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Utility Software

Utility programs perform useful tasks to help computers run effectively and allow users to organize data. Examples include compression programs that reduce file sizes; defragmentation programs that optimize hard drive organization; backup programs that automatically copy files to external or cloud storage for security; anti-virus programs that scan for malware; and file management programs for organizing, repairing, and converting files.

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Lemai Ghard Juruafamily
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23 views2 pages

Utility Software

Utility programs perform useful tasks to help computers run effectively and allow users to organize data. Examples include compression programs that reduce file sizes; defragmentation programs that optimize hard drive organization; backup programs that automatically copy files to external or cloud storage for security; anti-virus programs that scan for malware; and file management programs for organizing, repairing, and converting files.

Uploaded by

Lemai Ghard Juruafamily
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Utility Software

A Utility program is a piece of software that performs a useful task on a computer to help it
keep running effectively, or allows the user to perform an organisational task. We don’t buy
computers to run utility software, but these programs help our computers run more
effectively.

Examples include -

Compression programs
Programs like Winzip and Winrar reduce the amount of storage space files take up. This
means you can upload and download the files more quickly, and that they take up less hard
drive storage space.

Defragmentation
As files get added and deleted from a hard drive, gaps are left behind. In order to fit news
files into these gaps we have to split the new files into smaller parts to make them fit in.

Original files:

We delete some files:

We fill in the gaps by splitting up the new file:

Files that have been split up into parts are called ‘fragmented’. However, accessing a file
that has been split up into parts is slower than accessing a file that is all in the same
location. Therefore, it is helpful to rearrange all the files so that everything is fitted back
together, and files are contiguous (all connected together), rather than fragmented. A disc
defragmenter is a utility program that does this. It is, however, a slow process, so in modern
computer defragmentation is often run in the background when a computer isn’t doing
anything else - this keeps the computer’s hard drive well organised and operating at good
speed.

Back-up
Backing up our data is an essential part of keeping data secure. Doing it manually is slow,
time consuming, and we have to remember to do it regularly. Therefore utility programs exist
to do it for us.

A utility program will run automatically on a schedule, and will copy the files we select to
another location. This may be an external hard drive, a removable drive (like a digital tape
drive - rarely used these days) or to cloud storage.

1. What files are the most important ones to back-up from a computer?
Business

2. Which files might you not back up every day, or perhaps not back up at all?
apps

Anti-virus/Anti-spyware
Anti-virus and Anti-spyware programs scan our computers looking for damaging files, or
malware. Most programs of this type will quickly examine a file before you open it, to check it
isn’t dangerous, but will also scan the whole of your hard drive at regular intervals - usually
once a day.

With any anti-malware program it is essential that you keep it up to date - that is you make
sure it downloads updates regularly. This is because they can only recognise threats they
know about, and as new threats are being created all the time they have to downloaded the
latest information about new viruses and spyware that has been produced.

Anti-malware programs will also try to use ​Heuristics ​to ‘guess’ whether an unknown
program is dangerous or not, but this approach is never fully accurate.

1. What is a Heuristic?

Managing, repairing and converting files


Utility programs also exist for keeping your files organised (copying, deleting, renaming
files), repairing damaged files and drives (e.g. diskscan on windows) and for converting a file
from one type into another (e.g. changing the format of a music or video file).

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