Care of the Registry

[srd]

Third-party developers advise on the importance of repairing or deleting
invalid registry entries to avoid slowdowns and crashes. Should we invest in
a "registry optimizer," and if so, do you recommend one?

srdiamond

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

No, not unless you know exactly what you and the tool are doing.
Those tools often do more damage than they prevent simply most users
do not know what is really important to be kept.
The tools can and do make mistakes.

 

[JAX]

It is my experience, leave all that junk alone. They will cause more
problems than they could ever solve. The registry is best left alone unless
you have a specific problem that necessitated modifying it.

IMHO, JAX

 

[Unknown]

I disagree with both Jax and Jupitor. I use a registry cleaner from JV16 Power
Tools. First time I ran it, it cleared out over 200 invalid entries in my
registry. It gives you the option of deleting them or not. If you select to
delete them it will give you the option to restore them. It used to be free
but now you have to pay for it. About $10 if I recall. It is well worth it for
all the additional function built into it. You can try it for 30 days free. I
wouldn't be without it. Without question it keeps the speed of your computer
fine tuned by deleting unnecessary registry entries. There are no known
problems with it..

 

[Rocket J. Squirrel]

Have you been able to determine just how much faster your computer is after
having deleted all those "invalid" registry entries? Any benchmarks to
share?

Rocky

 

[JAX]

Right Rocket,

On the other hand of "Unknown's" statement,

"Without question it keeps the speed of your computer fine tuned by deleting
unnecessary registry entries".

I have seen "no boot" situations that were caused by the use of such
programs.

Cheers, JAX

 

[Unknown]

No benchmarks. This is a home computer not one that is trying to compete with
anything faster. Benchmarks are for manufacturers that are trying to gain some
advertising gimics.

 

[Unknown]

I am not talking about 'such programs' I am talking about 'JV16 Power tools'.
There is another registry cleaner that causes problems if you fail to set it
to ignore certain registry entries. It can cause your 'Help and Support' to
become inoperative if you fail to configure it to ignore 'help' listings in
the registry.

 

[JAX]

If you are knowledgeable enough about the registry to be able to configure a
registry cleaner so it can't cause problems, you don't need the program in
the first place. Rocky's point, as I saw it, was, there is little if
anything to be gained by any such program, including JV16.

A dependable registry backup, XP's is not, is a good idea. I use ERUNT, as
do many other XP users. Other than that, I feel, the registry should be left
alone, unless there is a specific problem or change that needs to be taken
care of.

JAX

 

[srd]

The program under discussion does differ from most of the lot, and two of
the ways is not advertising that it will speed up your computer, and urging
avoidance of the program if you don't have the expertise to recover from
program-inflicted damage. Another way the program differs is that it can fix
certain registry errors, which it does instantaneously.

Most users able to recover their computers aren't able to repair their
registries.


srdiamond

 

[srd]

A dependable registry backup, XP's is not, is a good idea. I use ERUNT, as
do many other XP users. Other than that, I feel, the registry should be left
alone, unless there is a specific problem or change that needs to be taken
care of.

JAX

ERUNT checks out as a freeware program to backup the registry, but there's a
companion program by the same author called NTREGOPT. It claims to optimize
the registry by centralization. The documentation doesn't make clear what
gains the user can expect from this optimization, or why it's worth the
risk.

srdiamond

 

[JAX]

NTREGOPT only claims to be a registry defragmenter, nothing more.

JAX

 

[rcnoweis]

I suggest using Regcleaner 4.3 a freeware program
You will need to search for that exactly
The author does now package a new registry cleaner with
other tools but I suggest sticking with just this

you may find that searching for Regleaner 4.3 will bring you links that
send you to his homepage but keep searching
you will get a link that will let you download regleaner 4.3 directly
from their site and not the authors
thus allowing you to have this version which was created in 2001

I have been using this since 2001 and it has never deleted a key that
has caused an error. The only problem that I have had is that it has
not deleted ever single junk key. But I have used several reg cleaners
that I would consider to be top notch (registry first aid...etc) and
they never get all of them. Only a combo of several that you trust will
get you what you want. Oh yeah and another thing always have a current
system restore point in place. Just in case

I would also use spybot search and destroy tweaking the options will
make it search for invalid keys as well

again I have tested this for over a year

All I can tell you is that it has never done me wrong

 

[Rocket J. Squirrel]

Registry 'cleaners' and 'optimizers' are like the Cheshire Cat: There's
nothing behind the smile.

