Registry cleaner

[Liebach]

Does anyone knows of a good Windows Vista registry cleaner? Where is the
best cleaner? And where to download?

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

Cleaning the registry is like putting your finger in your eye. It's an
unpleasant experience to do only when necessary, and carefully at that.
Getting some 'automated' way to do it is like taking a speck out of your eye
with an electric toothbrush.

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Mark L. Ferguson
..

 

[Hobbes]

Does anyone knows of a good Windows Vista registry cleaner? Where is the
best cleaner? And where to download?

Most will recommend against any registry cleaners.
I use CCleaner ... it both gets rid of temp internet files, temp files, and
other selectable items in one fell swoop.
And has an option for removing "lost" registry entries.
I 've never had an issue.

http://www.ccleaner.com/

 

[DL]

Unless you know exactly what you are doing, and I suspect not, or how to
recover your system when the use of such a third party tool renders the
system inoperable, avoid them, they are not really necessary anyway, and
have not been snce win9*

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Does anyone knows of a good Windows Vista registry cleaner? Where is the
best cleaner? And where to download?

There is no such thing as a "good" registry cleaner, free or otherwise.

Why do you even think you'd ever need to clean your registry? What
specific *problems* are you actually experiencing (not some program's
bogus listing of imaginary problems) that you think can 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. After
all, why use a chainsaw 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
wide-spread multiple changes simultaneously. The only thing needed to
safely clean your registry is knowledge and Regedit.exe.

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 repeatedly 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. 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.

More importantly, no one has ever demonstrated that the use of an
automated registry "cleaner," particularly by an untrained,
inexperienced computer user, does any real good, whatsoever. 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. Given the potential for harm, it's just not
worth the risk.

Granted, most registry "cleaners" won't cause problems each and
every time they're used, but the potential for harm is always there.
And, since no registry "cleaner" has ever been demonstrated to do any
good (think of them like treating the flu with chicken soup - there's no
real medicinal value, but it sometimes provides a warming placebo
effect), I always tell people that the risks far out-weigh the
non-existent benefits.

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.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

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

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

 

[Hobbes]

Most will recommend against any registry cleaners.
I use CCleaner ... it both gets rid of temp internet files, temp files,
and other selectable items in one fell swoop.
And has an option for removing "lost" registry entries.
I 've never had an issue.

http://www.ccleaner.com/

But if you use it, be careful of settings like "Hotfix Uninstallers".
Selecting such items could make the uninstall of a hotfix not possible.
Don't select any settings you aren't sure of...

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Most will recommend against any registry cleaners.

For good reason: They're nothing but snake oil that do absolutely
nothing useful.

I use CCleaner ... it both gets rid of temp internet files, temp files,
and other selectable items in one fell swoop.
And has an option for removing "lost" registry entries.
I 've never had an issue.

CCleaner's registry scanner seems relatively benign, as long as you
step through each detected "issue" one at a time, to determine if it
really is an "issue" or not, and then decide whether or not to let the
application "fix" it. In my testing, though, most of the reported
"issues" won't be issues, at all. I tried the latest version on a
brand-new OS installation with no additional applications installed, and
certainly none installed and then uninstalled, and CCleaner still
managed to "find" over a hundred allegedly orphaned registry entries and
dozens of purportedly "suspicious" files, making it clearly a worthless
product, in this regard. (Not that any registry cleaner can ever be
anything but worthless, as they don't serve any useful purpose, to start
with.)

CCleaner's only real strength, and the only reason I use it, lies
in its usefulness for cleaning up unused temporary files from the hard
drive; as a registry "cleaner," it's not significantly better or worse
than any other snake oil product of the same type.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

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

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

 

[Hobbes]

For good reason: They're nothing but snake oil that do absolutely nothing
useful.




CCleaner's registry scanner seems relatively benign, as long as you
step through each detected "issue" one at a time, to determine if it
really is an "issue" or not, and then decide whether or not to let the
application "fix" it. In my testing, though, most of the reported
"issues" won't be issues, at all. I tried the latest version on a
brand-new OS installation with no additional applications installed, and
certainly none installed and then uninstalled, and CCleaner still managed
to "find" over a hundred allegedly orphaned registry entries and dozens of
purportedly "suspicious" files, making it clearly a worthless product, in
this regard. (Not that any registry cleaner can ever be anything but
worthless, as they don't serve any useful purpose, to start with.)

