Specifications and Requirements ------------------------------- Software Title: WinHog Version 4.0 Author or Company: Michael D. Price, CSP P.O. Box 149 Pickerington, OH 43147-0149 E-Mail: 72202.22@COMPUSERVE.COM Registration Fee: $10.00 Availability: Windows Magazine Software Library (AOL) Filename: WINHOG.ZIP Filesize (ZIPped): 122,687 bytes Filesize (unZIPped): 182,682 bytes Keywords: Resources, WinHog, FAT, WinMag, Windows Magazine, Superior Shareware, June 1995 Special, June 1995, Superior Requirements: Windows 3.1 Rating (1-10): 8.75 Date of Review: 6/14/95 Installation ------------ Installation Rating: (Manual Installation) Description of Installation Process: You need to create a directory to extract the ZIPped program files into. You will then need to add WinHog's icon to a Program Manager group. No other files need to go into any other directory. Features -------- Listing/Description of Features: Scans any of your drives and displays a piechart showing the relative sizes of each directory on the scanned drive. It also displays a color coded directory list which gives you the percentage of the total space used by each directory. Clicking on a color coded directory name calls up a display of DOS File Sizes, Allocated Space and Slack Space (in bytes) within that directory. The drive information WinHog can give you includes: DOS File Size (the number of bytes in a file as reported by DOS's DIR command or by Windows File Manager), DOS FAT (File Allocation Table) Allocation Usage (the size of a block of bytes reserved for a file on a DOS File Allocation Table configured drive), and the DOS FAT Slack Space (the difference, in bytes, between the actual size of the file and the space which has been allocated to it). The registered version also contains a menu option to include the scanned drives freespace in WinHog's calculations. This would be printed on the pie chart and in its legend. WinHog lets you do "what if" analysis on the data it gathers. You can see how much disk space could be reclaimed by repartioning your drive (thereby changing the Allocation Unit sizes). The same "what if" analysis can be done with the FAT Slack sizes. WinHog's analysis results can also be printed out as a textual report. Its File Menu has options for Printing and Exiting the program. The Options Menu lets you Include Free Space in Calculations (available to registered users only). The Analyze Menu's options are: DOS File Sizes (as shown in DOS's DIR command), FAT File Allocation Usage, and FAT Directory Slack. The Help Menu's options are: Contents, Using Windows Help and About WinHog (the About Screen displays the Windows and DOS versions, Mode (Real, Standard or Enhanced), Free Memory (in bytes), if a Math Co-Processor is present, and the percentage of Free System Resources as well as the usual program name, version, and registration information). Help/Documentation Rating: 9.5 WinHog comes with a comprehensive Windows format Help file which should answer most of the questions you may have about the program (it is almost a mini-tutorial on how your drive system stores information). Summary ------- WinHog fills a void in the normal Windows/DOS utilities. The ability to see how your system is using disk space, as it is currently partitioned, and then play around with different configurations to see if you could better optimize your disk usage by repartitioning the drive. Users of Drive Space, Stacker or any of the other disk compressors do not require the FAT Allocation and FAT Slack analysis, however, users of disk compression can still benefit from the DOS File Size display. This will show you which directories (on your compressed drive) are the real space hogs. I really like WinHog (as you can tell by the fact that it is on my list of "High-Honorable Mentions". This program can really help you to get the most byte for the buck. I definitely recommend it!! Problems and Suggestions ------------------------ List of Problems found: I did come across one problem in printing out WinHog's analysis report. It always leaves off the last directory in the list and does not include the number of bytes of data in that directory. (NOTE: I contacted WinHog's programmer, Michael D. Price, about this problem. He was able to quickly correct it and has released the corrected version (version 4.02) which will soon be available for download on America Online. This version also right justifies the byte count and percentage displays so they are neatly lined up and fixes a problem working with network drives greater than 2.2 Gigabytes in size.) Technical Support ----------------- Technical Support Rating: 9.5 Description: Inquires I made in reference to the program were answered in less than 24 hours (via E-Mail) with very comprehensive and helpful responses. What do you get when you register? ---------------------------------- You receive a registered copy of the latest version of WinHog which includes a Setup program (for easy installation of WinHog onto your system) and a DLL (Dynamic Link Library) file which allows WinHog to determine your systems cluster allocation automatically. Disclaimer ---------- (DISCLAIMER: This review is provided for information/entertainment purposes only. The author will not be held responsible or liable for any problems which may occur in the use of any of the reviewed software. The author will also not be held responsible if the program reviewed does not operate, in the way stated. With there being so many system configurations possible confilcts/problems can arise which may prevent the reviewed software from operating in the way indicated. This is not the responsibility of the reviewer.)