Rocky

 

[Unknown]

Apparent you know nothing of JV16 power tools. Back up your system, download
it and give it a try. You'll be amazed.

 

[Rocket J. Squirrel]

In fact, I'm very familiar with JV16. It's an interface. Convenient,
certainly, but it doesn't do anything that you can't do on your own.

Rocky

 

[JAX]

Rocky,
We may as well give up. "Unknown" must own stock in JV16.<grin>

Cheers, JAX

 

[Unknown]

Nope! No way. I'm just a home body. However, JV16 Power Tools is NOT an inter
face. Why you (Squirrel) say that is an indication you know nothing of it.
It has registry tools which allow you to monitor maintain and clean the
registry. It has file funtions which allows listing, removing,viewing renaming
and encrypting files. It has Task automation, and access control. How on earth
you can call that an interface is baffling to me. Why don't you just go to the
site and read about it. It was written by someone in Finland.

Rocky,
We may as well give up. "Unknown" must own stock in JV16.<grin>

Cheers, JAX

 

[pgriffet]

I disagree with both Jax and Jupitor. I use a registry cleaner from JV16 Power
Tools.

I disagree with Jax and Jupitor but also with you.
Why would you use a registry cleaner if you know exactly what has
been written to your registry when you install a new software ?

I install EVERY SINGLE program with a snapshot tool. Then, if I
uninstall the program, a week/month/year later, I just run the
snapshot tool which removes EVERY key written during the installation.
It's amazing to see the garbage left alone by some programs, like
RealPlayer, for instance. I can tell you that JV16 or whatever cleaner
will NOT remove those junk keys, because they are not supposed to be
orphan keys.
So I recommend 2 freeware :

Total Uninstall 2.34
http://www.geocities.com/ggmartau/download/download.html

The registry and the disk(s) are scanned before and after the
installation. Has an "Undo" function and a "regedit" look to show
new/modified keys. Cares for the SharedDLLs. Reports in txt format.
Able to completely uninstall an application, it's no more necessary
to uninstall with the uninstaller provided with your software.
Can also be used to see the changes in the registry when you modify
a value in Explorer or another software.
Multi-Language : English, French, etc.

Regshot 1.61
http://regshot.yeah.net/

Results exported in .txt or html
Not powerful as Total Uninstall, it has no build-in uninstall function
but you can uninstall with UndoReg, another freeware which reads the
RegShot report and deletes the keys.
Very intuitive interface : only one window with 6 buttons.
More useful if you want to see the changes when you do a specific task
like cleaning the TIF, using the System Restore, modify a value in
Explorer Options, etc.
Tiny : an executable of 44 KB
Multi-Language : English, French, etc.

Just download it and install a program under their control. Then, take
a look at the report and you will see a lot of keys that JV16 does not
even known they are linked to your software.
These tools have an impact on my PC because my registry (Win98) is
still at the same size as last year, despite many installations of
programs, later uninstalled. And you are never surprised by critical
keys deleted, I have never had any problems with such tools.

BTW, I use Total Uninstall every day, even if I don't install new
software. I let it run in the morning for its first shot and in the
evening for the second shot. Then, I export the report to a text
file and I have all modifications brought to the registry but also
to the filesystem, files created/modified/deleted.
Actually, nothing can be written to my system without my knowledge.
And all this for free. Forget JV16, it's maybe a good program but
it's definitely not the right tool to have a clean registry.

Pierre.

 

[Unknown]

Nope you're wrong! For the sake of saving time and posts download and try it.
I will bet you you'll delete a minimum of 100 keys from your registry. If you
do not want to try it, just go to the site and read about it. I use it every
week and get many usless keys out of my registry. It has other great features
also. Just read about it.