CCleaner's only real strength, and the only reason I use it, lies in
its usefulness for cleaning up unused temporary files from the hard drive;
as a registry "cleaner," it's not significantly better or worse than any
other snake oil product of the same type.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

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

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand
Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

True about any performance gain.
But if you uninstall a program... using something like CCleaner is a quick
way to remove reg entries of that program.
I've never seen hundreds of reg entries show up in it's report.
Too each his own ... Its faster than F3'ing thru the registry.

 

[Liebach]

Thank you for all the responses; I now see it is a stupid idea to use a
registry cleaner so I will not do it.

Thank you.


/Liebach

 

[Engel]

Hello Liebach,

<http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html>


<http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=28099>
- -- --

 

[Hobbes]

Thank you for all the responses; I now see it is a stupid idea to use a
registry cleaner so I will not do it.

Thank you.


/Liebach

Its not totally stupid.
Some programs after uninstall leave programs "hidden" on your HD.
Opera used to leave a small program that would direct you to the website for
a questionnaire on why did you uninstall me.
Norton was good for leaving a lot of crap on your PC also.
You can use registry entries to find the location of those types of
problems.
Getting familiar with the registry is not a bad idea.
You just don't want to wantonly remove keys.

 

[C.B.]

You've made a wise decision.

C.B.

It is the responsibility and duty of everyone to help the underprivileged
and unfortunate among us.

 

[Hobbes]

You've made a wise decision.

C.B.

It is the responsibility and duty of everyone to help the underprivileged
and unfortunate among us.

Yes...remaining ignorant is a wise decision.
Heaven forbid people learn how to take control of their PC.

 

[John Barnett MVP]

The wisest thing to do is 'leave well alone' If you are not capable or
competent to manually edit the registry then the vast majority of registry
cleaner will simply make matters worse. While I agree that CCleaner is
useful for general cleaning of Temporary internet files, cookies, MRU's etc.
I rarely use the registry cleaner option and when I have used it there are
only ever 2 entries available for deletion; and as I know exactly what these
entries are they are left exactly where they are.

--
--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..

 

[Adam Albright]

There is no such thing as a "good" registry cleaner, free or otherwise.

You really have a hard on for Registry Cleaners don't you. Damn
foolish. How many more times will you make the same emotional rant
proving you don't have a clue what you're talking about?

 

[Adam Albright]

You've made a wise decision.

Another well know idiot heard from.

 

[Adam Albright]

Most will recommend against any registry cleaners.

Most FOOLS will recommend against them because they don't have a clue
how to properly use them and I'll wager these are the Bozos that
trashed their machines because of their ignorance. Of course that
applies to just about every topic the same handful of blowhards jabber
aimlessly about in this crazy newsgroup day after day.

 

[Adam Albright]

Cleaning the registry is like putting your finger in your eye. It's an
unpleasant experience to do only when necessary, and carefully at that.
Getting some 'automated' way to do it is like taking a speck out of your eye
with an electric toothbrush.

That from the copy and paste master. Funny.

 

[Hobbes]

Most FOOLS will recommend against them because they don't have a clue
how to properly use them and I'll wager these are the Bozos that
trashed their machines because of their ignorance. Of course that
applies to just about every topic the same handful of blowhards jabber
aimlessly about in this crazy newsgroup day after day.

No joke.
There is a performance gain when you can root out the garbage left over from
poorly written programs.
Its not just the registry entries but the hidden BS they point to.
The number one performance issue with new PC's is the amount of garbage
running that users aren't even aware are running.
My stupid HP printer, if I let it , would have 6 programs running.
This is the key to great performance over mediocre.
This idea that only genius' can read the registry is poo.
All the genius' in the world died a long time ago.

 

[Adam Albright]

No joke.
There is a performance gain when you can root out the garbage left over from
poorly written programs.

Of course. That's why I always get a kick out of the Bozo squad that
pretends they know what every one of tens of thousands of lines in a
typical Registry does as they fake claiming they edit theirs by hand
knowing what each and every line does. What a load of crap. They
always drudge up the same tired bullshit. Pretending everybody will
always use some automatic kitchen sink setting to wreck their
Registry. I don't know of anybody that does that, well maybe the idiot
Frank would.

Its not just the registry entries but the hidden BS they point to.

Yep, and there's plenty of crap in a typical Registry that's put their
by Vista that hardly anyone needs.