Registry Cleaners

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Mike Hall - MVP wrote:

...


Myths; good choice, because people applying 9x conventions to 2k & XP is
just that. You're good at rationalizing with whatever thought may occur
to you but that doesn't make it factual. IME the majority of people here
without closed minds see the situation in a clearer and more logical sense
than you can. You have mired yourself into a corner with your own XP myths
and proclamations made all over the 'net and now you feel that you cannot
admit reality because it would make you look less than perfect. In actual
fact, you know the situation as it really is but don't dare to admit the
reality, reliability and capabilities of today's registry cleaners.
You've even tried a few tiny concessions here and there, like cc comments,
but ended up conflicting with your own words and rather than appear to
have opened your mind a crack, securely locked it down again.

So does VB and Python, and PHP and a plethora of other coded works. You
are trying to imply (which is all you ever do in your rationalized world)
that "orphaned" entries never cause any kind of impact ever in any way,
and that is patently untrue. You think that because a key/whatever is
never called (and orphans often DO get called, BTW, by other orphans in
some situations) it costs zero time. You're trying to imply that the
registry is only READ, and that it never executes an instruction or
command. IMO your understanding of the registry's internal workings are
actually abysmally deficient but good enough for you to grab onto single
events and then try to build those into all-encompassing rationalizations
to push onto what you consider your "minions". You can occasionally see a
tree in the forest but you never address more then one tree and I doubt
you ever even notice there is a forest there or your attitudes would be
different.

Now, an "active" corrupted entry, whatever you mean by that, is not
usually going to make the thing "fall". The vast majority of the time,
it's going to result in an error message.
You then imply that registry cleaners do not fix that "type of problem",
but often they do/will, because the cleaner WILL report it not able to
execute and offer the normal various possibilities for repair. Thanks to
the robustness of the registry, it seldom ever occurs, but when it does a
decent registry cleaner will point it out for the user. I only recall that
ever happening once, long ago, but I believe I have seen it happen. In
that case it wasn't a single corruption; an entire key was corrupted and
made no sense in any way. In that case I seriously suspect it was
corruption that occurred during the write TO the registry by an installed
program; otherwise it wouldn't have been so neatly confined as it was.

The registry is a very robust thing and it's actually hard to make it
'fall' on purpose. In fact, many have seen the results of trying to
remove something the system needed when the deleted entry is simply
re-created by the system. Many parts of it you couldn't corrupt if you
wanted to. Even adding unallowed data often won't hurt anything. Enter a
4 where the only possibilities are 0 or 1, and you'll get back a 0 next
time you look at it!

Add to that the fact that all you guys pushing all these myths have NEVER
provided a single authoritative piece of information to support your
myths, and it pretty well wraps up your credibility on the subject. Even
MS has dabbled with registry cleaners for along time and still are doing
so, so obviously they don't buy the "will trash" and "imminent..." this &
that attitudes you try to push. You guys need to stick with subjects you
can verify, clarify, reproduce and otherwise use factual data for. The
lack of anything like that has gone on for so long now that anything that
any of you did decide to provide would likely be suspect or it would have
been posted long ago. Anyone can write an article on um,ha and then come
here and recommend that article as "proof" that what they say is true; I
always have to giggle when I see that happen. It has been as serious hit
on the credibility of the web site, not to mention the nearly current
unrecognized status of being an MVP as some are.

I thank you for this opportunity to once more expose the myths being
pushed by a small ring of loud and noisy closed minds here and on a few
other groups.

HTH,

Twayne`

Finished?

I don't condone the use of registry cleaners because the type of person who
gets taken in by claims like yours is also the type of person who may not
always make the right decisions as to what the registry cleaner removes. I
have seen enough instances where a registry cleaner has either had no effect
whatsoever, partially clobbered a system, and in some instances where a
system has been brought down completely.

You, on the other hand, embark on personal tirades in your defense of
registry cleaners, which makes me think that you have a vested interest in
one of the registry cleaners presently available. You are the ONLY person in
these newsgroups who defends the use of registry cleaners to the bitter end,
yet you have consistently failed to present ANY proof of your claims.

 

[Twayne]

How would you know how well or not the replacement works? Morro has
not yet been release in any form, beta or other, and only Microsoft
insiders know what it does or doesn't include. Microsoft is saying
that a Beta release is coming soon but as of June 15/09 it had not
yet been released.
John

Just based on history and expectations. MS has failed to meet &
consistantly failed to meet, my and many others expectations for a long
time now. The surprise would be if it turned out to be better or at
least as good as many of the leaders on the scene. I simply don't
expect much from MS anymore.


