Do you have any idea what kind of software (or their versions) you currently have installed on your PC? Do you even care? You should, because when (not "if") your hard drive crashes, you are going to have to reinstall it all. And if you don't have a current record of what's there; well let's just say it can be the beginning of a costly nightmare!

Bellarc Advisor is one of the niftiest little free utilities I have seen in a long time. Simply download it to a temporary directory on you hard drive and launch the installer. In just seconds it will load itself and run an audit report showing every hardware device, their settings, and software (including serial numbers in some cases) installed on your system. It's like a CAT Scan for your PC! The report is presented in a Web file, which you can save on your hard drive and/or print out for safe storage (highly recommended!). CLICK HERE to see an actual report recently done on my laptop computer. It only took about 20 seconds to produce.

The main reason for running a Belarc PC audit report is to have a record of your system's current state in case of a crash. This implies of course that you periodically re-run the reports to reflect changes and additions to your PC over time (a great job for your Virtual Assistant using GoToMyPc.com!) Another reason however is that you can instantly see if you have more than one version of any software installed which is often a cause of hard to trace problems.

Think of the free Belcarc Advisor utility as a CAT Scan for your PC. It might not prevent the inevitable, but it sure helps with the cure when it does!