S
Susan
What is the definitive way and/or most remarkable program to clean up the
Windows XP Registry files with today?
Thank you.
Susan
Windows XP Registry files with today?
Thank you.
Susan
P
Pegasus \(MVP\)
The best way to deal with the registry is to leave it
alone. The most remarkable registry cleaner is the
one that causes so much damage while "cleaning"
the registry that Windows gets crippled. There are
quite a few of those.
Think of it this way: The registry consists of thousands
of entries that were designed by various authors to affect
the PC's operation in some way. Registry cleaners have
little to no idea what these entries do and why they are
required. It's like turning a cleaner lose in your cluttered
room (if your room is cluttered): the room might be
totally uncluttered at the end but you won't be able to
find your things any longer.
J
Jon
It tends to be a controversial topic round here.
There are countless such programs available, but they are often regarded as
doomed to failure, simply by virtue of bearing the name of 'registry
cleaner'. It also tends to be regarded as inconceivable that any mortal
human could possibly write anything that might improve the performance of
the sacred registry
For others, regcleaner works fine, among many
http://www.worldstart.com/weekly-download/archives/reg-cleaner4.3.htm
Jon
There are countless such programs available, but they are often regarded as
doomed to failure, simply by virtue of bearing the name of 'registry
cleaner'. It also tends to be regarded as inconceivable that any mortal
human could possibly write anything that might improve the performance of
the sacred registry
For others, regcleaner works fine, among many
http://www.worldstart.com/weekly-download/archives/reg-cleaner4.3.htm
Jon
G
Guest
Hi
I am atul, as per my sugesstion if yu use full ver of any reg clener not
demo version. it will help full to clean registry and improve the pc
performance. but yu should take backup of registry every time before use any
reg clener. in any case if yu loos any improtant file yu can recover by
backup.
I am atul, as per my sugesstion if yu use full ver of any reg clener not
demo version. it will help full to clean registry and improve the pc
performance. but yu should take backup of registry every time before use any
reg clener. in any case if yu loos any improtant file yu can recover by
backup.
G
Guest
from personal experience, consider your registry like a freshly painted
seat...."DO NOT TOUCH".The so called cleaners / system utilities are a
positive way to ruin your operating system.
seat...."DO NOT TOUCH".The so called cleaners / system utilities are a
positive way to ruin your operating system.
B
Bruce Chambers
There's no such thing. And, anyway, why would you think you need
to clean your registry?
What specific problem are you experiencing that you *know* beyond
all reasonable doubt will be fixed by using a registry "cleaner?" If
you do have a problem that is rooted in the registry, it would be far
better to simply edit (after backing up, of course) only the specific
key(s) and/or value(s) that are causing the problem. Why use a shotgun
when a scalpel will do the job? Additionally, the manually changing of
one or two registry entries is far less likely to have the dire
consequences of allowing an automated product to make multiple changes
simultaneously.
The registry contains all of the operating system's "knowledge" of
the computer's hardware devices, installed software, the location of the
device drivers, and the computer's configuration. A misstep in the
registry can have severe consequences. One should not even turning
loose a poorly understood automated "cleaner," unless he is fully
confident that he knows *exactly* what is going to happen as a result of
each and every change. Having seen the results of inexperienced people
using automated registry "cleaners," I can only advise all but the most
experienced computer technicians (and/or hobbyists) to avoid them all.
Experience has shown me that such tools simply are not safe in the hands
of the inexperienced user.
Further, no one has ever demonstrated, to my satisfaction, that the
use of an automated registry "cleaner," particularly by an untrained,
inexperienced computer user, does any real good. There's certainly been
no empirical evidence offered to demonstrate that the use of such
products to "clean" WinXP's registry improves a computer's performance
or stability.
The only thing needed to safely maintain your registry is knowledge
and Regedit.exe. If you lack the knowledge and experience to maintain
your registry by yourself, then you also lack the knowledge and
experience to safely configure and use any automated registry "cleaner,"
no matter how safe they claim to be.
--
Bruce Chambers
Help us help you:
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH
V
Vagabond Software
The absolute best way to clean dead entries from the registry is by hand.
You know what they are, you can visually confirm you are removing a known
dead entry, and your can restore the branch if something should go wrong.
I tend to be old school about this because I managed a team of developers
and remember the pain we went through to recover from a registry cleaner one
of IT folks decided to run on our machines back in the Windows 95 days. I
have also charged my fair share of corporate and residential users to repair
damage caused by registry cleaners.
carl
A
Alias
http://www.ccleaner.com/
Alias
Use the Reply to Sender feature of your news reader program to email me.
Utiliza Responder al Remitente para mandarme un mail.
K
Ken Blake, MVP
People have strong and greatly different opinions about this. Here's mine:
leave the registry alone. It doesn't need cleaning. Registry cleaners are
far more likely to create a problem than to solve one.
S
Susan
Okay, hold on...
I've used Norton WinDoctor on my 'puters for years and years and it in
itself has never hurt the OS's through XP so far--I will continue to use
it.
I have lost track of the two actual files that make up the Registry--I know
98 had two--not 100% certain of XP. Maybe XP has gotten a lot better at it
but 98's Registry files would grow and grow and grow and it was thought at
one time that "cleaning" them by removing remnants that no longer are
needed and "free space" left over where stuff was removed and writing a new
Registry file with these changes did reduce the Registry size considerably.
