Microsoft has announced a new application to keep your PC in good working order at all times. While not technically fully released yet, we tried it out to see what it's all about.

PC Manager is a compact application that provides shortcuts to little-known or little-used features of your Windows PC. For example, you can organize your storage drives and see at a glance the startup time and which apps are affecting it. You can also disable apps that take a long time to start up.

There is also a "Boost" button that cleans up all temporary files in your session, helping to free up valuable memory. You can also adjust which files you want Windows to delete on your behalf. Here, Microsoft has cunningly tricked users into reverting to Edge as their default browser.

No thanks.

There is also a Security section with shortcuts to Windows Update, Browser Security, and Popup Management. You can also run a quick scan from this section.

It is also a fairly sophisticated application, but in my usage, I found it to be one of those things that, once used, I would never open again. However, I am probably not the target user, and most, if not all, of you reading this are not. As a windowing application, it is a separate application open on the desktop, with access to these settings elsewhere if needed. Perhaps they would be more useful if used as pop-up cards or shortcuts, but it is unlikely that users familiar with what Windows has to offer would gain much from the look and feel of the current app.

According to Aggiornamenti Lumia (opens in new tab) (via Windows Central (opens in new tab)), the app has been in beta for several months but was only recently added to the Windows Store. As of today, this listing is hidden. The account also notes that there appear to be two versions of the app ready for release, but the differences are not clear.

If you want to try it out for yourself, you will need to access the Chinese web page for the public beta version (opens in a new tab). It has an official Microsoft certificate and is a subdomain of the Microsoft site, suggesting that Microsoft is targeting the Chinese market first with this app. Perhaps they are looking to launch it elsewhere in the world at a later date.