is a registry cleaner a risky buisness?

[Greg]

I have been using system mechanic and registry cleaner. and my HP notebook
and my new Dell inspirion have both blue crashed while ived owned them.
could not get to safe mode on either machine, and the hard drives had to be
reformated. to reinstall.

I have no reason to believe that the cleaners were the culprit. but can
someone tell me if this is a possibility?

right now I am not using them. it took me 5 days to re do my dell machine.

and Im trying to learn norton ghost.

Greg

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

Yes they could be the culprits. These so called Registry 'cleaners' can and
do remove vital Registry entries - sometimes rendering a PC unbootable. If
the programs have an 'undo' option, try that. If not a System Restore back
to a point before using those programs may help.

--


Will Denny
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups

 

[Steve N.]

I have been using system mechanic and registry cleaner. and my HP notebook
and my new Dell inspirion have both blue crashed while ived owned them.
could not get to safe mode on either machine, and the hard drives had to be
reformated. to reinstall.

I have no reason to believe that the cleaners were the culprit. but can
someone tell me if this is a possibility?

right now I am not using them. it took me 5 days to re do my dell machine.

and Im trying to learn norton ghost.

Greg

Yes, they are indeed risky. If you don't know enough to safely edit the
registry directly then you don't know enough to safely use a registry
cleaner either.

Steve

 

[Homer]

I stear clear of all registry cleaners and have very few problems if any. I
have used various ones in the past with varying degrees of success but in
one way or another I think they all contributed to making Windows unstable.
Others will tell their favorite reg cleaner will work and I guess it is up
to you if you use them but I don't use them at all. I should say that when I
used them in the past I used to go through all the entries that were
selected for deleting and would use my judgment to keep or delete but
sometimes you can delete a key and not use the program it is related to for
some time or not use the part of the program the key relates to and by then
it is to late to recover the deleted key even if you remember that you
deleted the key in question, because when Windows or a program crashes it is
not always straight after cleaning the registry. It might crash days later
and by then you have little idea which key if any is to blame.

I guess if you have a proper image of Windows you can experiment with
different cleaners and that way if you break the registry you can always
recover. I wouldn't rely soley on system restore wich works great when it
works but it can let you down.

Glen

 

[Greg]

Thanks to all for now I am not going to use the reg cleaners. although I do
use "erunt" to back it up, cause like you say system restore can let you
down.

thanks again.

Greg

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I have been using system mechanic and registry cleaner. and my HP notebook
and my new Dell inspirion have both blue crashed while ived owned them.
could not get to safe mode on either machine, and the hard drives had to be
reformated. to reinstall.

I have no reason to believe that the cleaners were the culprit. but can
someone tell me if this is a possibility?

right now I am not using them. it took me 5 days to re do my dell machine.

and Im trying to learn norton ghost.

Greg

Having repeatedly seen the results of inexperienced people using
automated registry "cleaners," I can only advise to you to avoid them all.

The only thing needed to safely clean 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 it claims to be.

I always use Regedit.exe, and strongly recommend the others learn
to do so. I trust my own experience and judgment far more than I would
any automated registry cleaner.

--

Bruce Chambers

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