However, I think a lot of your well founded paranoid ideas against cleaning
the Registry are true too. The nature of the thread was in part to
confirm that using any Registry cleaner is still dangerous. I was hoping
for something better.
One comment I like that clearly works too if you don't take it to far is to
manually search for the remnant(s) you are looking for and remove them
manually. I have done this numerous times successfully.
Anyway, I'm happy continuing to use WinDoctor and when an uninstall fails
to complete or leaves something in Add/Remove or in Norton's One Button
Checkup going into the Registry and taking care of it manually.
Thank you.
Susan
I've used Norton WinDoctor on my 'puters for years and years and it in
itself has never hurt the OS's through XP so far--I will continue to use
it.
I have lost track of the two actual files that make up the Registry--I know
98 had two--not 100% certain of XP. Maybe XP has gotten a lot better at it
but 98's Registry files would grow and grow and grow and it was thought at
one time that "cleaning" them by removing remnants that no longer are
needed and "free space" left over where stuff was removed and writing a new
Registry file with these changes did reduce the Registry size considerably.
However, I think a lot of your well founded paranoid ideas against cleaning
the Registry are true too. The nature of the thread was in part to
confirm that using any Registry cleaner is still dangerous. I was hoping
for something better.
One comment I like that clearly works too if you don't take it to far is to
manually search for the remnant(s) you are looking for and remove them
manually. I have done this numerous times successfully.
Anyway, I'm happy continuing to use WinDoctor and when an uninstall fails
to complete or leaves something in Add/Remove or in Norton's One Button
Checkup going into the Registry and taking care of it manually.
Thank you.
Susan
V
Vagabond Software
Part of the reason things have gotten better in terms of the registry is
that programmers have gotten better. In the Windows 95/98 days, VB and C++
Windows developers would treat the Registry as their own personal databases
rather than an area to persist a few user-specific settings and
configuration options.
Uninstallers have also greatly improved over the Windows 95/98 days, I mean
BIG BUNCHES, especially in terms of backing out non-user program data
persisted in the Registry. It used to be that all that program related crap
would be left in the Registry for all eternity, whether or not it had
anything to do with user selected settings or options. Uninstallers are now
more consistent. They will remove all application objects from the drive
and the registry, but user-related data and settings will be left behind.
We are talking about a handful of entries in most cases.
carl
N
NoStop
Reformat and fresh install of XP will give you the best "cleaned" registry.
W
Wesley Vogel
The XP registry is made up of the following files.
One NTUSER.DAT for each user on the machine, some templates and repair.
%HOMEDRIVE%\Documents and Settings\Administrator\NTUSER.DAT
%allusersprofile%\ntuser.dat
%HOMEDRIVE%\Documents and Settings\Default User\NTUSER.DAT
%HOMEDRIVE%\Documents and Settings\LocalService\NTUSER.DAT
%HOMEDRIVE%\Documents and Settings\NetworkService\NTUSER.DAT
%userprofile%\NTUSER.DAT
%windir%\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\systemprofile\NTUSER.DAT
%windir%\repair\ has these files...
default
ntuser.dat
sam
security
software
system
All hives are stored in %systemroot%\SYSTEM32\CONFIG. Except
HKEY_CURRENT_USER. That's stored in %userprofile% or
C:\Documents and Settings\Your Name Here.
The major hives and their files are as follows:
Hive File BackupFile
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE SOFTWARE SOFTWARE.LOG
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY SECURITY SECURITY.LOG
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM SYSTEM SYSTEM.LOG
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAM SAM SAM.LOG
HKEY_CURRENT_USER NTUSER.DAT ntuser.dat.LOG
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT DEFAULT DEFAULT.LOG
Description of the Windows 2000 Registry
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...000/server/reskit/en-us/regentry/AboutReg.asp
Registry structure
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pr...elp/28e3337c-70ff-41e1-86ef-2581350712a9.mspx
--
Hope this helps. Let us know.
Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User
B
Bruce Chambers
You've been exceptionally lucky. WinDoctor ceased being of any use -
other than to slow a computer down by needlessly consuming systems
resources - back in the days of Win95. Once a useful utility suite,
back in the days of MS-DOS, when Peter Norton was more than a picture on
the box, Norton Utilities have been becoming increasingly useless and
redundant over the years. There's little offered by NU that WinXP
cannot already do natively. And some of Systemworks's features, like
CrashGuard and CleanSweep (if they're still included) cause far more
problems then they prevent.
The WinXP registry can be found in C:\Windows\System32\Config\.
It'll be divided into several data files, such as Security, Software,
and System. The user-specific portion of the registry is stored in each
user profile, in a file named NTUser.dat. FYI, for future reference,
comparing WinXP to Win98 is a lot like comparing a Lexus to a Yugo --
the only similarities are entirely superficial.
What makes you think that anything that applied to Win98 would even be
remotely related to WinXP? Other than a superficial similarity in the
user interface, the two operating systems are completely and radically
different.
I will concede that a good registry scanning tool, in the hands of an
experienced and knowledgeable technician or hobbyist can be a useful
time-saving tool, as long as it's not allowed to make any changes
automatically. But I really don't think that there are any registry
cleaners that are truly safe for the general public to use. Experience
has proven just the opposite: such tools simply are not safe in the
hands of the inexperienced user.
--
Bruce Chambers
Help us help you:
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH