User Reviews

  Smartclose and recording  

• Interface: 4
• Features: 5
• Ease of use: 4
• Value: 5
• Overall:

I use many editing and recording facilities on my computer and cannot afford to allow interruptions from other programs,for example;alarms and audible warnings from my anti spy ware. Closing down all running programs with SmartClose is so easy. I have used it hundreds of times in the last few months and have never had any technical problems with it whatsoever. Initially it may be worth noting how many start up programs you do have running and reducing those as much as possible. I run SmartClose in conjunction with CodeStuff Starter. Both programs sit nicely together, for me.

  Very good, but not perfect  

• Interface: 5
• Features: 4
• Ease of use: 4
• Value: 5
• Overall:

I use this program for a long time now and really appreciate its benefits before defragmentation and cleaning, however it does not close all, for a better fast result you need to use Killprocess additionally ( also not perfect )

  Response by software author  

Thank you for the positive review. Would it be possible to send me a list of programs that SmartClose fails to close? This will allow me to test them myself and to improve the closing of programs for a next version. Thanks.

  Great program  

• Interface: 5
• Features: 5
• Ease of use: 5
• Value: 5
• Overall:

I love this program. Thanks!

  Buggy but recommended  

• Interface: 3
• Features: 3
• Ease of use: 5
• Value: 5
• Overall:

I use SmartClose to shut down non essential programs prior to playing computer games. Sometimes it works properly on the first shot, but often, it will lock up. On several occasions I've had to shut my computer off without closing windows properly because it wouldn't let me do anything, it would just be stuck on the "snapshot" step. Other times it would finish as it should but when then it will lock up whenever I try to start the game or any other program. Sometimes when it's stuck, I can click on "cancel" and it will finish what it's doing properly. Still I recommend this program. My in game fps goes up dramatically and I experience much less lag, and this is after I've already tweaked the services and background programs. I'd say it works properly the first attempt about 60% of the time. Once or twice, it's taken 5-6 attempts to get it to properly close the background programs and services and allowed me to play.

  Really great..  

• Interface: 5
• Features: 5
• Ease of use: 5
• Value: 5
• Overall:

This is perfect for closing down apps that are not needed to run, freeing up memory for inatallating, copying, or whatever, or just killing resource hoggs i.e. windowsblinds, it makes the computer feel naked. I thought exact opposite when i first downloaded and installed i thought little app that ran in the background when i pressed it it'd close all programs, so i uninstalled it (uninstalls just fine) but then later reinstalled it, because it has its uses, anyways it did miss a few apps (hotkeys) thats the only one.. and i had too manually add my antivirus and spyware apps, and firewall not to be closed, but it comes with a restore feature for quickly opening up apps again, i've found that it can be used as a quicklaunch for programs too, before i was using a batch file which is pretty cool, a must try and it does not really need a help file, it's pretty self explanatory add programs you dont want closed, follow the steps in my opinion. give it a try.

  Undecided  

• Interface: 3
• Features: 3
• Ease of use: 3
• Value: 3
• Overall:

The download and installation/setup were very easy however, (spec:P-III,600,WIN98)performance took a big hit after the programs were closed. I did not experiment with "un-checking" key programs that may have been required to get the performance back. The performance loss was very noticeable during selection and operation of Flight Simulator 2002. What would normally load in 10 seconds, took 90 seconds after applying the program and the frame rates decreased from 18-25 frames per second to 5-11 frames per second. Re-loading the programs was easy except it did not activate Task Scheduler, and did not display the Norton Antivirus symbol to the system tray (using the snap shot feature). Uninstallation was also very easy.

  Close but no banana  

• Interface: 4
• Features: 4
• Ease of use: 4
• Value: 4
• Overall:

Looks very good, and quite easy to use, and seemed to close most programs and services. Unfortunately, on restart/restore not everything came up properly. My computer no longer had any sound, the volume control was there and working but no sound from speakers. A reboot fixed problem. Avast (anti-virus) on restart all the services seemed to be there (checked in task manager) but the little spinning globe in the task bar didn't come back. Spybot teatimer took ages to stop and the icon was still in task bar (was it really stopped?) ZoneAlarm didn't seem to stop at all is it supposed to? I guess you get what you pay for.

  Help file needs work  

• Interface: 3
• Features: 5
• Ease of use: 3
• Value: 5
• Overall:

I want to start by saying that I love this program; in fact, I just recommended it to a bunch of folks on Lockergnome. I have to say, though, that I don't find it completely intuitive for a new user. There is no help file apparent, and while it is possible to figure out what comes next from the user interface, it seems to me that a naive user might be a bit at sea. That's the only area where I would fault it, as opposed to EndItAll. A small help file accessible from an obvious button would make the application darned near perfect. Rest assured that this won't stop me from recommending it heartily. (And the price is right!)

  Forget "end it all"  

• Interface: 5
• Features: 5
• Ease of use: 5
• Value: 5
• Overall:

This is a huge improvement over the only other utility of its type that I'm aware of. The system snapshot feature is key to my recommendation since it saves your having to reboot after installation, in my case a 5 minute task. Has worked flawlessly. Kudos to the developer

  Great program!  

• Interface: 5
• Features: 5
• Ease of use: 5
• Value: 5
• Overall:

This great little program saves time by shutting down all non-vital background programs with just a couple of clicks. It has worked perfectly for me (on two completely different computers) without any glitches at all. I highly recommend it. Thanks to the author of this program!

  Great little program  

• Interface: 5
• Features: 5
• Ease of use: 5
• Value: 5
• Overall:

This is one of those programs that should come already installed with the OS. To bad it is not. I especially liked the option of ignoring any program you want. I give this program an A+.

  A step in the right direction...  

• Interface: 5
• Features: 3
• Ease of use: 2
• Value: 5
• Overall:

I was eager to give SmartClose a try, because the concept was so unique. I had been using PC Magazine's EndItAll utility, which is nice, but doesn't handle services at all. Alas, SmartClose didn't work very well for me. I found it freezing up completely, during the part of the process when it tried closing programs. No, it wasn't a waiting game--it really was frozen. I also didn't like the fact that it SmartClose failed to obtain the full command line that applications had been started with (or, if it is supposed to, it didn't work properly for me). I found that I had to exclude many applications, and close them all manually, for this reason. Oh well, back to EndItAll and "net stop" command scripts.

  Response by software author  

That s strange, SmartClose was tested on every Windows version and I ve never seen this behaviour. I would really like to fix these bugs. Could you please send me some more information (what OS you re running etc.)? You can find our e-mailaddress on the BM-productions website. Thanks

  This program filled a huge gap.  

• Interface: 5
• Features: 5
• Ease of use: 5
• Value: 5
• Overall:

Wow! I'm wondering that why it is created now, and not 10 years ago. Killing all process during an installation or compressing a 3GB file and restarting all of them had been a really painful task that I had to perform several times a day. And now, this tiny incredibly useful program does it cleanly and effectively. My love! I would like to thank the developer(s) of this software; they have done a fantastic job! An essential tool that ironically had been missed for many years.

  Response by software author  

Thank you very much for the positive comment! I had a similar problem a while ago, and that s why I started writing this program :-)