Reviewed by Barry Little - May 30, 2007

Publisher: Lavalys, Inc.

Price (Direct): Full - $29.95; Upgrade - $19.95

The ability to keep track of, analyze and sometimes troubleshoot what’s going on with all that expensive hardware beneath your computer’s case is just as important as the hardware itself. Today we’re going to look at a utility that began as a popular freeware program and evolved into a surprisingly powerful, flexible and easy-to-use product, that allows you to analyze, burn-in and benchmark your PC—EVEREST Ultimate Edition v4.00!

Most computer enthusiasts remember a little “all-in-one” freeware utility that allowed you to analyze and identify the hardware and software their PC was running, as well as monitor system fan speeds, voltages and critical component temperatures in real-time. The utility was called AIDA32, and it didn’t take long for it to grow in popularity. Soon, it was no longer practical or feasible for AIDA32 to remain freeware as it tried to keep up with core PC technologies evolving at a break-neck pace. AIDA32 was eventually acquired by a company named Lavalys, reborn as the EVEREST utility and split into 3 different versions. EVEREST Home Edition was a re-branded version of AIDA32 that Lavalys continued to make available free, until it was eventually discontinued. EVEREST Ultimate Edition was the “enthusiast/power-user” version that added more features and functionality over EVEREST Home Edition, as well as frequently updated support for the latest hardware. EVEREST Corporate Edition was for business use, targeting corporate, government and medical markets (HP in fact, is one of Lavalys’ largest, high-profile clients).

Today, EVEREST remains as three separate products. EVEREST Ultimate Edition, EVEREST Corporate Edition, and EVEREST Corporate Edition NR. EVEREST Ultimate Edition has been repositioned for home use for enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts. The Corporate Editions are still designated for business and enterprise use, with the only difference being that EVEREST Corporate Edition has remote management and monitoring capabilities, while EVEREST Corporate Edition NR does not—hence the “NR” (No-Remote) designation (check out the complete feature matrix of both Corporate Editions here).

Now a little bit about Lavalys, the company behind the EVEREST system tools.

About Lavalys

Lavalys is a software publisher company of advanced administration solutions that are effective for small, medium and large-scale enterprises worldwide. Lavalys provides integrated management and monitoring solutions for Windows-based systems which addresses the growing needs for organizations to protect their IT network investments without breaking their budgets.

Our portfolio includes world-class and state-of-the-art solutions, both large scale for organizations and small scale for individuals, that address the major problems facing today's IT landscapes: audit, system information, change management, inventory, benchmark, licensing as well as security.

While Lavalys launched commercial operations in 2003 with its flagship product, EVEREST Professional, its roots can be traced back to 1995. That's the year that Tamás Miklós, a brilliant Hungarian developer, formed a freeware software project called AIDA32. Millions of users later, AIDA32 became one of the most popular and highly-rated freeware products in the world. In 2003, an entrepreneur from Laval, Canada with a deep background in the world of network management recognized the commercial potential of AIDA32 and joined forces with Tamás Miklós to chart a new course for AIDA32. Roger Marion, and Tamás Miklós thus founded a new and exciting company… Lavalys.

Lavalys is a privately held company that is headquartered in Montreal (Canada) with sales and R&D office in Hungary.

What’s New in Version 4.00

Lavalys continuously updates EVEREST Ultimate Edition to be compatible with and support the latest advances in hardware:

At the rate new CPU, motherboard and video card technologies are emerging, there’s always a chance that EVEREST may report cutting-edge hardware incorrectly—if at all. Fortunately, EVEREST’s excellent reporting features and an active online community helps keep Lavalys informed of any issues. Lavalys Tech Support frequently releases beta builds to address these specific problems, until an official build with fully tested and certified fixes, can be released.

Installation

Whether you purchase the full version or upgrade, EVEREST can be downloaded either in a ZIP compressed package or in a self-installation EXE package. The only difference is in the method of installation. You can extract the ZIP version into any folder you create and run EVEREST from it. The EXE version offers the convenience of “one-click” installation and the option of uninstalling it from the Add or Remove Programs Control Panel applet, as well as automatically setting up a program group, desktop and Quick Launch icons for you.

