The aging feature of PowerTools is potentially one of the most useful aspects of the product, but it has defects that go uncorrected (or rationalized away) release after release. Here are are some problems one can spot with their eyes closed:
Running 2009 on my XP systems, nothing is isted under the "open with" and "search" sections of Registry Manager, while 2008 listed many such entries.
When marking the age of a long list of items, performance is very slow. If the user switches to a different section before marking has completed, the marking activity is cut short without any indication.
The most puzzling thing about these tools (and particularly the so-called uninstaller tool) is the erratic nature of the lists they produce. This sloppiness might only be apparent to someone who uses the aging feature, which highlights the considerable degree to which inconsistent results are produced from time to time. PowerTools may or may not detect that a program is installed from one run to the next -- apparently as a consequence of slight, unrelated changes in the registry. So programs sometimes pop us as "new" even though they've been installed for years. Conversely, the feature never recognizes that a program has been removed, which can lead to inaccurate results of a different sort.
Here's a suggested testing regime. Turn on the aging feature and mark all items old. After installing or uninstalling some bit of software, cut the aging files to a temporary directory and let PowerTools create new ones. Now use a file comparator to contrast the old and new files. I've been keeping an eye on this for years, and the files have significant discrepancies. This inconsistency is a somewhat "invisible" defect, in that many users may be completely unaware of it, but it's a serious problem in my book.
