Belarc Advisor is truly useful PC software utility for maintaining and managing your computer. The program tells you nearly everything you could possibly want to know about the hardware on your computer and much of what you might want to know about the software that’s installed. Unlike some online PC maintenance tools, Belarc Advisor also keeps all of your PC profile information private on your own computer and your system information is not sent to any remote web server via the Internet. To make this PC utility even better, it’s free.
Once installed Belarc Advisor performs a thorough scan of the hardware and software installed on your computer. When the scan is complete Belarc Advisor displays an HTML snapshot report in your web browser that contains a wide range of information about your computer including:
- Operating system and most recent service pack installed.
- Computer manufacturer, model, serial number or service tag.
- Processor type, clock speed and cache memory.
- Motherboard make, model, BIOS version and date.
- Number of memory slots & amount of RAM installed in each slot.
- Hard disk drives and optical (DVD, CD) drives along with total space and amount of free space available.
- Display (graphics) adapter and display type (monitor)
- Network adapters with IP address, MAC address, Gateway address and DNS servers
- Audio devices and other devices attached to the computer
- Any missing Microsoft Security Hotfixes
- All application software programs that are installed on your computer
- Virus protection program installed, version and if it is up to date.
- User accounts that exist on the computer.
- Printers and scanners that are installed.
Belarc Network Map
Another important function that Belarc Advisor provides is the generation of a network map. This map includes information such as:
- IP address, make and model of the router you are connected to
- IP address and Workgroup name for your computer
- IP Addresses for other computers on the network.
- IP address and Workgroup name of any Network Attached Storage devices
- The Physical or MAC address of any recognized network device.
- Information on the Device Roles of specific network devices such as a DHCP server, web server, or Samba servers.
One of the most useful features of Belarc Advisor is its ability to list the product license numbers installed software products. This includes listing the license keys for versions of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office installed on the computer. So if you have long since misplaced your original license key information, Belarc will generate a neat and concise list that can be filed away for when you need it.
The list of software products installed on your computer can be an eye opener. Programs you have long since forgotten about or demo version you had installed but forgotten to remove. This provides a good opportunity for cleaning out unneeded or unwanted programs.
Belarc Advisor is one of those slick computer maintenance utilities that just keep getting better over time as new features and functions continue to be added. While this program won’t actually fix any of your computer’s problems by itself, it can be a great tool for providing insight on what the problems may be and how to address them.
You can download a free copy of Belarc Advisor directly from the Belarc web site: http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html