15-Minute Reviews :: Clean MemXP v8.0

Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Clean MemXP version 8.0 by FOTIS – An application with memory-clearing funtionality plus other system-managing utilities.

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“Clean MemXP is a program for defragmenting system memory and optimizes performance. It shows information for the current state of the system (CPU, RAM).”

Quick Pros

• Has a lot of system information and system utilities built-in
• System tray icon brings up most common options
• Computer lock function interesting
• Does appear to page properly

Quick Cons

• Won’t let you purge memory unless you’re getting below threshold
• Annoying sound when defragmenting
• Unnecessary use of 3 system tray icons
• Limited usefulness of paging

Expansion

Back in the days of Windows 95 and the fact that systems quite frequently find themselves paging out frequently, memory ‘defragmenters’ were not only effective but could be quite useful. Memory could be compressed on the fly and much more. However, with the advent of NT and its progression into 2000, XP and Vista and its strict memory policies, the access to memory was a lot less capable, forcing these defragmenters to resort to only ‘paging’ out idle (or in some cases active) and hope this improves the situation.

This application fits in this category, but it offers much more as well. CPU and memory usage stats, drive information, task manager showing actual CPU usage time, service and startup manager as well as many other goodies. While some are duplicates of what you can find elsewhere in Windows, some such as the task manager’s CPU time and all of the goodies centrally-located could be a nice benefit.

There is also ‘extras’, which can be accessed from the main window or from the system tray icon. Extras such ad screen controls, quick access to the control panel, quick memory defrags and more. While most I wouldn’t find common use of, some may find these options useful. The computer lock function is interesting; Besides the Windows login lockout, this could be useful for creating a different lock-out, especially for those who have a single non-passworded account.

In my testing, this application seemed to page out what I would find appropriate method; It didn’t seem to slow up my recently-accessed applications, though it may be a coincidence as well. My biggest quip is that there is no way to ‘set’ the thresholds for the quick defrags; You are limited to the 4 percentage-based presets in place. The defrags were pretty quick as well; The annoying defrag sound is a bit irritating in my opinion. My testing was limited because you couldn’t tell the application to clear up a certain amount of memory, but only to a certain percentage usage. The usefulness of paging out in-memory items is questionable, but that discussion is outside the scope of this review.

One of my peeves besides what is noted above is the three system tray icons and no apparent way to disable them. For people running on 800×600, that is a lot of screen real-estate, especially for two icons that have no functionality besides displaying CPU and memory usage and then a third for the application itself. This should have been managed differently; It makes the application feel very unprofessional in my opinion.

Final Verdict

While the application does what it is intended to do for a memory paging utility, it is truly a question of how much use a memory defragmenter can be. While free, the ‘extras’ might be a better feature for those that might be interested than the memory defragmentation (Which in itself is not an accurate description of the process that occurs with this application and other similar applications). As for paying for this application, the payment terms are confusing for sure; Their purchase website states that it is $11.98 for a subscription for 6 months, paid monthly. Does this mean that you must pay $11.98 a month for 6 months, or do you pay a portion of $11.98 each month for 6 months or what? Either way, for an application which doesn’t appear to be ‘permanent licence’, I would steer you clear for its main purpose or otherwise. If you are really having a memory issue, upgrade your memory if you can instead of spending money on an application which offers limited benefits in the case of memory.

Posted by BladedThoth on Thursday, August 02, 2007