Mike Williams

Adobe has published a public CS2 download page with links to a host of older applications -- the full Creative Suite 2.0, Acrobat Pro 8.0, Audition 3.0, GoLive CS2, Illustrator CS2, InCopy CS2, Photoshop CS2, Photoshop Elements 4.0/5.0, Premiere Pro 2.0 -- as well as the serial numbers required to activate them.

As soon as the page was noticed, multiple stories appeared recommending what looked like a great freebie. But what’s really going on here? It’s hard to say.

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Maybe you’re having problems with Flash, and would like to do a clean reinstall. Or perhaps you’ve decided the technology causes more problems than it solves, and would like to delete it forever. Whatever the reason, you may one day find you want to completely remove Flash from your PC -- but that can sometimes be a problem.

You won’t be able to use the standard uninstaller if there are other background processes using Flash, for instance. And your Flash installation can sometimes become corrupted, causing further complications. Don’t give up, though -- with just a little perseverance your PC should soon be Flash-free (apart from embedded plugins via apps like Chrome, anyway).

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CyberLink has released a notable update to its popular and powerful consumer video editor range. With release GM4, both CyberLink PowerDirector 11 Ultra and CyberLink PowerDirector 11 Ultimate add ultra hi-def resolutions to file production, support for editing GoPro HERO3 clips and an additional seven transitions to the Transition Room.

The new release, which is available for a 25 percent savings with exclusive bundle of extra goodies worth nearly $70 from the Downloadcrew Software Store, also promises improved program stability and frame accuracy, plus resolves a number of issues.

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Whether you’ve accidentally deleted a file, a partition or an entire drive, there are plenty of recovery tools you can turn to for assistance. And most of these claim ease of use as a key selling point. You won’t have to worry about low level drive structures or other complexities, as the program will try to handle everything for you.

If you’re at home with file systems, though, and familiar with partition tables and the MFT, you may sometimes get better results with a tool which lets you take more hands-on control. And the free (for personal use) DMDE is a great example.

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What do you really want from a security suite? Most companies appear to believe the answer is "as many features as possible", and so they’ll cram their products with as many vaguely security-related tools as possible, in the hope that the sheer weight of functionality might win you over.

Comodo Internet Security Pro 2013, however, takes a very different route. There’s no spam filter here. No parental controls, or backup tool. And it won’t add warning icons to your web page search results. Instead, the program concentrates very much on the core security basics: detecting and removing known malware immediately, while preventing even brand new threats from causing any damage.

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After almost two years without a significant update, you might have been forgiven for thinking that rootkit detector GMER was on its way out. But it seems there’s some life left in the program yet. Version 2.0 has just been released, and it’s the most important GMER update for a very long time.

The new build finally provides full Windows x64 support, for instance. If you’ve not used the program for a while because of its 64-bit issues then now might be the time to reconsider. And the addition of Windows 8 support means you can now run GMER 2.0 on just about any modern PC.

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Media server developer Plex Inc rings in the New Year with two notable new updates to its cross-platform range of media server and media center products. First, Plex Media Server 0.9.7.9.375 launches with a number of enhancements and new features, including support for album music searches and the potential for massive performance improvements when streaming via DLNA.

Joining it is a major update to the Plex for Windows 8, which adds a universal search tool among other improvements.

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If you regularly find yourself helping to fix other people’s PC problems then you’ve probably already thought about creating a portable troubleshooting toolkit. And this needn’t take very long. Just copy something like the Sysinternals Suite to a USB stick, for instance, and you’ll be more than equipped to diagnose and resolve all kinds of issues.

And if you find you need to extend your troubleshooting capabilities even further, then you can always add another free toolkit or two. Switchblade is an excellent free example: just download the latest version, unzip it to your USB key and you’ll gain all kinds of useful features and functionality.

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Are you tired of the standard Windows search tool? You’re not alone. Its indexing component is difficult to control, and uses too many resources; we’ve found the index can become corrupted for no apparent reason; and filtering the results just isn’t as easy as it needs to be.

Fortunately there are plenty of interesting alternatives around, and AstroGrep is one of the best: compact, powerful yet also simple to use, it’s a search tool which should appeal to just about everyone.

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The PC market for audio players is a little on the crowded side, with free tools to do just about anything you want, so it’s not exactly easy for new programs to make an impression. There are still companies queuing up to try their luck, though, and the latest contender is Resonic, an interesting tool now available in its first public alpha release.

Why should you care? Developers Liqube clearly understand they have to get the fundamentals right first, and the program duly offers support for a host of audio formats. The current list is MP3, MP2, MP1, OGG, M4A, MP4, AAC, MPC, MP+, OPUS, SPX; WMA, WMA Pro, WMA Lossless; WAV, AIFF, FLAC, APE, ALAC, WV, TTA; IT, XM, S3M, MTM and MOD: sounds good to us.

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Last month we took a look at SD Software’s HeyDoc!, a very capable tool which can track just about every aspect of your entire family’s medical history: appointments, medicines, diet, symptoms, weight, blood pressure, it’s all included.

As we also reported, though, HeyDoc! had one notable issue, in an error message that appeared on some systems whenever you selected a user profile. And so we were pleased to see that the developers had released HeyDoc! 1.8.5, in an effort to address the problem.

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While anti-virus packages are fine at removing malware, they’re often less useful at undoing the damage an infection has caused. And so even if you’ve managed to get rid of the initial threat, you might still have problems running Explorer, opening particular files, launching key Windows components, and so on.

Windows Medkit is an interesting collection of tools which promises it can help regain control, fix the Registry and get everything working again. Sounds impressive, especially when you notice that the package comes in the form of a tiny (107KB) download, but can it really deliver? We took the program for a spin.

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Browsers are fine for displaying content, but not nearly as useful when you want to download it, and this is especially true with web galleries. No matter how simple the collection of images, you’ll still probably have to work them all manually, right-clicking each in turn and trying to figure out the appropriate option ("Save as", "Save link as", whatever it might be).

If you’d prefer an easy life, though, you could forget all the usual hassles and turn to NeoDownloader Lite, instead. While the program has some issues, it’s still a great way to simplify and speed up the process of downloading images from the web.

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If you’ve ever explored the world of Windows video players then you’ll almost certainly have come across Media Player Classic (compact, easy to use, but a little dated now) and its spin-off Home Cinema project (more powerful, plenty of features).

What you might not have noticed, though, is the latest addition to the family, Media Player Classic-BE (for “Black Edition”, apparently). It’s a recent offshoot from Home Cinema and looks almost exactly the same, but already has one notable addition and plenty of smaller tweaks to enjoy.

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Anvisoft has released Anvi Uninstaller, a basic tool which aims to help you fully remove unwanted applications.

The program is essentially a free, cut-down version of a module in the company’s Cloud System Booster Pro 2.0, and it’s decidedly short on features and functionality. But, if you’re looking for something very simple and safe, then it could still appeal.

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