PC Maintenance Software | Reimage Review

What is Reimage?

Reimage is an online PC maintenance software application that can make your Windows machine run like new, without the need to reinstall Windows and without the losing personal data.

It checks the health of your system files in a 30 minute scan, diagnoses operating system (OS) problems, and replaces objects detected as faulty or missing on the PC using a spare parts repository of 25 million files. After viewing the scan results, a 30 minute online PC repair process can be run to fix all the faults. It finishes up by rebooting the PC for the repairs to take effect.

Files can become faulty or go missing over time due to application installations, virus damage, faulty drivers, broken registry key entries or just not being kept up to date with the latest file versions. Reimage is the one-stop PC fix solution that can repair all of these faults.

Of course, if you don’t use Reimage, you could always:

Search online for updates to the numerous applications and OS files (time consuming!).
Use online forums to research your computer error (this can cause problems if the fault is specific to file versions and application combinations).
Bring the PC to a computer repair shop and await its return – however long this may take.
Reinstall the Window OS as a last resort – losing all your personal data (passwords, configuration settings etc.) in the process.

Does It Actually Work?

I’ve used the software since September 2008 on three different PCs. In this time, I have run a full scan on a quarterly basis against each of the machines (a desktop PC for music production, a work laptop used for work and a media center desktop PC). The initial Reimage review takes 30 minutes and is completely automated and I am happy to report that it has performed excellently every time.

The initial PC troubleshooting scan highlighted a lot of damaged system files which it was able to fix computers using the online repository of healthy files. I allotted these faults to installation/removal of dozens of applications and hardware upgrades I’ve made to the PCs over their lifespan. The native O/S drivers were also highlighted as out-of-date.

The scan itself is interesting to watch the first few times to see it scanning for viruses/trojans/spam and secondly, seeing the scan details about software and hardware configurations which are graphed against recommended healthy system setups so you can gain a comparative system health check.

After the Reimage review repaired all files identified as missing or needing replacement (the online PC repairs process has at most taken 30 minutes to complete) and the system was rebooted I noted quicker boot-up times straight away, improved stability of my applications and better internet connection performance. In particular, music/video applications benefited from the updated drivers.

Thankfully, no personal data regarding login details/personal settings in applications/etc. were lost at any point while the PC maintenance software’s repair process was running. This was a key point in running this on my work laptop which I use daily so needed to turnaround repairs in a single evening. It only needed 45 minutes as it turned out (30 minute scan plus 15 minute fixing the issues) and repaired Windows without needing to re-format the laptop hard drives, while leaving my user data and applications intact!

The repair process only pulls down to your PC those missing/faulty files it needs to remedy in your system. The online PC repairs also clean registry files of missing/erroneous/poorly set keys. Doing this improves the stability and performance of your overall system (I suspect it was these changes, along with new drivers it installed, that brought the audio/video application improvements mentioned above). It does not however recover lost data that you may have put in the recycle bin.

Subsequent scans picked up improvements as and when updated files were added to their online file repository, so generally the repair time decreased upon each iteration.

The documentation states that it can also act as a recovery tool to repair computers that cannot boot or receive the ‘blue screen of death’. I’ve not had that scenario occur so have not been able to test that feature. The website states this process can be achieved using a boot disk (contents available from the Reimage website) to reboot the PC with net access enabled and a running browser (so that you can run their scan online). The tool does not however complete files recovery of lost or deleted data – this requires specialized data recovery tools.

Is Reimage Updated Regularly?

Updates are constantly benefiting you during each scan as the online spare parts repository is being updated on an ongoing basis. As of January 2010 (the time of writing this Reimage review) there are over 25 million software maintenance files stored in their distribution system servers awaiting to be pulled down to your PC as needed (note: only files that are faulty/missing on your PC are pulled down – NOT all 25 million!).

Is It Possible To Give My PC a Health Check Scan to Check The Product Out?

Yes! You can run a FREE Reimage scan today and get a health check summary on your computer to see if your system has any of the following issues:

Operating system problems
Software malfunctions
Viruses/Trojans/Spam
Resident pop-ups
Computer freezes
Registry key errors
Out of date native O/S driver files

You can then choose to remedy these issues for yourself or purchase Reimage and allow it to repair and restore your system for you automatically, in under 30 minutes. At the very least, this free scan will give you an insight into the stability, security and performance of your PC.