Registry Cleaner

[Tom]

I am planning to use the freeware Easy Cleaner to clean my registry and
remove other un-needed files. Any advice on this program? Is it safe to run
all parts of this program? Any help would be appreciated, Thank You

 

[Chelsea]

IMHO Registry cleaners should be avoided even if they are free. The very
best still make mistakes that can cause hours of troubleshooting sometimes
without a positive outcome. The really prudent ones place the emphasis on
the user to decide what is and what is not important-which essentially
places the responsibility on you for any foul up that may occur. That
approach would possibly be acceptable if the registry was easy to
understand, but its a complex datastore containing many undocumented
entries, which even the most experienced XP user will have trouble with. If
you have a system that you think needs a registry clean, my advice would be
to do a complete reinstall as it will probably take less time and cause
fewer grey hairs than using a cleaner. If registry maintanance was easily
accomplised Microsoft would package an app with Windows-the fact that they
don't says an awful lot about registry cleaning.

Chelsea

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I am planning to use the freeware Easy Cleaner to clean my registry and
remove other un-needed files.

Removing unneeded files to free up hard drive space is fine, although
there's certainly no need to purchase or use a 3rd party program for the
task. WinXP's built-in Disk Cleanup is more than adequate for most
people's purposes.

But why would you even think that you need to clean your registry?

What specific problem(s) are you experiencing that you believe will
be fixed by using a registry "cleaner?" If you do have a problem that
is rooted in the registry, it would be far better to simply edit (after
backing up, of course) only the specific key(s) and/or value(s) that are
causing the problem. Why use a shotgun when a scalpel will do the job?
Additionally, the manually changing of one or two registry entries is
far less likely to have the dire consequences of allowing an automated
product to make multiple changes simultaneously.

The registry contains all of the operating system's "knowledge" of
the computer's hardware devices, installed software, the location of the
device drivers, and the computer's configuration. A misstep in the
registry can have severe consequences. One should not even turning
loose a poorly understood automated "cleaner," unless he is fully
confident that he knows *exactly* what is going to happen as a result of
each and every change. Having seen the results of inexperienced people
using automated registry "cleaners," I can only advise all but the most
experienced computer technicians (and/or hobbyists) to avoid them all.
Experience has shown me that such tools simply are not safe in the hands
of the inexperienced user.

The only thing needed to safely maintain your registry is knowledge
and Regedit.exe. If you lack the knowledge and experience to maintain
your registry by yourself, then you also lack the knowledge and
experience to safely configure and use any automated registry "cleaner,"
no matter how safe they claim to be. I will concede that a good
registry scanning tool, in the hands of an experienced and knowledgeable
technician or hobbyist can be a useful time-saving diagnostic tool, as
long as it's not allowed to make any changes automatically. But I
really don't think that there are any registry cleaners that are truly
safe for the general public to use. Experience has proven just the
opposite: such tools simply are not safe in the hands of the
inexperienced user.

Further, and more importantly, no one has ever demonstrated, to my
satisfaction, that the use of any automated registry "cleaner,"
particularly by an untrained, inexperienced computer user, does any real
good. There's certainly been no empirical evidence offered to
demonstrate that the use of such products to "clean" WinXP's registry
improves a computer's performance or stability.

Any advice on this program?

If you insist on unnecessarily using this, or any other such product,
be sure to make a complete disk image first, so you'll be able to
recover when things go awry.

Is it safe to run
all parts of this program?

For the average computer user, no such product is truly safe.



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

 

[Bruce Chambers]

IMHO Registry cleaners should be avoided even if they are free. The very
best still make mistakes that can cause hours of troubleshooting sometimes
without a positive outcome. The really prudent ones place the emphasis on
the user to decide what is and what is not important-which essentially
places the responsibility on you for any foul up that may occur. That
approach would possibly be acceptable if the registry was easy to
understand, but its a complex datastore containing many undocumented
entries, which even the most experienced XP user will have trouble with.

Agreed.


If
you have a system that you think needs a registry clean, my advice would be
to do a complete reinstall as it will probably take less time and cause
fewer grey hairs than using a cleaner.

True, as far as it goes, but a quick and easy fix using Regedit takes
even less time, and there is a host of KB Articles that can point out
the precise edits (with appropriate cautions and warnings) required to
fix countless problems.

If registry maintanance was easily
accomplised .....

..... Or necessary, or beneficial in some manner ....

...... Microsoft would package an app with Windows-the fact that they
don't says an awful lot about registry cleaning.

Again, agreed.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

 

[dev]

/Tom/ said:

I am planning to use the freeware Easy Cleaner to clean my registry and
remove other un-needed files. Any advice on this program? Is it safe to run
all parts of this program?

Bruce's advice is right on target.
However, should you chose to use Easy Cleaner, be aware that has an UNDO
feature. However, you may find that is does little if anything to speed XP
operation.

If you like to fiddle, consider installing and regularly using an imaging
utility, which will allow restoration of entire partitions. One solid
performer is Image for Windows. Read about this technology here...
http://terabyteunlimited.com

After creating an image, one can experiment with registry cleaners, new
installs, configurations, etc., secure in the knowledge that total
restoration is possible in _most_ instances, should there be a problem.

 

[dev]

/Tom/ said:

I am planning to use the freeware Easy Cleaner to clean my registry and
remove other un-needed files. Any advice on this program? Is it safe to
run all parts of this program?

Bruce's advice is right on target.
However, should you choose to use Easy Cleaner, be aware that it has an UNDO
feature. However, you may find that is does little if anything to speed XP
operation.

If you like to fiddle, consider installing and regularly using an imaging
utility, which will allow restoration of entire partitions. One solid
performer is Image for Windows. Read about this technology here...
http://terabyteunlimited.com

After creating an image, one can experiment with registry cleaners, new
installs, configurations, etc., secure in the knowledge that total
restoration is possible in _most_ instances, should there be a problem.

 

[BobN]

I am planning to use the freeware Easy Cleaner to clean my registry and
remove other un-needed files. Any advice on this program? Is it safe to run
all parts of this program? Any help would be appreciated, Thank You

It is an excellent program, and I have used it for years. The other parts
of the program are all equally excellent. Once you see what the registry
module finds the first time, you will wonder why you waited so long to
check your registry.

 

[Tom]

Thank you all for your input, I am glad I checked before using this
software. This support group is a great way to find info that prevents doing
something that you might later regret.

Tom

 

[Larry LaMere]

/Tom/ said:


Bruce's advice is right on target.
However, should you chose to use Easy Cleaner, be aware that has an UNDO
feature. However, you may find that is does little if anything to speed XP
operation.

If you like to fiddle, consider installing and regularly using an imaging
utility, which will allow restoration of entire partitions. One solid
performer is Image for Windows. Read about this technology here...
http://terabyteunlimited.com

You might want to mention that if you download the program via ftp, it will try to infect your
computer with Downloader.Trojan and Trojan.ByteVerify. They may be serious or just adware, I don't
know.

(At least that's what Norton antivirus says.)

 

[Larry LaMere]

You might want to mention that if you download the program via ftp, it will try to infect your
computer with Downloader.Trojan and Trojan.ByteVerify. They may be serious or just adware, I don't
know.

(At least that's what Norton antivirus says.)

It wasn't the Terabyte page that did it.

Really really sorry.