Regards,

Twayne

 

[Twayne]

No I did not, the cleaner suggested the fix and the suggested fix
(if I let it do it automatically) was clearly wrong! Along with a
number of other suggested fixes.

Something's wrong there because all the decent cleaners out there make
more than one "suggested" action for a repair, including to do nothing.
That said however, I tend not to believe you based on your past actions
and posts.

Twayne

 

[Twayne]

Finished?

Nah, I can go on almost forever when people make the stupid and
misinformed comments you do at times. I choose what I do and when I do
it, so ... you takes yer chances!

I don't condone the use of registry cleaners because the type of
person who gets taken in by claims like yours is also the type of
person who may not always make the right decisions as to what the
registry cleaner removes. I have seen enough instances where a
registry cleaner has either had no effect whatsoever, partially
clobbered a system, and in some instances where a system has been
brought down completely.

Huhh, that's so old it has stuff growing on it. Where are the
mechanisms and outcomes of any of those documented? They aren't. They
simply don't do what you claim, regardless of how many times you say it.
You've never experienced a crash due to a registry cleaner if it was a
reputable one, and you've never seen one that couldn't recover from a
mis-removed item either. In addition you have nothing but hear-say to
back up anything you said or say here or any of the other places you
wish to confuse people with.

You, on the other hand, embark on personal tirades in your defense of
registry cleaners, which makes me think that you have a vested
interest in one of the registry cleaners presently available.

I've been perfectly honest and above-board in every comment I've ever
made about registry cleaners. You know that but it offends your ego,
doesn't it? That's part of the pleasure of contantly correcting you.
Anything that could resemble a "tirade" from me, you'll notice, is also
in response to a "tirade" made by another. They are usually inline,
point by point comments, in fact.
Yes, I do have a vested interest in more than one or the registry
cleaners presently available. My vested interest is in their use when
it's called for, and clearly and honestly discussing what is reasonable
and what is not, unlike anything you have said in a very long time.
This post of yours would classify as a "tirade". My response to it
more lends itself to the, well, response to a tirade. Misinformation
and myths such as you generate belong in, well, myths and
misinfomational newsgroups, not where thinking people have to put up
with you.

You are

the ONLY person in these newsgroups who defends the use of registry
cleaners to the bitter end, yet you have consistently failed to
present ANY proof of your claims.

Another old saw, and one that is not true either. You're PO'd because I
won't REPOST them so you can tear them apart. Unlike you, I've posted
plenty of information. In fact, ratio-wise, if you calculated the ratio
of my information to yours, the result would be infinity since a number
cannot be divided by zero.

Thanks again for the opportunity; it was enjoyable although nothing new
was entered. You just spout the same misinformation over and over, with
nothing else. Most everyone knows what you are now. You think that
persistance will win out but there is one thing that will always trump
persistance; that's being right.

Twayne

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Nah, I can go on almost forever when people make the stupid and
misinformed comments you do at times. I choose what I do and when I do
it, so ... you takes yer chances!


Huhh, that's so old it has stuff growing on it. Where are the mechanisms
and outcomes of any of those documented? They aren't. They simply don't
do what you claim, regardless of how many times you say it. You've never
experienced a crash due to a registry cleaner if it was a reputable one,
and you've never seen one that couldn't recover from a mis-removed item
either. In addition you have nothing but hear-say to back up anything you
said or say here or any of the other places you wish to confuse people
with.


I've been perfectly honest and above-board in every comment I've ever made
about registry cleaners. You know that but it offends your ego, doesn't
it? That's part of the pleasure of contantly correcting you. Anything
that could resemble a "tirade" from me, you'll notice, is also in response
to a "tirade" made by another. They are usually inline, point by point
comments, in fact.
Yes, I do have a vested interest in more than one or the registry
cleaners presently available. My vested interest is in their use when
it's called for, and clearly and honestly discussing what is reasonable
and what is not, unlike anything you have said in a very long time.
This post of yours would classify as a "tirade". My response to it more
lends itself to the, well, response to a tirade. Misinformation and myths
such as you generate belong in, well, myths and misinfomational
newsgroups, not where thinking people have to put up with you.

You are

Another old saw, and one that is not true either. You're PO'd because I
won't REPOST them so you can tear them apart. Unlike you, I've posted
plenty of information. In fact, ratio-wise, if you calculated the ratio
of my information to yours, the result would be infinity since a number
cannot be divided by zero.

