Simtel Spotlight - Where the Hottest Programs SHINE!

Currently Featuring... BootIt Next Generation, version 1.32

by TeraByte Unlimited

• Release Date: September 13, 2002
• Windows DOS, 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP, Linux

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BootIt Next Generation

I have bought, paid for upgrades and reviewed the major partition managers/dual boot programs out there and don't get me wrong; they are excellent, even if I am a little light in my bank account. At one time or another I have recommended them all and until I found BootIt I would continue to do so. But I'm always looking for another alternative (the upgrades for the others were killing me!)

But then I ran into BootIt which is not only very reasonably priced, but is an excellent bit of software. Every bit as good, or better, than anything else I've used.

First there's the boot feature. It may not be something that you'll ever use, but if you're curious about another operating system but you're not ready to take the total commitment it pays off in spades. Installing a new OS and then selecting which OS to boot to couldn't be easier.

For me the real gem was the partition management. If you go with the standard Windows method you know that a change in partition size is a major event and is destructive to any data. That means lots of backups, playing with fdisk until your fingers bleed and, if you hold your tongue just right, you end up with what you want.

BootIt solves that problems and a lot more. Here's the primary control panel for maintenance.

Click on image to enlarge.

Let me recount how I used this. I wanted to install Win XP on an old Win 98 machine. I wanted to migrate my apps to Win XP but I had very, very little room left on drive C: (my partitions were small to begin with). I finally cleaned up enough space to get XP installed. I installed XP SP1 and ended up with a whopping 5Mb of free space (ouch!).

I installed BootIt and found that my mouse didn't work (it doesn't use the Windows GUI). Not to worry, keyboard navigation was a snap.

From there is was a walk in the park. I took space from the other partitions, used the "slide" feature to move it around and allocted it to drive C:. and ended up with a 4Mb partition. I was good to go.

Initially I didn't check to see what kind of documentation came with BootIt, I've gotten lazy and reply on a programs help system but I should have checked out the bootit.pdf file, it is far better than the help system and has a lot of details about options you'll want to know about, including a solution to my mouse problem. So do as I say, not as I do and check out the documentation. It's well done and reading it will yield plenty of benefit.

I'm tremendiously impressed, well worth checking out and very highly recommended. -- Don Watkins

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