With the plethora of software programs and operating systems available on the market today, it's easy to encounter software conflicts when installing new programs. A free utility by PC Magazine called InCtrl5 helps the situation by documenting the changes made to your computer when you install new software. The free utility is available for download online. It works with Microsoft Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4.0, and 2000, but not any other operating systems.

Once you download the program and install it, you open it from Start/Programs/InCtrl5/InCtrl5. You should open the program before you install new software. The interface allows you to select the program’s installation file from your CD or hard drive and then start tracking the changes made. If you are installing a new program from a CD that automatically brings up the installation menu, you should close that menu and select the installation file yourself from the CD to allow InCtrl5 to do its job. Installation files are usually called “setup.exe” or “install.exe.”

Once you start the installation from InCtrl5, you'll still receive the new program's prompts for where to install it and whether or not to do a custom installation. All of those steps proceed as usual. The difference is that InCtrl5 is keeping track of everything this new program is changing on your computer. If something goes wrong and your other applications won't work after installing the new program, you can look at the report generated to see what changes were made; this may help you or the software manufacturer restore your computer to operating condition.

The report created after the installation is complete lists changes made to your Registry, the hard disk's contents, any INI files that were changed, and text files that were adjusted (such as your autoexec.bat file). It tells you what was added and what was deleted, allowing you to go back and make adjustments where necessary.

This is one of those win-win situations for consumers and software manufacturers. Consumers get a very useful utility for free, and get to keep track of changes to their computers. The information the program generates is also useful to the manufacturer of the guilty program and will help the company resolve any conflicts. So I highly recommend this utility.

The program works as expected and could really help you out of a jam. As a developer, I sometimes get e-mails from customers who say that Clooz didn't install properly or that after Clooz was installed, other programs didn't work as expected. I would be thrilled to receive an InCtrl5 report from a customer because it would let me see what was going on at the time of installation; with this information, I might be able to troubleshoot the problem.

If you decide to download the utility, you might want to investigate other utilities that PC Magazine has available for free download. The magazine contains some of my favorite reading, and I get a lot of inspiration from the articles contained in it. Every month, the magazine’s editors post a new utility that is free for anyone to try. The December utility, BrowseFresh, also looked interesting; it refreshes your browser when content changes so you don't have to remember to hit Refresh. I downloaded the utility, but couldn't get it to work on my computer for some reason. It would have been useful for watching a bid on E-bay, for example. I lost a bid at the last minute on E-bay because I didn't refresh in time. But it's a moot point if you can't get the utility to work on your computer.

Another utility I have yet to try looks quite promising. This one is called FavOrg, and it helps you clean up your Favorites list in Internet Explorer. When I was looking through my Favorites list, I noticed I had duplicates and some outdated shortcuts. This utility is designed to help you take care of those little nuisances.

So visit PC Magazine's utility page when you have some time. You might be able to download a couple of items that could save you some headaches in the long run.

Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens, CGRS, is the managing editor of Genealogical Computing (GC), editor of the Board for Certification of Genealogists' newsletter OnBoard, the creator of Clooz—the electronic filing cabinet for genealogical records, and a frequent contributor to Ancestry Magazine. She can be reached via e-mail at liz@ancestordetective.com or at gceditor@ancestry.com.