Thanks again for the opportunity; it was enjoyable although nothing new
was entered. You just spout the same misinformation over and over, with
nothing else. Most everyone knows what you are now. You think that
persistance will win out but there is one thing that will always trump
persistance; that's being right.

Twayne

You have not produced any proof re the effectiveness of registry cleaners
used on Win 2000 and above because there are non in existence. Apart from
you, the only claims made to the good of registry cleaners are the ads for
them..

So it is just YOUR word against many others..

 

[JS]

If you read my pasts posts on this issue you would
remember that I agree to the point that a good
registry tool (not a cleaner) is needed.

As others have mentioned the registry is a database
and as such any database administrator be it Oracle,
Mumps and other products have such utilities available
to them to help optimize large databases (non of which
are called cleaners). Windows does not have anything
and registry cleaners only provided a limited solution.

As for my knowledge of the registry I do OK and have
made a number of .reg files to highly customize
applications for end users.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Ken Blake wrote (in response to another thread) -
<<Registry cleaning programs are *all* snake oil. Cleaning of the registry
isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone and don't use any
registry cleaner. Despite what many people think, and what vendors of
registry cleaning software try to convince you of, having unused registry
entries doesn't really hurt you.

The risk of a serious problem caused by a registry cleaner erroneously
removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit it may
have.>>

I would agree with the warning of the possibility of (serious) damage to the
Registry and the consequence that the computer may not boot up. I would
also agree that it may not be necessary to clean the Registry very
regularly.

No, it's never necessary to use an automated registry cleaner.

However, the Registry does become bloated with calls to
uninstalled software which does increase the time needed to boot up - at the
very least.

No, that's not true, at all. The registry is an indexed database; the
number of entries are irrelevant to performance or boot time.




--

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

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Back that up with facts not idle chatter.

He can't. He's never been able to produce any facts when asked to
support his claims. I know, I've ask often enough.


--

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

 

[Peter Foldes]

Twayne

I do have to disagree with you on this issue. Show me proof on a hard copy to those
facts. Have you seen these Registry Tool issues that were posted by a few OP's
lately saying that their Reg Tools messed up their OS. One even could not boot after
using a Registry Cleaning Tool.

Some posters even remarked that you did not show up in those threads because you
were then going to be proven wrong. I was also one that said the same.

Automated Reg tools in the hand of persons that do not know computers and what the
Registry does have no business using these snake oil remedies

My take on this and period

 

[Bill Ridgeway]

It is alleged that using a Registry cleaner is dangerous to the extent of
corpsing a computers and that the advantage of using them is outweighed by
the danger of using them. I acknowledge that just because I haven't
experienced any problems with using two registry cleaners over several years
proves not that there are no dangers rather that I just may be lucky. I
also acknowledge that cleaning a registry may not produce a reasonable
return in terms of decreasing the size of the file or decreasing processing
time.

I wouldn't wish to doubt the views posted so far. However, in this thread I
see nothing more than anecdotal evidence. Just using a computer has hidden
dangers from badly behaving software, incomplete installs and uninstalls and
even spikes and surges but that isn't a valid view for not using a computer.
Is there anything more substantial on this subject?

Bill Ridgeway

 

[Gerry]

Bill

If there was real evidence the subject would not controversial. However,
you can see where the balance of opinion in the Microsoft newsgroups
lies.



--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[John John - MVP]

He will never show you proof, the best he has ever been able to do is
quote or supply links to advertising material from outfits who sell
these useless products. We do at times see posts here with tales of woe
from people who are having problems after using these cleaners but to no
one's surprise Twayne is no where to be seen when people need help
repairing the damages done.

John

 

[John John - MVP]

These programs are utterly useless. The non existent benefits parroted
by the vendors and fans of these programs is simply not worth the risk
of the real damages that these programs can and do at times cause. At
best these useless programs have nothing more than a placebo effect and
at worse they can bug up your computer, why even bother with them?

John

 

[John John - MVP]

It is alleged that using a Registry cleaner is dangerous to the extent of
corpsing a computers and that the advantage of using them is outweighed by
the danger of using them. I acknowledge that just because I haven't
experienced any problems with using two registry cleaners over several years
proves not that there are no dangers rather that I just may be lucky. I
also acknowledge that cleaning a registry may not produce a reasonable
return in terms of decreasing the size of the file or decreasing processing
time.

