When testing your PC, you might sometimes want to see what happens over a period of time. Will your backup start when it should, for instance? Is your antivirus launcher working correctly? Will your alarm pop up? When will that trial version expire, and what happens when it does?

If you’re only looking to test just one of these actions, then manually resetting your system’s clock will probably be enough. But when your testing becomes more involved – you want to check out a program which adjusts screen brightness depending on the time of day, for instance – then you’ll benefit from a more automated approach. And there’s no simpler way to get this than with Accelerify.

The program is a tiny (7.26KB download) console-based tool which increments your PC clock at regular intervals – by default, moving it on an hour every 10 seconds – so making time seem to pass more quickly while you just monitor what’s happening – a very straightforward approach.

Despite being console-based, Accelerify is very easy to use

It’s easy to use, too. Launch the program from Explorer as an Administrator (right-click, select Run as Administrator) and it’ll pop up in a console window, and immediately begin incrementing your clock. You can return to your desktop, launch a program or otherwise monitor your system. And when you’re done, return to Accelerify, press a key, and the program will stop its work, restore your original time and close down.

If the default interval and increment don’t suit your needs, then that can be adjusted via command line switches. And so you could choose to step forward 30 minutes every 2 seconds, 3 hours every 15 seconds, or whatever you like (accelerify_Readme.txt has the details).

Be careful, though. We found that if we incremented the clock too rapidly – an hour every second, for instance – then some scheduled applications missed their cue, and didn’t pop up when we expected.

And you also need to be sure that you close the program via the approved, “press any key” route. If you just close the window then your clock will be left at its new setting, and you’ll have to restore the correct time yourself (in Windows 7, right-click the clock, select “Adjust date/time” > Internet Time > Change Settings > Update now).

Accelerify isn’t exactly a tool you’ll use every day, then, but if you’re testing anything based on time then it could be very useful. Take a look.