I installed the software on both of my computers: a Pentium 90 Soundbook running Windows 95 and a DX4/100 desktop system running Windows 3.1. There are four disks; approximately seven MB of free hard drive space is required. Initial setup and configuration takes about five minutes, and involves telling the program a bit about your system: Do you have a sound card? A modem? Are you on a network? When you first install First Aid you are advised to go through all of the options to tune your system for maximum performance. My Windows 95 laptop came through every test clean as a whistle and didn't give the program a decent workout. All of my observations are based on the program's performance on my Windows 3.1 desktop system.
My first stop was Fix Applications. First Aid comes with a large inventory of pre-loaded application profiles; you can add your own using a simple point-and-click interface. The program checks to make sure all of a program's components are installed correctly. If problems are found, it will identify the problem and either fix it automatically or lead you by the hand to correct it yourself. I only had two of the listed applications: America Online and Pagemaker 5.0. First Aid told me that some AOL files were missing and I would not be able to connect. Tell that to Mastercard! I get billed for about 10 hours a month. I ran into a similar situation with my Pagemaker diagnosis. I've used Pagemaker for a year and have never had a problem. First Aid told me it was non-functional: would I like it to plunge in and start shuffling things around? I hit the cancel button twice just to make sure it understood the meaning of the word no.
As a reverse test, I asked First Aid to fix a program that has been given me headaches. I recently re- installed Netscape SmartMarks version 1.0 after a bad experience with the beta version. The final version was not treating me any better: I was getting so many General Protection Faults that I could have become a GPF wholesaler. First Aid ran through its diagnostics and told me that SmartMarks was configured perfectly. Go figure. The good programs it wants to fix; the dog it nominates for an Oscar.
To complicate matters, I got different results when I tested AOL using two different First Aid utilities. As described above, when I ran Fix Applications First Aid told me I was missing some critical AOL files. When I ran Fix Online, First Aid said I didn't have a modem. Well I do, and it dials up AOL every morning without fail. The screen asked me, "would you like your modem reconfigured?" NO! I wouldn't! Susan's cardinal rule of computers is don't mess with success. Touch my COM4 base address and you will suffer serious harm.
My next stop was Clean Windows. These diagnostics test various subsystems, such as video and printer drivers, font installations and file associations. I was confused by the option to remove unused font files. I'm a fontaholic and have hundreds. Some of the fonts listed as unused were ones I used Tuesday; others appeared to be screen fonts that might be critical in an application that I haven't recently run. Nowhere in the documentation, either printed or online, could I find an explanation of what "unused" really meant. I let them be.
Another option is to clean up your WIN.INI file, removing orphaned entries that refer to deleted programs. I was able to get rid of four or five entries in my WIN.INI but was disturbed to see that it listed an entry for My Label Designer, program that I use often. I was afraid to amend the WIN.INI for fear that I would kill the program. My preference is to REM out entries in WIN.INI rather than to erase them...just in case. First Aid's solution seemed all too final for me.
Another selection was Fix Multimedia. This launches a series of tests to see whether you can play various formats of multimedia files. One of the options was for video. First Aid searched my hard drive for a video file to use for the test and, since it couldn't find one, aborted the video test. I'm the kind of person who would like to know if my machine is capable of video before I invest in it; it wouldn't have killed them to include a test AVI file in the program.
The one part of First Aid that I found impressive is
Crash Guard , which intercepts General Protection Faults and gives you an opportunity to save your work before the system crashes. This works as advertised. I have had several GPFs since installing this program and none of them have shut down my system or caused me to lose data. An allied feature is
Windows Guardian , which warns you when your Graphic Device Interface (GDI) memory and user memory are running low. As a minor irritant, the two kinds of memory are labeled G and M on the icon and it took me a half hour pawing through the manual to figure out what that stood for. I never did get a straight answer, and have been assuming G stands for GDI and M for user memory.
There are several other handy features in First Aid. The Support Exchange is a Windows help file database of more than 3,000 software and hardware vendors, containing addresses, phone, fax and (sometimes) an Internet address. Tuneup configures your PC for optimum performance; I suspect that a more robust program, such as WinTune, would do a more comprehensive job. Trim Applications was another scary one. It claims to let you selectively delete unused parts of an application to conserve disk space; the example they give is you can use this to trim the grammar checker from a word processor if you never use this feature. I ran Trim on America Online, and it suggested deleting "Display Main Menu." No, I don't think so. Get Help is not really help at all; it is a tutorial on installing Windows 95. A separate program that comes with First Aid is Don't Panic. This is the First Aid Knowledge base, and contains advice on hardware and software glitches.
First Aid provides updates to its program on Compuserve (GO CYBERMEDIA), on the Internet (ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/fi/firstaid and through their own BBS in California (a toll call.) As I am writing this review at the end of March, the last update was posted on December 6. They have a home page on the Internet, at http://199.182.58.43/.
In addition to First Aid and Don't Panic, my copy came with a free copy of the book Windows 95 for Dummies. The product retails for $49.95; CyberMedia recently conducted a direct mail campaign offering it for $29.95. It is available directly from the vendor, CyberMedia, 1-800-721-7824 or 3000 Ocean Park Blvd., Suite 2001, Santa Monica, CA 90405, and is abundantly available at local software stores. The 126-page manual and Windows help file are marginally adequate; I would have like to know more specifics about what various autofix and delete/remove options were doing to my system.
Crash Guard is a fantastic feature. I wish it were available as
a stand-alone utility. Unfortunately, I think this program could be dangerous
in the hands of a novice computer user, the market that CyberMedia is targeting.
It is a little too eager to slash and burn. Most of the beginners I teach
are fairly naive and trusting. If First Aid says that the AOL main menu
can be trimmed, by gum, they'd fix, trim, remove and delete their way into
total chaos and end up with a $2,000 doorstop. This program has potential
in the hands of the more experienced user, who can take advantage of pointers
to potential problems and finesse their own solutions. I just don't trust
it enough to ever click on an autofix button.