I wouldn't wish to doubt the views posted so far. However, in this thread I
see nothing more than anecdotal evidence. Just using a computer has hidden
dangers from badly behaving software, incomplete installs and uninstalls and
even spikes and surges but that isn't a valid view for not using a computer.
Is there anything more substantial on this subject?

http://groups.google.com/group/micr...9fc55c84159/f9b2f696ca1b9462#f9b2f696ca1b9462
http://groups.google.com/group/micr...bbeldygook+Computer+unusable#6e931aaebff35bc6
http://boards.live.com/safetyboards/thread.aspx?threadid=1009500&boardsparam=PostID=28824491
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic110399.html
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;299958
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/449a5c7d-f9f9-4392-800c-83503145889f1033.mspx
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888637
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/247678
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;969707&sd=rss&spid=11734
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951950

 

[Leonard Grey]

"Is there anything more substantial on this subject?"

The only way to truly appreciate how useless - and possibly dangerous -
is a so-called registry cleaner is to learn more about how your computer
works, and the Windows registry in particular. Otherwise, you're pitting
one person's word against another.

The more you learn, the more you'll understand, and you'll see why these
products are marketed to people with little computer knowledge. These
are the software equivalent of the diet and multi-vitamin pills you hear
advertised on late night infomercials. As in the case of the Windows
registry, few people understand what these pills really do in the body,
so they can be swayed by arguments that appeal more to human emotion
than to the facts.

Here's one fact: No responsible journal or test lab has published before
and after tests that prove the claims a registry cleaner makes, and
little wonder: They can't be proven. However, these newsgroups are
routinely visited by people who've messed up their computers with a
so-called registry cleaner.

 

[Unknown]

Even that is an extremely poor use for a registry cleaner.
That (cleaning up) can be done easily, manually by anyone knowledgeable
enough to
know what they are doing.

 

[Unknown]

You're an ass on wartless progress.

 

[Twayne]

He will never show you proof, the best he has ever been able to do is
quote or supply links to advertising material from outfits who sell
these useless products. We do at times see posts here with tales of
woe from people who are having problems after using these cleaners
but to no one's surprise Twayne is no where to be seen when people
need help repairing the damages done.

Reference one.

 

[Twayne]

He can't. He's never been able to produce any facts when asked to
support his claims. I know, I've ask often enough.

In comparison to what you've provided, I have provided infinitely more
evidence and even machine-generated results of several runs in the past.
But you have zero, zip, nothing. Not a shred of anything but opinions
of a small circle of egotists and narcissists IMO.

Your also still continue your myopic boilerplates about a single item,
coming nowhere near to the overall intent and content of a registry
cleaner. From that I long ago deduced that you have no idea what you're
talking about and no inkling of the overall picture, nor of anything
that's available for registry cleaners. You're probably so expert you'd
download a spyware generator instead of an actual registry cleaner
because you have no idea who's who in the industry, based on your past
comments.
You are one of the better rationalizers on the 'net but we all know
how valuable that kind of person is. If it weren't for boilerplate, I'm
not sure you'd ever be able to come up with a fresh thought to post
about anything, you know that? Otherwise, you'd have reasoning and good
logic behind your proclamations, not simply parrot the same vague stuff
over and over. I haven't seen a fresh online thought from you in what
is probably years now. I think you're incapable of it.

Thanks again, Bruce!

Twayne



Twayne

 

[Twayne]

No, it's never necessary to use an automated registry cleaner.

NOTHING is ever "necessary", not even the SPs or in many cases not even
the computer. Typical of your vague statements, Bruce.
It's not "necessary" for YOU because you prefer to do everything
manually with registry editors. You also mistakenly think your way is
the only way. It's clearly not.

No, that's not true, at all. The registry is an indexed database; the
number of entries are irrelevant to performance or boot time.

Yes, it can be true, and you know it. Only your penchant for getting
your misinformation and myths plastered all over the internet apparently
strike enough fear in you to prevent you from changing your tune. Well,
that and a cemented closed mind and an ego too big for most doorways.
What prevents you from using logical and sensible resources to prove
you point is a mystery though. I wonder if that's because it doesn't
exist? Otherwise you would/could have changed many minds about registry
cleaners by now. You think it should be enough that you said it, don't
you? Anything to verify or backup your contentions is well beyond your
capabilities, isn't it? We know you've had no recent or even old
personal experience; you've said so many times in your posts, so ...

Twayne