Use cases: TurboFix in real life

The family PC that has bogged down over the years

It's everyone's computer: where the kids do their homework, where the vacation photos get printed and the bills get paid. It ran great at first, then year after year all sorts of things piled up and now it takes two minutes just to boot. It isn't broken, it's just worn down. TurboFix gets it back in shape without you having to understand what's under the hood.

• Open the Dashboard: the PC's health score tells you where to start.
• With Startup programs you switch off the programs that open on their own at boot and slow everything down.
• With Cleanup you clear out temporary files, browser caches and the traces programs leave behind.
• With Speed up you apply a general tune-up and check the score again: you'll feel the difference on the very next restart.

To go through every feature one by one there's the Features page, and for everyday tricks the guides, starting with Slow PC.

I have thousands of photos and I'm afraid of losing them

Photos of the kids when they were little, birthday videos, important documents: things you can't buy again at the store. One failed disk or one update gone wrong and it's all gone. The truth is that almost nobody really backs up, because it seems complicated. TurboFix makes it something you set up once and then forget about.

• Turn on Automatic backup and choose the folders that really matter (photos, documents, desktop).
• TurboFix keeps previous versions of your files: if a file is overwritten or deleted by mistake, you can go back.
• You can also save a system image, a complete snapshot of the PC to restore in case of disaster.
• You pick the destination: an external drive or your home NAS, with the credentials stored encrypted.

All the details on backup, with practical examples, are on the Backup page.

The laptop overheats and shuts down on its own

Resting on your lap or the couch, after half an hour it's burning hot and suddenly shuts down as if someone pulled the plug. It's scary, but often it's just heat: dust in the fans, a runaway program, temperatures too high. The trouble is that without the right tools you can't see it. TurboFix shows what's really going on, with real data, not invented estimates.

• PC status: the actual temperatures of the processor and components, read from the PC's sensors (LibreHardwareMonitor).
• Windows errors: to find out whether the PC was already reporting problems before shutting down.
• A complete, tidy Report to show the technician, who arrives already knowing what's what.
• If a program is pinning the processor at full load, you spot it in Processes and close it.

The office PCs, all of them to keep in order

Five, ten computers, each used by a different person, all holding work data that can't just disappear. There's no IT department: there's someone who, in between everything else, has to keep it all running. TurboFix lets you manage several PCs without losing your mind, relying on a single shared NAS.

• Every PC writes to its own folder on the NAS: backups don't get mixed up and each one has its own space.
• Set up a scheduled backup (every evening, say) and forget about it.
• Every operation that deletes anything asks for confirmation and shows what it's about to do first: nobody breaks anything by accident.
• When needed, you can produce a professional Report on the state of each machine.

The NAS credentials stay encrypted locally on each PC: no data goes through the cloud.

I help my relatives with their computers

Every family has the one who "knows about computers": parents, aunts, uncles and neighbors all call. The trouble is that it often takes the command line, or a different tool for every job, and the whole afternoon is gone. With TurboFix it's all in one place with a clean interface: what used to be a puzzle gets sorted in ten minutes.

• The advanced tools are ready to go, without hunting for them around Windows.
• With Uninstall programs you remove programs, leftovers included, which usually stay scattered around.
• Among the Guides there's the Windows file check, which repairs damaged system files without typing any commands.
• Create a restore point before every intervention: there's always a way back.

For a step-by-step walkthrough to follow at the PC, there's the help center.

Windows shows me strange messages and I don't know whether to worry

Every so often a window pops up with an unintelligible code, or the PC reports "an error" without explaining anything. The natural reaction is fear: is it serious? am I about to lose everything? Most of the time, no, but someone has to say so clearly. TurboFix reads the Windows errors and translates them into plain words, separating what's normal from what deserves attention.

• In Windows errors every entry is explained and classified: you can tell at a glance what's harmless and what isn't.
• If something needs fixing, the Guides walk you step by step through the system components, explaining what each step does before you take it.
• Before major changes, create a restore point so you can go back.
• With a Report in hand, the technician gets the full picture instead of "the PC is acting up".

The most common questions about these messages are answered in the FAQ.