Poprivet said:
Ohhh, I'm sorry you said that! You were wrong in the beginning,
your'e wrong now and you'll still be wrong tomorrow.
1. Snakebites don't necessarily kill
2. There are many valid reasons to use a "scanner"
3. They cure more ills by far than they cause, even in the hands of
unskilled, inexperienced, first time users.
4. As with any application, it's the source and Quality of the
software, not the fact that it exists, that makes it "good or not".
I know you have a closed mind on this issue so I'm not going to
debate it with you; flame away if you feel you must.
The closest I can come to agreeing with you is judicious use.
Arguing just to argue - typical.
If you have a point - make it. If you just want to argue - move on.
Here's my point...
Here's what I hate about the whole 'registry cleaners' argument... The only
reasons that people give for their existence is incomplete uninstalls, etc.
It seems people are content letting the companies put out products that
cannot clean up after themselves... It's not Microsoft's fault that the
third-party companies put out products that cannot properly uninstall what
they put into place - that would be the software manufacturer's of said
products - right?
The problem is not with the 'registry cleaners' themselves (in some cases) -
but with the usage of them. The number of variables such a product would
have to take into account is phenomenal. So much so that I believe the only
way these programs would be useful is if they were installed before you
started installing all of the many millions of products you could install -
and then it keeps track of said installs just like if you did a
filemon/regmon before/after you installed it - as well as it keeps tracks of
changes every time you utilize/close said application - in case it furthers
where its tendrils goes - and then if you ever uninstall it - it uses all of
that combined information to literally and quite thoroughly wipe your system
of all traces (giving you choices to save certain files - such as those you
CREATED with said product...)
I know of no such product - I know of products that do part of that, but not
everything I gave. A registry cleaner is simply going through and finding
registry entries that it deems shouldn't be there. Users (in some cases)
can review these finds... However - if the user knew what they were looking
for - they would have probably found it and deleted it on their own - why
should they trust this third-party product that tells them a certain key is
unnecessary? Now - you may say, "They can research it" - but if they had
researched it before - they probably would have found the 'manual removal'
instructions on the products support site that tells them JUST what they
need to delete. Most people want the easy fix and unlike they might do with
other items - they choose to trust whatever the computer tells them and just
click "ok". It happens all the time.
Are registry cleaners innately *bad*? No.
Should anyone who doesn't already understand the registry use them? My
opinion is *no*.
It's like giving someone (who happens not to be an auto-mechanic and knows
NOTHING about engines/automobiles beyond using them to get from point A to
point B) a toolset and opening the hood of your car... GO! Yeah - that
might not work out as planned. Might work out fine. Willing to play the
odds?
