Use SK Tracker to Avoid Botched Cleanup Jobs

If you use your Windows Mobile device for anything beyond simple appointment keeping, you're probably keen on keeping your device operating at maximum efficiency. To this end, you might have purchased one of the available system maintenance utilities, such as SK Tools, Pocket Mechanic, MemMaid, or a similar product. These products will clean up your device by removing unused registry entries, getting rid of cookies, cleaning caches, fixing broken shortcuts, defragmenting storage cards, etc. If you don't yet have such a program, you should probably acquire one.

While programs like these fix many of the little problems that can slowly afflict your device, they do have limitations. For example, what one of them might consider to be a junk file ripe for erasing, another might completely overlook.

If you're really intent on making sure that your system cleanup utility doesn't leave any junk behind, one way to avoid the problem is to use SK Tracker from SK Software. With this handy little program, you can reduce botched cleanup jobs by essentially leaving nothing to clean up in the first place!

How SK Tracker Works:

SK Tracker can quickly take a snapshot of your device (files, registry entries, and the like), which can then be compared with a subsequent snapshot. Both snapshots and comparisons can be saved and/or exported to text files. You can add notes to them as well.

There are several ways to view a snapshot. By default, you see everything that is different in any way between the two snapshots. However, the user can select to view only those things that have been added, or deleted, or merely changed if she so chooses. Additionally, rules allow the user to instruct the program to ignore changes to the registry, or changes in files, etc. when taking a snapshot.

Once you've located, say, a file that you want to delete, you can open your file explorer from within the program. The same applies to registry entries and your registry editor.

What You Can Do with SK Tracker:

SK Tracker has many uses, including to:

• confirm that nothing is left behind after you uninstall a program (but watch out for files added and alterations made by the program after it was initially installed, although SK Tracker can also help you with these).
• see if anyone has used your device and deleted files, edited documents, etc. while you were away...although surely you're never away from your device, right?
• create an image of your system after you've made a hard reset and added some essential games and applications, which can then be compared to a later "junkified" system snapshot (this is an alternative to creating a before-after snapshot every time you install a new program; however, I suspect that most users will find a garden variety backup program more suitable for this purpose).

Any Room for Improvement?

The only thing that would improve SK Tracker is if there was an option to hide changed entries that result from merely insignificant use, so that only "real" changes were displayed.

Conclusion:

I've always thought that SK Software makes some of the best software out there, and SK Tracker is no exception!