For the purposes of this review, I looked at one such collection whose name is almost synonymous with falling apart: Glockenshpiel’s JackHammer & PowerSaw 97 for Windows 95.

The installation went smoothly, letting me select a program folder (I chose to install it over my existing JackHammer & PowerSaw 95 installation), then dumping most of its files into c:\windows. Eventually, it asked if I wanted to create an emergency floppy. I clicked "Yes," and was prompted to put a floppy disk into drive A:. Five minutes later, it told me to remove that floppy, label it "JackHammer & PowerSaw Emergency Disk 1: Programs Needed in a Real Bad Situation," and pop in another floppy. After removing that floppy and labeling it "JackHammer & PowerSaw Emergency Disk 2: FAT, Registry, INI files, and Solitaire scores," I popped in a third.

After "JackHammer & PowerSaw Emergency Disk 18: Non-standard wallpaper, .WAV files, and animated cursors," the program let me see the Readme file. In addition to telling me how to properly uninstall the product (run the uninstall program, then manually remove every relevant file and Registry entry), the Readme file concluded with "Congratulations! You have just installed JackHammer & PowerSaw 97. WARNING: If you install JackHammer & PowerSaw 97 over a JackHammer & PowerSaw 95 installation, the program will replace the Windows Registry with .WAV files of every fundraising phone call ever made by Vice President Al Gore."

Luckily, I was able to restore the Registry with the help of a backup I had stored off-site in Nepal.

The first JackHammer & PowerSaw module I looked at was the crash recovery program, N-Burn. This little program is designed to run in the background and warn me if my system is about to crash--presumably so I can take cover. It worked: Immediately after I launched it, N-Burn told me that my system about to crash. I clicked OK and went on with my work.

Next, I launched the defragger, ShatterDisk, causing N-Burn to pop up and warn me that my system was about to crash. I clicked OK and continued to inspect ShatterDisk.

The program comes with a dizzying array of options, from "Defrag only fragmented files with Rs in them, leaving empty space all over your drive," to "Defrag all files, moving c:\Windows to the beginning of the drive, all empty space to sector 0, c:\My Documents to a floppy, and the swap file to every third cluster." By running multiple defrags using all of these options, I was able to cut my average drive access time by half of a percent!

Next, I tried running the package’s drive diagnostic and repair program, Slipped Disk. After clicking OK in response to N-Burn’s imminent crash warning, I was presented with a wide choice of options. Did I want Slipped Disk to test the integrity of my FAT? Fix cross-linked files? Check for orphaned long file names? Thoroughly test the surface of my drive for bad sectors? For very bad sectors? For downright evil sectors? I selected all of the options, held my breath, and waited to see what would happen.

After ten minutes of checking over my hard drive very thoroughly while displaying an animation of a hard drive surface being hit with a rubber mallet, Slipped Disk gave me a brief but educational report: "Your FAT has been crosslinked to a file with a lost long filename that has been moved to a downright evil sector. Solution: If you don't run Slipped Disk any more, this won't happen again."

Next I loaded Files Be Gone, JackHammer & PowerSaw’s archive and destroy utility. The program took twenty minutes to scan my hard drive to decide what files deserved to live or die. When it was finally done, it asked me if I wanted to remove large files, unused files, or duplicate files. Then N-Burn warned me that my system was about to crash.

I clicked OK, then picked the option to view--for possible deletion--every file that had not been accessed in the past 90 days. Within two seconds, I was presented with a list of no files. Of course--when Files Be Gone scanned my drive, it had to access every file.

If I couldn’t clean out my hard drive, I figured I could at least tidy up the Windows Registry using JackHammer & PowerSaw’s Nuclear Warfare. The program opened with a warning: "In order to do its job, Nuclear Warfare must temporarily replace the Registry files with a large collection of dirty limericks. If the program is not allowed to complete the process, these files will be wiped out and Windows will cease to function."

I held my breath and clicked OK. Five minutes later I was turning blue and decided to breath again. The program was still doing its job when N-Burn popped up with its usual warning about an imminent crash. I clicked OK, and my system locked up.

Time for another trip to Nepal.