Which Registry Cleaner?

[Kayman]

Okay, thanks everybody for comments. I have agreed with the general
consensus for the most part and have avoided the use of such "cleaners" but
performance has become so poor and remained that way despite cache control
and defrag and so on that Ive started reaching for straws.

The most preferred action is to follow the advice as posted by Pegasus
(MVP).
"The only way to clean a compromised system is to flatten and rebuild.
That¢s right. If you have a system that has been completely compromised,
the only thing you can do is to flatten the system (reformat the system
disk) and rebuild it from scratch (re-install Windows and your
applications)..."
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/columns/secmgmt/sm0504.mspx
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Reinstalling_Windows

If this is not an option through these Cleaning steps:
First, try to clean up your caches, Internet files and delete cookies by
doing this:
Click Start >> Control Panel >> Double click Network and Internet
Connections >> Double click Internet Options.
On the IE properties windows you will see these Tabs:
General | Security | Privacy | Content | Connections | Programs |
Advanced
Under General Tab clear your History, Internet Files and Cookies.

Scan for malware.

SuperAntispyware - Free
http://www.superantispyware.com/superantispywarefreevspro.html
RootkitRevealer v1.71
By Bryce Cogswell and Mark Russinovich
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Security/RootkitRevealer.mspx

Download David H. Lipman's MULTI_AV.EXE from the URL:
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/sicherheit/35905/multi_av_scanning_tool.html

The web site is in German but the MULTI_AV scanning tool is in English.
Anyway, go down to near of the bottom of the page and you'll see a box
titled "Infos Zum Download - Multi-AV Scanning Tool". You'll see: Download
von www pctipp.ch and the link to download:
Once you've clicked this link, it will bring to:
http://www.pctipp.ch/index.cfm?pid=1411&pk=28470.

You will have to wait for a few seconds or so and the 'Download file'
window should appear - just follow the prompts to download Multi_AV.exe

If however the 'Download file' window does not appear don't panic, don't
click, don't do anything, just look for:
Der Download started in wenigen Sekunden automatisch.
Fall nicht, klicken Sie bitte -hier-.

Translated to English:
The download process is going to start in a few seconds.
If not, click -here-.

This should be pretty self-explanatory.

Additional Instructions:
http://pcdid.com/Multi_AV.htm
Ignore the links displayed within this site as they are not valid anymore
and have not yet been updated to current status.

Still no luck? Go to:
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware

New Year resolution
1. For day-to-day work/browsing operate as a 'normal' user i.e. utilize the
Limited User Account (LUA) and use the Administrator Account (AC) only
when absolutely necessary.

2. Secure, tighten up your Operating System (OS).

3. Keep your OS and all software on it updated/patched.

4. Reconsider usage of IE and OE.

5. Don't expose Services to public networks.

6. Use the in-build firewall and if applicable use a router.

7. Do not to use TCP/IP as transport protocol for NetBIOS, SMB and RPC and
leave TCP/UDP ports 135, 137-139 and 445 closed.

8. Routinely practice Safe-Hex.

9. Routinely backup your data; Develop a Back-Up concept.

10.Familiarize yourself with 'flatten' and rebuild your OS.

11.Review your installed 3rd party software applications;
Remove clutter.

12.The beginners may wish to employ a real-time av application and utilize
some monitoring utilities developed by Bryce Cogswell and Mark
Russinovich.

Detailed elaborations pertinent to the above mentioned points can be
provided.

Read, comprehend and implement.

 

[mayayana]

Okay, thanks everybody for comments. I have agreed with the general

consensus for the most part and have avoided the use of such "cleaners" but
performance has become so poor and remained that way despite cache control
and defrag and so on that Ive started reaching for straws.

A reinstall is always good, as several have
already noted. If you have pre-installed Windows
it's even better to use disk image backup, so that
a re-install doesn't also include a day of cleaning
up advertising and "shovelware" that came pre-installed.

