S
Sid Elbow
Gordon said:
Yes, if you go to the Appearances tab and select Icons from the drop
down, you cant set the font size (and the font itself) there.
.... and registry cleaners are frowned upon around here
Yes, if you go to the Appearances tab and select Icons from the drop
down, you cant set the font size (and the font itself) there.
.... and registry cleaners are frowned upon around here
G
Gordon Biggar
I recently used Registry Mechanic to clean out my registry. On re-booting,
I am now confronted with miniature text. Years ago, I knew how to repair
such ills, but time has warped my memory.
The icons on the Desktop appear of normal size, but the print below each is
miniscule; same for Outlook Express. (In OE, under View, I set text size to
Largest, but only with minimal impact.) I right-clicked on the Desktop, and
my resolution is set at 1024 x 768. 800 x 600 makes things much too large.
Perhaps the changes are made under the Appearances tab?
Thanks for any thoughts.
Gordon Biggar
Houston, Texas
I am now confronted with miniature text. Years ago, I knew how to repair
such ills, but time has warped my memory.
The icons on the Desktop appear of normal size, but the print below each is
miniscule; same for Outlook Express. (In OE, under View, I set text size to
Largest, but only with minimal impact.) I right-clicked on the Desktop, and
my resolution is set at 1024 x 768. 800 x 600 makes things much too large.
Perhaps the changes are made under the Appearances tab?
Thanks for any thoughts.
Gordon Biggar
Houston, Texas
S
Sid Elbow
Sid said:
Should of course read "you can set the font size ...".
S
Sid Elbow
Gordon said:
Don't know from first hand experience - I've always heeded the
conventional wisdom here and avoided them. There do seem to be an awful
lot of messages here and elsewhere along the lines of "I used a registry
cleaner and now such-and-such doesn't work).
S
Sid Elbow
Gordon said:
QED?
Backing up the partition before running anything that makes major system
changes is always a good idea. I even (well, especially actually) make a
quick backup to a USB-HD before running Windows Update.
It's possible you can restore an earlier version of the registry - from
before you used the cleaner - but someone else will have to tell you how
to do it. I've always been a bit unclear on doing it (I usually do a
complete restore from the usb backup instead).
G
Gordon Biggar
Uh-oh! I knew that I was getting dangerous. Tell me about the sins of
registry cleaners.
GB
registry cleaners.
GB
G
Gordon Biggar
Making adjustments under the Appearances tab appears to be the solution, as
you said.
Of interest, or disinterest, when one clicks on Apply, or OK, after making
the changes, the program hangs and never goes to end-of-job. The changes
are made, however, but it requires a restart of the computer to get rid of
the window.
It's because of annoyances like this that I opted to try a registry cleaner.
(It didn't clean the above!) I've also had two older, but effective,
accounting programs simply fail to start. The initial opening window
appears, but the programs stop right there. I've uninstalled and
re-installed, but to no avail. These programs will run when the computer is
booted up in the SAFE mode, however. Go figure.
GGB
you said.
Of interest, or disinterest, when one clicks on Apply, or OK, after making
the changes, the program hangs and never goes to end-of-job. The changes
are made, however, but it requires a restart of the computer to get rid of
the window.
It's because of annoyances like this that I opted to try a registry cleaner.
(It didn't clean the above!) I've also had two older, but effective,
accounting programs simply fail to start. The initial opening window
appears, but the programs stop right there. I've uninstalled and
re-installed, but to no avail. These programs will run when the computer is
booted up in the SAFE mode, however. Go figure.
GGB
R
Roger Fink
Sid said:
At the risk of swimming against the tide, I've never been able to drink the
MVP anti-registry cleaner Kool-Aid. Registry cleaners, at least the one I
use in the Fix-It 2000 Utility Suite, are terrific. Learning how to use them
safely however is a high wire act. It helps to be able to have an undo
feature as Fix-It does, or to be running Go-Back in the background. EOM
(three stale metaphors are enough)
J
John John (MVP)
Roger said:
And how exactly is it "terrific"? What exactly does it do that makes it
terrific? Tell us the great things that it does to make your computer
better, better than it would be if you didn't use the cleaner?
Other than giving users a warm fuzzy placebo effect these cleaners do
absolutely nothing to make computers run better, they are absolutely
next to useless, if that was all that they did nobody would say anything
about them but the fact remains that in addition to being completely
useless these cleaners do at time cause serious damage to Windows
installations. At other times they cause less serious but nonetheless
annoying problems, the post by the OP is a prime example of the kind of
annoying problems that these useless programs cause. What is the
purpose of running those cleaners for a zero return on efforts in
exchange for possibly getting annoying niggling problems or a completely
borked Windows installation?
John
R
Roger Fink
John said:
Glad you asked. Of course what follows is just my opinion, nothing more.
Let's say you want to install a heavy duty, layered program residing on
three sequential discs, like AutoCad (at least it did the last time I
installed it). Or for that matter a complex single disc application like
Dragon Naturally Speaking.
First step: do a registry save in the unlikely event you will need to
recover your settings later on. Second step, although not stated in
anybody's instructions, would be to "clean" the registry. This will not rid
the registry of all duplicate or spurious entries in an analytical sense, it
just rids the registry of these items according to the parameters of the
registry cleaning utility. If you've been doing this all along there will be
little if anything to remove, and because you are familiar with what you
should be seeing it is very unlikely you will screw it up. I can say this
from experience, but note that experience is required, and that usually
means a few bad mistakes along the way.
If AutoCad doesn't install properly, or if the installation doesn't work
properly and you need to uninstall it, you will have a record of bad
registry entries from the original installation once the uninstallation is
complete. Note that if it doesn't install properly, there may be not even be
an uninstall option in add/remove. Some of these entries may interact with
Windows or impair other "shared" applications. In either case, save the
registry and then get rid of the bad entries (meaning all of them).
Again, JMO, but I think this procedure lessens considerably the possibility
of having to reinstall the OS, a real possibility in this situation.
I'm not disputing that for some users cleaning the registry is just an
anal-retentive waste of time. I'm just suggesting that there are times when
it has real value.
J
John John (MVP)
Roger said:
Backing up or saving the registry before doing big changes to your
system is always a good idea but registry cleaners are certainly not
needed to do this, you can create an ERD and save the registry at the
same time. As for "duplicate entries" in the registry that is
absolutely impossible, you cannot have duplicate entries in the registry
no more than you can have files with the same name in the same
directory. That leaves the "spurious entries", registry cleaning
advocates insist that those entries are somehow harmful or that removing
them increases computer performance or that it makes the Windows
installation more stable, a claim that is just not supported by facts.
If that is your worry then you should rely on proven tools like Total
Uninstall instead of registry cleaners.
Tell that to the OP and see what he thinks about it. Registry cleaners
cause more harm than good, they are not needed and they should not be
part of regular maintenance routines on Windows installations.
John