Labels:text | screenshot | menu OCR: WinMaster Windows Utility by Tony Curro Mention PC-KWIK, and people think of cache software. Now, PC-Kwik Corp. , has entered the Windows market. WinMaster, their just released Windows software, is a combination of utilities and shell, in one package. The program requires 4MB hard disk space for a full install, and comes with a 90 day money-back guarantee. The core of WinMaster is a set of 4 programs, which may spawn other programs. The 4 programs are: WinMaster Toolbox, KwikInfo, Power Disk, and KwikVault. In addition it has a new version of the award winning Super PC-Kwik. One installation will take you through all the above. Once installed, you must run Super PC-Kwik to set it up. You can also set up a RAM DISK in this fashion. You must they reboot to have all these changes take effect. Pay attention to the READ. ME files that you have the option to view. They contain last minute information about QEMM, BIOS, BlueMax and other programs. There is even an UNINSTALL program if you decide to remove all or part of WinMaster. Toolbox is just that. Open the toolbox and you find a set of utilities; Find, Copy, Move, Delete, and more. You can also create another toolbox to add your favorite programs. Toolbox comes with a feature that will allow you to convert your present Program Manager Groups to toolboxes. Or you can just add you favorite programs. Each toolbox has a limit of 50 buttons; but you can create unlimited nested toolboxes. Each button can either be the icon for the program, or you can have text in place of it. WinMaster Toolbox can be used as your primary shell. However, I found a few things I dislike about this. The first is when using it as a shell it will not recognize the LOAD= or RUN= lines in your WIN. INI files. What this means is that ANY programs you have set to start automatically including ATM, will NOT install. You can get around this by adding some of these to your first Toolbox. A problem there is that if they are on the LOAD= line, they would have started in iconized position on the bottom of the screen. Using Toolbox, and clicking on them, will RUN them, causing them to come up full screen, and then you must iconize it. The other feature I did not like was the first toolbox. When used as the shell it comes up with the utilities box. You then must click on the toolbox in there, to start your first toolbox. They should have allowed a startup Toolbox that would run with the other. Toolboxes can be sized, which makes them very small on the screen. You also can have the toolbox always on top, or by pressing a hot-key, having it pop right up on top of what you are doing. This I DID like. KwikVault is a nice utility. Many of us have rarely used program sitting on our hard drives. We do use them, so we do not want to remove them; but they do take up space. KwikValut can help you with this. It uses drag-and-drop of Windows to allow you to click on files or directories and store them in the Vault. KwikVault compresses these files. When you need them, you just go the vault and take them out. They will be restored to the original locations, unless you specify a different drive or path. Good way to get rid of these programs, without deleting them. KwikInfo tells you just about everything you wanted to know about your system and more. View information about your CPU, memory, video, printers, fonts and more. Using PowerScope, you can see disk usage, and even deeper into what location(s) a specific file is using. Power Disk is the last of the utilities. This is a disk optimizer. It does work in Windows, but at a price. To use it you MUST close everything that is running. This includes disabling ATM, and then restarting Windows to utilize it. I much prefer running it from a DOS prompt, as it seems to much to go through. It will take a little longer to optimize within the Windows environment than if you were doing it from DOS. No question that Power Disk is an excellent program. Just scares me a little running it with Windows. PC-Kwik has given you the option though, to run it from within Windows. Power Disk comes with a scheduler, which once set up, can do all these chores for you at bootup. There are multiple options; select day of week; type of compression, and several other options. I opted for this mode. Super PC-Kwik is an added bonus in this package. It is on an individual disk, as PC-Kwik states: ". . this way when we upgrade it, you do NOT have to bother with reinstalling all of WinMaster . . Just the PC-Kwik part." This is very good thinking on their part. I have talked at length about Super PC-Kwik cache in a previous article. It is a fast utility that works very well with Windows. Other than the mention of the two things I dislike about the toolbox, this is a good solid program. Currently PC-Kwik has a special offer on. During Aug. - Oct ., most resellers will offer WinMaster at a special introductory price. The first is $59.95 for a complete package, bundled with Super PC-Kwik disk cache. The other "special" is priced at $29.95, without Super PC-Kwik, and must be purchased with another Windows product. Check with your dealer for more information. Product Information WinMaster Windows Utility List Price $129 PC-Kwik Corporation 15100 SW Koll Parkway Beaverton, OR 97006-6026 800 365-5945
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