UTILITY SOFTWARE

Utility software

Utility software is system software that is designed to help analyze, configure, optimize or maintain a computer and enhance the computers performance.

It is a program that performs a specific task, which is usually related to managing the system resources.

Utility software usually focuses on how the computer infrastructure that includes computer hardware, application software, and operating system and data storage programs operate.

Uses of utility software:

1.     defends the computer from malicious such as virus

2.     speeds up the performance of the computer

3.     creates space, by deleting unwanted programs, on the computer

Device manager

Device Manager is a Control Panel applet in Microsoft Windows operating systems.

It allows users to view and control the hardware attached to the computer. When a piece of hardware is not working, the offending hardware is highlighted for the user to deal with.

For each device, users can:

1.     Supply device drivers in accordance with the windows driver model

2.     Enable or disable devices

3.     Tell Windows to ignore malfunctioning devices

4.     View other technical properties

Device Manager was introduced with Windows 95 and later added to Windows 2000.

Device driver

A device driver is a computer program that controls a particular device that is connected to your computer.

Typical devices are keyboards, printers, scanners, digital cameras and external storage devices. Each of these needs a driver in order to work properly.

Device driver acts a translator between the operating system of the computer and the devices connected to it.

For many types of devices, the necessary drivers are built into the operating system. When you plug in a device, the operating system starts looking for the right driver, install it and you are ready to start using the device.

This is referred as plug and play and preferred over having to manually install the correct driver.

Disk cleaner

Disk cleaner is a computer maintenance utility included in Microsoft Windows designed to free up disk space on a computer's hard drive.

The utility first searches and analyzes the hard drive for files that are no longer of any use, and then removes the unnecessary files.

There are a number of different file categories that Disk Clean-up targets when performing the initial disk analysis:

1.     Compression of old files

2.     Temporary Internet files

3.     Temporary Windows files

4.     Downloaded program files

5.     Recycle Bin

6.     Removal of unused applications or optional Windows components

7.     Setup log files

8.     Offline web pages (cached)

Disk scanner

Disk scanner is a DOS utility application used to check and correct errors on hard and floppy disks.

 It was first shipped in DOS 6.2 and was included with Windows 95, 98 and ME.

The utility scans disk surfaces for defects and marks those sections to prevent the rewriting of data and data loss.

Disk scanner is automatically activated when rebooting a computer that is not properly shut down, or if it detects initial disk problems from the Power On Self Test (POST).

Disk Defragmenter

Defragmentation is the process of consolidating fragmented files on the user's hard drive. Files become fragmented when data is written to disk, and there is not enough contiguous space to hold the complete file.

The process of defragmentation moves the data blocks on the hard drive around to bring all the parts of a file together. Defragmentation reduces file system fragmentation, increasing the efficiency of data retrieval and thereby improving the overall performance of the computer.

Virus scanner/ anti-virus scanner

Virus

A virus is a type of malicious software (malware) comprised of small pieces of code attached to legitimate programs. When that program runs, the virus runs.

An anti-virus scanner is a component of an anti-virus software package that scans a hard drive for viruses and other harmful items. These programs are made for various operating systems, and scanning methods can be manual or automatic. Scanners operate in conjunction with other elements of anti-virus software, such as virus containers and other tools.

Virus scanner is a type of antivirus program that searches a system for virus signatures that have attached to executable programs and applications such as e-mail clients.

A virus scanner can either search all executables when a system is booted or scan a file only when a change is made to the file as viruses will change the data in a file.

Spyware scanner/anti-spyware

Spyware

Spyware is a type of malware that is installed on a computer without the user's knowledge in order to collect information about them.

This can pose a security risk to the user, but more frequently spyware degrades system performance by taking up processing power, installing additional software, or redirecting users' browser activity.

Anti-spyware

Anti-spyware is a type of software that is designed to detect and remove unwanted spyware programs.

Anti-spyware software detects spyware through rules-based methods or based on downloaded definition files that identify common spyware programs.                      

Anti-spyware software can be used to find and remove spyware that has already been installed on the user's computer, or it can act much like an anti-virus program by providing real-time protection and preventing spyware from being downloaded in the first place.

Language translator

A language translator is a computer program for specifying a program in one programming language (the target language) that is functionally equivalent to that (a translation of another) in a different language (the source language).

These include translations between high-level and human-readable computer languages such as c++ and java, intermediate-level languages such as java byte code, low level languages, such as the assembly language and machine code, and between similar levels of language on different computing platforms, as well as from any of these to any other of these.

The term is also used for translators between software implementations and hardware/ASIC microchip implementations of the same program, and from software descriptions of a microchip to the logic gates needed to build it.

Examples of widely used types of computer languages translators include interpreters, compilers and decompilers, and assemblers and disassemblers.