Regardless of the method of installation, unlike competing products, EVEREST Ultimate Edition does not write entries into the Windows registry. This makes for a less problematic and cleaner install and uninstall. It also gives the ZIP version another advantage. It allows you to install and run EVEREST Ultimate Edition directly from a CD/DVD-ROM Disc or USB Flash Drive! Simply unzip all of the files to a folder; then copy it to the flash drive or burn it to your CD or DVD media.

While you could install the latest version of EVEREST Ultimate Edition (Version 4.00 Build 976 as of this writing), directly over an older version, you are probably better off removing the older one first. Extract the ZIP version to the folder of your choice or just double-click the EXE and accept the defaults as you are stepped through the brief installation routine. No reboot required. When you launch EVEREST, you'll note that it starts in Trial Mode. Whether you purchased the upgrade or full version, Lavalys will E-Mail you a Version 4.00 Product Key (the upgrade version requires that you have a previous version registered with Lavalys). Click the Enter Product Key button on the dialog box that appears, and enter your key to turn your copy of EVEREST into a fully licensed copy that won’t shut down on you after 30 days.

Interface

If you’ve used EVEREST before, with the exception of the version and build number that appears at the top of the menu tree, you’ll find that the interface remains virtually unchanged from previous versions. After all, why mess with a good thing when it works?

Normally, when you think about a utility that is packed with as many features as EVEREST Ultimate Edition, you would almost expect the interface to be a complex, cluttered and convoluted mess. After the colorful splash screen disappears (which you can prevent from displaying each time EVEREST starts, by the way), you’re greeted with an interface that is deceptively clean and elegant for a program that packs this much power and flexibility.

Divided into four sections, you have the Main Menu and Tool Bars at the top, the Page Menu on the left, and the Information Window on the right. From the Main Menu, you can access all the user adjustable-preferences that allow you to configure everything from how EVEREST looks and functions, to how it creates reports. You can tweak the appearance of its main pages through the View section of the menu. Select Report to create quick or complete reports of your machine to save to HTML, MHTML or Plain Text files—or E-Mail directly to Lavalys for bug reporting, or to print. EVEREST allows you to omit or include specific items in customizable reports, and the appearance of HTML and MHTML reports can be changed to your liking under Preferences. You can save your most frequently used EVEREST modules, as well as access the most popular tech-websites in your default browser, through Favorites. Whether you need to quickly E-Mail Lavalys Tech Support, access their Forum or the Online Manual, help is only a click away under the Help menu.

The Tool Bar contains navigation buttons that allow you to navigate through EVEREST’s pages. Jump up or down a page with the green Left and Right Arrow buttons, or up a level to the main page with the Up Arrow (green arrow and folder) button. The Refresh button refreshes the currently displayed page in the Information Window, and serves as the “Go!” button for any selected benchmark. Clicking the Report button launches the Report Wizard.

Under the Page Menu window on the left, EVEREST arranges its various information modules in collapsible “tree” format under the Menu tab. These modules are divided into the following categories:

Think of these modules as “chapters” in a book about your particular computer. When you click a chapter, a related sub-chapter appears (as an icon) in the Information Window. When you “expand” the chapter by clicking the “+” symbol next to it, in the Page Menu window, the sub-chapters also appear directly beneath it. Click a sub-chapter in either one, and you’ll immediately get all the detailed information pertaining to the subject of that sub-chapter in the Information Window. For example, clicking Summary under Computer will give you an extensive, summarized list of all of the hardware inside your PC, including any peripherals (like printers) connected to it. Click Sensor under Computer, and you get a list of the temperatures and voltages of key components inside your PC (CPU and motherboard), the current operating speed of the CPU, chassis and any other supported fans (varies with motherboard and video card chipset)—with the values updated in real-time. Some modules will split the Information Window in half, with devices listed in the upper pane, for example, and the properties of the device when selected, in the lower pane.