Soluto Speeds Up Windows Start-up and Promises to Make Your System Less Frustrating

It’s a well known fact that the performance of a Windows system (yes, even Windows 7) degrades with time. This is chiefly due to the junk that accumulates due to day-to-day activities like installing new software. Most applications modify the registry, add system files and make other miscellaneous changes that aren’t completely undone even when they are uninstalled. At best, you can use registry cleaners, third party uninstallers and system tune up utilities to limit the damage.

Nevertheless, you can improve some aspects of system performance like boot time by putting a leash on the installed utilities. A good number of applications have a habit of unnecessarily adding themselves to the Windows Start-up list. Experienced users can play around with msconfig to do the needful. However, the aforementioned utility’s unintuitive interface will probably leave normal users utterly confused. This is where Soluto steps in.

Soluto is the winner of TechCrunch Disrupt 2010 and bills itself as an anti-frustration software. At the moment, what it is, is a start-up optimiser. The installation of Soluto itself can be downright frustrating if you are on a slow connection, as it provides only a web installer. However, once you get past that, the rest is easy sailing.

Soluto neatly classifies all start-up processes into three categories – No-brainer, Potentially removable and Required. What makes Soluto stand apart from other start-up optimisers is the depth of information is presents to the users. For each process, it provides a brief description along with a recommended action. It even explains if and why the process is required at boot and highlights the cost of the having the process start-up during boot. Like some of the other similar utilities, Soluto can delay the start-up of certain less critical utilities, rather than disabling them outright. This ensures that your system becomes responsive as soon as it boots and also enables you to access the functionalities provided by the particular process.

Soluto has ambitious plans. As I mentioned earlier, it dubs itself as anti-frustration software rather than as a Windows boot optimiser. As a part of the, yet to be launched, PC Genome project it collects data on processes which can adversely affect system performance. Whenever you experience a slowdown, you can click on the “My PC Just Frustrated Me” button. Soluto will try to figure out the potential culprits by analysing the system resource usage of background processes and submit the information to the database. Soluto hopes to be able to make useful recommendations in the future by analysing unusual application activity and coupling that with information about hardware configuration.

If Soluto manages to achieve its target, it will indeed become a killer application. However, even without that, it is worth a try if you need a Windows start-up optimiser. It is comprehensive yet safe and easy to use.

Download Soluto (871 KB)
License: Freeware
Compatibility: Windows XP/Vista/7
Version Reviewed: 1.0.2 Beta