1.5 – Systems software

🎇1.5.2 Utility software

This section covers:

  • The purpose and functionality of utility software

    • Utility system software:

      • Encryption software

      • Defragmentation

      • Data compression

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🔗1.5.1 Operating systems

Utility software helps maintain the system. Utility software may be included when the operating system is installed, but could also be added to the system afterwards. The utilities are small, limited purpose packages that are intended to only do a few jobs.

The Purpose and Functionality of Utility Software

Encryption software

Most operating systems include a utility that can encrypt and decrypt data. This will use a secure key that converts the data to an format that will not make sense and is not easily un-encrypted. this utility can be used with any files or folder but is most useful when used with removable portable drives and USB pen drives.

The software can encrypt specified files, or the whole of the hard disk on which the files are stored.

Defragmentation

As hard drives are used, the space is gradually used up by the files that are stored. When a file is no longer needed, the file will be deleted which will leave a space on the disk. The next file to be saved will use this gap, and the file may have to be split up into two or more parts. Over a period of time, the hard drive gets more and more "fragmented" and will need to be "degragmented". The image on the right shows this process in action, the coloured blocks represent different files before and after the defragmentation has been applied.

What is defragmentation?

Data compression

This is a utility which will compress a data file so that the file size is reduced without losing any detail. There are many ways of doing this, but they all apply an algorithm to the data which may look for repeating patterns or tokenise blocks of data. This can save large amounts of storage space, but will slow down the system as the data will need to be un-compressed whenever it is used.

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