ozgamer's Full Review: Avanquest System Commander 2000 Full Version for P...
Take away a PC's operating system (OS) and you are left with a complicated mass of electronics of no functional use. It's too big for a bookmark, too heavy for a paper weight and too smooth for a boat anchor.
In the non-Apple world we are quite spoilt for operating systems. Not only are there several Microsoft Windows offerings but fortunately there are also some viable alternatives appearing. Of these, Linux leads the pack into the mainstream through their relationship with IBM. With each OS version or upgrade you soon find out that a favorite package runs under one OS but not another. And to run X application you need Y operating system.
Until now, most of us have had to compromise somewhere along the way. To switch operating system has meant hours of re-installation and fine-tuning so we only understood it when it was finally unavoidable. Now for the good news. The means exists for us to automatically run any OS at any time, and switch from one to another with just a few key strokes.
System Commander 2000 (SC) is an advanced boot manager that supports every PC-compatible OS. It even includes full, on-the-fly, automatic partitioning that handles FAT, FAT32, NT File System and any existing compression for adding operating systems.
With System Commander, your computer could carry, say, a couple of versions of DOS, Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, ME, NT and XP. Include OS2, Unix, Linux, Novell NetWare and perhaps BeOS and you can move in and out of operating environments with ease. The more gifted of us will have quickly caught the implications of this versatility. Those who have worked with computers for some years have superseded OSs lying around. Next to them lie their discarded, once-favored applications that no longer work under current OSs. Now we can run those applications again.
Using SC is quite straightforward. To begin, use the OS Wizard menu to set up your system. to receive each operating system you wish to install. In you simply scroll through the OS Selection menu to load the required environment. You can install and run your operating systems from primary or logical partitions, with multi-user password controls if required. At various points during set-up for installation you can click on the Advisor button to help you decide how to answer requests for various settings and destinations.
The indexed user manual (don't you just hate online manuals?) is liberally illustrated, well explained and clearly laid out to guide even the most inexperienced nervous user. Chapter 3 is a superbly concise yet cogent summary of hard drive basics and partitioning information. And chapter 6 lays bare the intricacies of manual partitioning, should the inclination overtake you.
Talking of nervous, I fancy there could be some agitation from the more astute - "What if there's a power cut during partitioning or partition resizing?" I hear them mutter. I have two responses. Firstly, you will fully back up your existing system and hard drives) before you use System Commander. Murphy's Law is alive and well wherever you live. Secondly, a Restart floppy disk is included. This is used to restart an interrupted partition resizing routine. For further safety, you can use Undo partition delete and format. And SC's exclusive BackStep Wizard lets you return your system to its original configuration - just in case.
As a bonus, the package includes TurboLinux operating system, plus StarOffice, a very clever, multi-OS office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing and database) that runs either under Linux or Windows. How's that for versatile? Use the Internet to check out such operating systems as Solaris, FreeBSD, Coherent Unix, BeOS and more. You can even access and download free or trial software for the different OSs to try out.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.