Registry Cleaning Tools

[Guest]

What's a good registry cleaning tool?

How effective are they?

I'm looking at using Registry Smart- does anyone know anything about these?

Thanks

 

[Ted Zieglar]

None - not needed. Will cause you more than trouble than good. This is
also a question that is constantly being asked in these newsgroups, so
you should read through earlier posts. The custom in newsgroups is to
search through earlier posts to see if someone has already asked your
question.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

What's a good registry cleaning tool?

How effective are they?

I'm looking at using Registry Smart- does anyone know anything
about these?

They *can be* effective in rendering your system worthless if you get the
ones that really rip through the registry and clean things you more than
likely do not understand. Seldom are they effective in creating any
significant (beyond a second or two - if you haven't done any other
maintenance on your machine in years) temporary improvement that wouldn't
have been better accomplished by proper maintenance.

I would recommend something like CrapCleaner for a quick and relatively safe
cleanup of old/dead registry entries.
ERUNT and NTREGOPT make a great combination. Back it up and optimize it.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

What's a good registry cleaning tool?

None at all.

How effective are they?

It's not a question of being effective. I always recommend against the
routine use of registry cleaners. Routine cleaning of the registry isn't
needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone and don't use a 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.

 

[Edward W. Thompson]

None at all.




It's not a question of being effective. I always recommend against the
routine use of registry cleaners. Routine cleaning of the registry isn't
needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone and don't use a 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.

snip

I don't disagree with your comments except "The risk of a serious problem".
Clearly the words "serious" and "dangerous" are subjective but the worst
that can happen is the 'Cleaner' removes a Registry entry required for a
specific program. No Registry Cleaner damages the Operating System (OS),
what I mean by 'damage' is render the machine unbootable or unuseable.
If you are unlucky and a Program does not operate after running a 'Cleaner'
then either reinstall or return the Registry to its previous state using
either System Restore or better ERUNT. There is no 'diasaster' here.
Afterall we many of us put up with having to uninstall Net Framework and
reinstall to update it each time Microsoft brings out an update without
significant complaint, not much different I suggest.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

snip

I don't disagree with your comments except "The risk of a serious
problem". Clearly the words "serious" and "dangerous" are subjective
but the worst that can happen is the 'Cleaner' removes a Registry
entry required for a specific program. No Registry Cleaner damages
the Operating System (OS), what I mean by 'damage' is render the
machine unbootable or unuseable. If you are unlucky and a Program does not
operate after running a
'Cleaner' then either reinstall or return the Registry to its
previous state using either System Restore or better ERUNT. There is
no 'diasaster' here.

Using tools like System Restore or Erunt is fine if the result of Registry
Cleaner errors permits the system still to boot. Unfortunately that is not
always the case, and resgistry cleaners have been known to render systems
unbootable. Your statement "No Registry Cleaner damages the Operating System
(OS), what I mean by 'damage' is render the machine unbootable or unuseable"
is not correct, and many people have experienced just that situation.

I'm not claiming that such a thing happens every time someone uses a
registry cleaner, or even that such an occurence is common. But it *does*
sometimes happen. Because the risk is always there and because there are no
benefits to using a registry cleaner, my view is that it's foolhardy to run
any such risk at all.