There are numerous one-click packages promising to optimise and secure your PC, so it’s a little surprising to see Microsoft join the fray with Microsoft PC Manager. Its offering – courtesy of the firm’s Chinese branch – is more a wrapper for existing Windows tools than a brand-new application, making it easy to access built-in features to keep your PC running smoothly.

This can be seen with its most-heralded feature: Boost. Clicking this frees up memory and clears temporary files from the system, with the latter feature basically evoking the Windows Storage Sense tool to achieve its aim.

Once installed, Microsoft PC Manager launches as a large pop-up on the right of your desktop above the Taskbar notification area. It’s divided into five sections: Home, Protection, Storage, Apps, and Toolbox. The Home tab will open by recommending a health check and providing access to the one-click Boost function. There are also shortcuts to key parts of the Storage (Deep cleanup) and Apps (Process and Startup) sections.

Clicking Health Check evokes automatic scans with a list of recommended actions to swiftly optimise your system, or you can manually work your way through the sections where you’ll find handy shortcuts or truncated versions of tools found elsewhere – for example, the Process and Startup tools under Apps replicate in simplified form what’s available under Task Manager.

Despite the lack of originality, the tool is well-designed and there are genuinely useful options provided. For example, under System protection you can quickly launch a scan with Microsoft Defender Antivirus, even if it’s not your primary form of protection. Others are less valuable – Taskbar Repair isn’t a general-purpose tool for fixing taskbar problems, but more concerned with restoring selected Microsoft defaults.

The app is under rapid development – a recent addition to the Toolbox section saw the implementation of an option to place a convenient toolbar on the desktop with a customisable set of one-click shortcut buttons.

All in all, Microsoft PC Manager is an eclectic, and in parts potentially useful, set of tools for those looking for a quick means of optimising their system.