One other thing worth checking, which I didn't see
mentioned, is to delete the Temp. Internet Files through
the IE Internet Options window. Then set the cache level
very low. There doesn't seem to be a default cache
size, so it just keeps growing. On a high speed connection
where IE is used it can grow fairly quickly. There's
no direct connection between the IE cache and
Explorer, but the two do seem to be linked through
Microsoft's unfortunate decision to tangle their browser
up with the system. I've seen an extremely large cache
slow down a system dramatically. It's as though Windows
is searching the cache when displaying Explorer windows
or Desktop changes.

Of course, a hundred other things can slow you down,
but that's one of the hundred worth checking. Other
than that there's the obvious XP bloat that can be trimmed:

* Shut off the graphical "skins" - which require a great
deal of memory and computation - and use the "classic"
Desktop - especially if you don't have a lot of RAM to
spare.

* Turn off services. I was looking into that recently and
found a total of 58 (!) common services that are either
expendable, wasteful, or downright risky on a standalone
PC. Microsoft sets a number of services to run by default
that are irrelevant or even risky for many people.

* Download Autoruns:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/AutoRuns.mspx

Run it and carefully look through the list of software
that runs at startup. There are a large number of
small utilities that will set themselves to start
unnecessarily. There are also large programs like
MS Office and OpenOffice that are so bloated they
virtually load themselves in the background so that
they'll seem responsive if and when you run them.
And one of the worst offenders in terms of startup
bloat is hardware. Something like a printer or CD
writer software will often install 2 or 3 useless utilities
without asking.
With someone who installs software and hardware
without carefully monitoring startup programs, it's
easy to end up with a couple dozen useless
parasites running in the background. And that's on top
of useless services. It can all result in a large load on
the system.

 

[Poprivet`]

Windows Rot is killing me. XP Pro SP2 needs a good
house
cleaning after these years of install and uninstalls.
I
have never used this type of utility though. Any
recommendations? I'm also running Vista now too if
anybody has any comments in that context. The
"reviews"
on the web appear to be old from 2003-2004 so what's
up?

cccleaner (windows crap cleaner) is a decent one that
seems to do well. Before you run it, create a Restore
Point, and back up at least your system state or,
better yet, the entire drive, just in case.
If it's been as long as you imply, you might have
hundreds of things found which can be a routine for
further problems, so be certain you can get back to
where you were.
Cleaning the registry -might- help things some, but
I doubt it's the answer to all your problems.
cccleaner will do much more than just clean the
registry for you too; all good stuff.
FWIW, cccleaner has NEVER created a problem for me:
But, I still make sure of my backup status before I run
it and any other ts apps on ANY machine.

More importantly, IMO, are you certain you have no
malware? Or file corruption? How do you know? How
did you test & with what apps?
Have you tried a chkdsk? Updated and run AV and spyware
apps? Lots of things you can try.
But first, you /always/ have to be sure you have a
good backup in case things go awry. Never skip the
backup step before starting to ts issues like this; it
could be disastrous to your data to not have it backed
up.

Cleaning the registry is amost never the root cause of
slow operation as long as there are no boot errors
appearing and even those often come from other sources.

HTH

Pop`

 

[Edward W. Thompson]

snip.
Cleaning the registry -might- help things some, but I doubt it's the
answer to all your problems. cccleaner will do much more than just clean
the registry for you too; all good stuff.
FWIW, cccleaner has NEVER created a problem for me: But, I still make
sure of my backup status before I run it and any other ts apps on ANY
machine.
snip>
Cleaning the registry is amost never the root cause of slow operation as
long as there are no boot errors appearing and even those often come from
other sources.

Correction: removing redundant entries from the Registry (aka Cleaning)
will not solve any problems whatsoever other than shrinking the size of the
Registry by a very insignificant amount.

 

[Curt Christianson]

I think the other posters are for the most part against them. <g>

--
HTH,
Curt

Windows Support Center
http://www.aumha.org/