Windows XP Do registry cleaners work?

[muckshifter]

I cannot find ANY statistics ... hard facts is what I'm looking for.

I don't care what you use, I'm not interested in any arguments as to why you need one ... I'm looking for statistics.

Actually seen "reg-cleaners" do more harm than good ... dunno if one can put that down to the ignorance of the user for not getting to know the program, or, the fact is was a "bad" program in the first place ... there are a few of the latter around.

I know why I use one, but do you ?


Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to find, hard fact statistics on whether a Registry Cleaner is in anyway beneficial.


Win XP & above please.

 

[Ian]

I can't find any hard cold stats or benchmarks, but from my experience from years back (when I was foolish enough to think that "registry optimisers" may work in around '97) was that they did nothing except:

Delete temp files
Remove registry leftovers from uninstalls
Remove some unneeded startup items

If they do much more than that now I'd be surprised! I do use CrapCleaner simply to remove all of the junk my PC accumulates in the temp dir now and then, but I wouldn't expect my PC to be any faster

I'll have another look now and see if I can find anything, as I've got some time before I need to start cooking

 

[muckshifter]

ah, now then ...

Delete temp files
Remove registry leftovers from uninstalls
Remove some unneeded startup items

err, nope ... they do not even do that, sorry ... and I can prove that.

 

[Anon_F]

I'm not going to play this game!

 

[Adywebb]

I'm sure at some point your going to give us the proof , but in the meantime I've been scouting around and not found a single independent review/performance test.


Found this though, and probably concurs with what your implying:

I did a Google search for “registry cleaner” performance tests, and got more than 25,000 hits. In the first 15 pages, however, there wasn’t a single example of an actual performance test. Virtually all the results were from companies that make and sell this sort of utility, or from download sites that have affiliate agreements with these developers. I found one recent how-to article from Ed Tittel on TechWeb. Ed asserts that “Most Windows experts recommend a Registry clean-up on all systems at least once every six months.” He didn’t link to any of those experts, however.

Later in the same article, Ed advises: “I urge you to check comparative reviews, ratings, and rankings of Registry Clean-up Tools before you invest hard-earned dollars on these products.” Sadly, there are no links here either. I suspect that’s because detailed comparative reviews of this class of software don’t exist. Ironically, the article inadvertently documents the case against this sort of utility. Early on, it states: “The typical Windows system has literally hundreds of thousands of Registry entries.” The screen shot from the free utility he spotlights shows a grand total of 19 “errors,” most of which are simply pointers to CLSIDs that don’t exist. Is it really worth spending hours on this task? I don’t think so.

The best bit of reading I found in my search was this rant from a poster named Jabarnut on a thread at DSL Reports’ Software Forum:

The Registry is an enormous database and all this “Cleaning” really doesn’t amount to much…I’ve said this before, but I liken it to “sweeping out one parking space in a parking lot the size of Montana” … a registry “tweak” here and there is desirable or even necessary sometimes, but random “cleaning”, especially for the novice, is inviting disaster.



I also would like someone to show me any hard evidence that registry cleaning actually improves performance. (Unless there is a specific problem that has to be addressed by making changes to the registry).

Sorry to go on like this, but I feel there is way to much Registry “Cleaning” going on these days just for the sake of “cleaning”.​

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[muckshifter]

Thanks Ady, a good read, glad I ain't alone.


Don't get me wrong, I do use CC, but mainly for finding and deleting other crap from the system.

I have not been as naive as some to think a "registry cleaner" can actually improve performance & "fix" potential errors ... hell, MS have been trying to do that for nearly 20years, and they wrote the damn OS.

No, I was merely board today and was looking for Vista ready Tools ... very thin on the ground ... there was me thinking the Registry may have been "improved" but, no, it's still the same.

Hence my re-post of Sysinternals ...

 

[Adywebb]

Makes sense to me Mucks

...had a friends PC over this weekend because it was 'slow' and found over 200 adware/spyware nasties and 8 Trojans/Diallers - it had Norton installed

Removed Norton, put on KAV and the usual ad/spyware tools and got rid of them all, then used CCleaner to get rid of other crap, and its now whizzing along