Utility Software (Cambridge (CIE) A Level Computer Science) : Revision Note

Utility software

What is utility software?

• Utility software is a collection of tools designed to help maintain a computer system

• Utility software is designed to perform a limited number of tasks

• Utility software interacts with the computers hardware, for example, secondary storage devices

• Some utility software comes installed with the operating system

• Examples of utility software include:

  • Disk formatter

  • Virus checker

  • Defragmentation software

  • Disk contents analysis/disk repair software

  • File compression

  • Back-up software

Disk formatter

• A disk formatter prepares a storage device (like a hard drive or USB stick) for use by creating a file system and organising the space into sectors and tracks

• It is needed:

  • To wipe and re-initialise a disk before use

  • To change the file system format (e.g. FAT32, NTFS)

  • To remove all data and errors before installing a new OS or reusing the drive

• For example:

  • Formatting a new external drive before saving files

  • Reformatting a corrupted USB stick to make it usable again

Virus checker

• Virus checking software is a combination of different software to prevent computers from being susceptible to viruses and other malicious software

• It typically includes:

  • Anti-virus 

  • Anti-spam 

  • Anti-spyware 

• A virus checker scans through email attachments, websites and downloaded files to search for issues

• Two ways virus checkers can approach the task are:

  • Use a list of known unique malware fingerprints (signatures) to block immediately if they try to access your device in any way

  • Monitor the behaviour of programs to identify suspicious activities that might indicate malware such as;

    • Rapid deletion/modification of files

    • Attempts to access sensitive data/resources

    • Communicating with known malicious servers

• Virus checkers will also perform checks for updates to ensure the database of signatures is up to date

Defragmentation software

• Defragmentation software groups fragmented files back together in order to improve the access speed of a hard disk drive (HDD)

• As programs and data are added to a new hard disk drive, it is added in order, over time as files are deleted this leaves gaps

• As programs and data are added over time, these gaps get filled and data becomes fragmented

• Defragmentation can only be used on magnetic storage

Disk contents analysis/disk repair software

• This utility checks the structure and health of a disk, including files, folders, sectors, and the file allocation table

• It is needed:

  • To diagnose and fix errors on the disk (e.g. bad sectors, file system corruption)

  • To recover lost or damaged files

  • To improve system performance by identifying and repairing issues

• For example:

  • Running Check Disk (chkdsk) on Windows to repair file system errors

  • Using a disk utility on macOS to verify and repair drive problems

File compression

• Compression reduces the amount of secondary storage required by performing an algorithm on the original data

• Lossy compression physically removes data from the original data to reduce its size, the original file can not be re-created

• Lossless compression uses mathematics to order data more efficiently reducing its size, the original files can be re-created as no data is lost

Back-up software

• Back-up software is used to create copies of personal data in order to keep it safe in the event of:

  • Accidental loss

  • Data theft

• Backups can be automated and scheduled to happen at less busy periods of the day, to not take up valuable system resources (e.g. overnight etc.)

• Backups can be made in two ways:

  • Full - all files are backed up (saftest, slow)

  • Incremental - only files that have been added/modified since the last backup are backed up (faster, less secure)

• Backups can be stored locally (secondary storage) or remotely (cloud)

• Backup software can be purchased or come as a standalone application bundled with an operating system