Why is it that every time I put down a product, others assumed I've never
used it. I've used CCleaner, it doesn't have a log or any way to Undo
Registry changes. It's a PILE OF CRAP!
Any Registry Editor that has Find & Replace, fool.
--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
http://grystmill.com
Thee Chicago Wolf said:
That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. I just don't agree with
you. People with no experience using CCleaner are it's biggest
critics.
Why is it that every time I put down a product, others assume I've never
used it. I've used CCleaner. It has a Registry Cleaner. ALL Registry
Cleaners are snake-oil, therefore CCleaner is snake-oil. You're only good
example is that it removed thousands of bogus entries AFTER doing a ton of
other cleanup on a seriously infected machine.
What registry tool are you referring to if I may ask? The
most decent registry editing tool is regedit and regedt32.
Neither of which have Find/Replace, which other Registry Editors do have.
Find/Replace would have gotten rid of your thousands or millions of bad
entries in certainly no less time than CCleaner. I'm not going to recommend
one, but I'm sure you can find a few. I don't generally use them, either.
When the Registry needs editing, I know what needs editing and I do it
manually, after backing up the Keys I'm working on. Those few times I needed
something with more function, I went out and found it. But The stuff that
CCLeaner deletes might not be found to be necessary until months or years
later, and meanwhile they are doing absolutely no harm where they are.
Yes, users who come here are not registry savvy much less
knowledgeable about tools to clean up registry errors caused by
malicious programs or uninstalled programs. I don't assume they have
the high level of tech knowledge to use the tool as a tech savvy
person would but I do try to recommend as benign a solution as
possible. I have helped non-tech savvy users via registry tweaks and
they have been successful as many of them reply back stating it
resolved their issue. Anything I would surmise as requiring high skill
level for a user I don't recommend or even respond to.
You were certainly willing to toss your recommendation for CCleaner into
THIS thread. I don't believe the OP lives up to your stringent standards.
You're associating yourself with a LOT of shills and people who don't know
what THEY are talking about when it comes to the Registry.
In my experience, the primary reason users get a lot of these
weuyerwuy.dll and other junk on their PCs is because their Antivirus
is WAY out of date or expired. The other reason is because they use IE
and visit pages that exploit IE and / or visit sites that social
engineer the user into clicking something that is in fact installing
malware / trojans / spyware / keyloggers / ad nauseam. Users also
don't keep programs patched and up to date like tech-savvy folks do.
What does any of that have to do with CCleaner? And haven't you heard?
Windows XP and Vista, and ALL security apps include automatic updating,
which for some reason people like you and others who shill crap like
CCleaner are always telling them to TURN OFF!!
When users are using decent blocking tools that do disinfect threats,
these blocking tools typically don't remove registry entries that
point to the .dll location. Why do you think we've seen such a recent
surge in users coming to this group stating that they boot up and get
an error message stating "missing wqerqyti.dll"?
That's shoddy work on the part of the AV makers, and you STILL don't need
CCleaner to clean up those leftovers.
It's likely the social engineers who visit this group could be
contributing to this and, you are correct, users can't always tell
whose advice is good and whose advice is potentially harmful.
So why do you add your voice to the chorus of shills (themselves mostly
clueless and only pretending to know what they are talking about in order to
get attention or to think of themselves as more technically savvy than they
are, who promote these giant piles of dung?
I've been using and testing Registry Cleaners for twelve years. That's how I
found out that they VERY often remove things they shouldn't when simply told
to scan and fix. And every time someone steps up to defend them, it turns
out that if they have any integrity at all, the simply don't know about
easier and/or safer ways to do what they've been using things like CCleaner
for. Or that pointers to "Missing Shared DLLs" don't do the tiniest bit of
harm, and many/most CLSIDs, etc., are installed purposely in anticipation of
future need, or don't match "rules" because the rules have been changed.
Haven't used a single Registry Cleaner in the manner for which they are
designed on any machines, from 95 to Vista (other than testing) in several
years. Nearly all of the machines I'm responsible for go through disasters
unspeakable (due to clueless or deliberately obtuse users that make up my
family and SOHO clients, who just can't keep their clueless selves from
thinking, "I don't need to bother Gary for this," or "Why pay him for
maintenance, when there's all these magical tools like CCleaner, et al.") Of
course, they can't be bothered to learn how to do for themselves, either.
They want the cheap way out. And so, I clean them up, try to repair them,
though in many cases what was simple fix has turned into a reformat/clean
install.... And guess what: I stopped using any Registry Cleaner for any
serious work in ~2001/2002 when it became clear that they caused as many
problems as they solved when it comes to average users, and that for truly
savvy workers, there are much better ways to get things done. Things that
the average clueless user wouldn't even begin to touch, because everybody
points out how dangerous they are, as opposed to all those snake-oil
offerings out there that jerks recommend at the drop of a hat.
PS -- Funny thing how once they have to pay me to rebuild the entire system,
reinstall apps, reconfigure and tweak, and put all their data back where it
belongs, my clients are very eager to spend even more money to learn some
simple rules about programming (installing/uninstalling) and regular
maintenance. And 99% of them never forget, either.
And you haven't read