It is specifically designed to help manage and tune the computer hardware, operating system or application software, and perform a single task or a small range of tasks.

Some of these software’s include:

· Virus protection
· Firewalls
· Clean-up tools
· Drive formatting

Disk Clean-up

Virus protection

This is how a computer ‘cleans’ itself, this is done by deleting unnecessary files from the hard drive. These files include: Compression of old files Temporary Internet files Temporary Windows files Downloaded Program files Recycle Bin Removal of unused applications or optional Windows components Setup Log files Offline files All of these files take up some room on the hard drive which could otherwise be used for storage for the user. By deleting all of the unwanted files the speed of the computer can be improved and the memory size improved. The user can also set files to be compressed, this means that unused files or rarely accessed ones will be compressed to save disk space and regularly accessed files will remain uncompressed.

This utility is one of the most important as it prevents viruses, worms and Trojans from attacking the computer. They can get in a computer by email or by being downloaded. To discover them a scan can be initiated by the user or scans can be scheduled. They can also be used to scan incoming emails or downloaded files. They work by identifying the virus signature but this can be hidden by the writer of the virus by polymorphing. To keep ahead of the viruses the maker of the anti virus software release regular updates to their users.