deletion – delete data from your computer without the possibility of recovery.
• File encryption or splitting – file encryption, splitting large files into parts.
• Check disks for errors — checking the hard disk for errors.
• File recovery — restore files after deletion.
• Checking links to programs – removing invalid links.
• Find duplicate files – find and remove duplicate files.
• Hidden ADS streams management – search and delete hidden ADS streams.

The “Administration” section contains modules for performing administrative functions on the computer:

• Undo changes – undo changes made using the program.
• Restore point management – create new restore points, delete old restore points.
• Manage the order of icons – save and restore the position of icons on the desktop.
• User Rights Management – Set the order in which users access the equipment and the network.
• Manage power plans – Set up your PC’s power plan.
• Create Maintenance Jobs – Scheduling jobs to run automatically on a schedule.
• Viewing program statistics – general statistical information about the work done in the program.

Section “Backups”

The “Backups” section saves data with information about the latest backups created in Ashampoo WinOptimizer 17. From here you can start restoring from a backup using a previously created archive. Here you can delete old archives, open the folder with backup archives.

Possibilities of modules from other sections of the program are described in the section “All modules”.

Cleaning and optimizing the system in Ashampoo WinOptimizer 17

Before performing work on changing Windows settings, create a system restore point using a regular tool, or from the program window in the “Administration” section.

To run a manual system cleanup, from the Ashampoo WinOptimizer 17 main window, do the following:

1. Click on the “Analyze” button. Wait for the computer scan to complete.

On this computer, it is recommended to clear the cache and cookies of browsers, unnecessary registry entries and unnecessary files. The remaining parameters do not require intervention.

2. Click on the “Optimize” button. The PC optimization process begins.
3. After the optimization is completed, the program window will display information about the actions performed. In this case, the Microsoft Edge browser cookies were not deleted, possibly due to the fact that this is being blocked by Windows.

One click optimization

Ashampoo WinOptimizer 17 has a “One Click Optimizer” module to start optimizing your system with one click. The module includes tools “Internet Cleaner”, “Drive Cleaner” and “Registry Optimizer”, which remove data saved from the Internet, clean up disks, and remove obsolete registry entries.

1. Launch the tool from a special shortcut or from the System Maintenance section.
2. Immediately after launching the module, a window will open asking you to choose the order in which the optimization should be performed:

• Scan and delete immediately without confirmation (default).
• Scan and delete only after confirmation.

3. When you select the confirmation mode, the One Click Optimizer window will display information about detected data recommended for deletion.

4. Click on the “Delete Now” button.
5. One-click optimization is complete.

Article Conclusions

Ashampoo WinOptimizer 17 is designed to optimize the operation of the Windows operating system, remove unnecessary files, change system settings. The program contains 38 models to carry out all the necessary work on setting up and cleaning the system, changing privacy and security settings, improving productivity, and performing administrative functions.