OT: ERUNT and Avast!

[Smirnoff]

As MSE will breathe its last in April this year I decided to install
Avast!.

However, when I try to run ERUNT's NTREGOPT to optimise the registry I
get the following error message:

Error optimising registry hive

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Security !

[ RegReplaceKey: 5 - Access is denied ]

I assumed that Avast! was the culprit because I never had the problem
with MSE.

I duly placed ERUNT in all the Avast! "Exclusion" options (General and
Smart Scan) but I still get the same error.

Did a full uninstall of MSE before installing Avast!

ERUNT backs up the registry OK so I don't think the programme is
corrupt. Any ideas?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

As MSE will breathe its last in April this year I decided to install
Avast!.

However, when I try to run ERUNT's NTREGOPT to optimise the registry I
get the following error message:

Erunt is a good program to back up the registry. But using NTREGOPT
(or any other such program) to optimize the registry is not wise.


Registry cleaning/optimizing programs are *all* snake oil. Cleaning of
the registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone
and don't use any registry cleaner. Despite what many people think,
and what vendors of registry cleaning software try to convince you of,
having unused registry entries doesn't really hurt you.

The risk of a serious problem caused by a registry cleaner erroneously
removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit
it may have.

Read
http://www.howtogeek.com/171633/why-using-a-registry-cleaner-wont-speed-up-your-pc-or-fix-crashes/
and also
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussin.../02/registry-junk-a-windows-fact-of-life.aspx

You also might want to read the section on the CCleaner Registry
Cleaner here:
http://www.howtogeek.com/113382/how-to-use-ccleaner-like-a-pro-9-tips-tricks/

Let me point out that neither I nor anyone else who warns against the
use of registry cleaners has ever said that they always cause
problems. If they always caused problems, they would disappear from
the market almost immediately. Many people have used a registry
cleaner and never had a problem with it.

Rather, the problem with a registry cleaner is that it carries with it
the substantial *risk* of having a problem. And since there is no
benefit to using a registry cleaner, running that risk is a very bad
bargain.

 

[Smirnoff]

+1 Just use ERUNT for registry backup purposes.
I never have seen snake oil, but I'm guessing some vendors in the good
old days of the wild, wild, West, used to peddle that stuff as some
miracle cure?

Thanks Bill in Co and Ken Blake.

My understanding about ERUNT's NTREGOPT was that it wasn't a registry
cleaner as such. I got the impression that all it did was to remove
unnecessary space rather than outdated/corrupt registry files.

I am still wondering why it wont run. As stated, I can only think Avast!
is stopping it as it worked OK with MSE.

However, if it IS Avast!, why doesn't the programme flag it as a
potential threat?

 

[jim]

As MSE will breathe its last in April this year I decided to install Avast!.

However, when I try to run ERUNT's NTREGOPT to optimise the registry I
get the following error message:

Error optimising registry hive

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Security !

[ RegReplaceKey: 5 - Access is denied ]

I assumed that Avast! was the culprit because I never had the problem with MSE.

I duly placed ERUNT in all the Avast! "Exclusion" options (General and
Smart Scan) but I still get the same error.

Did a full uninstall of MSE before installing Avast!

ERUNT backs up the registry OK so I don't think the programme is corrupt. Any ideas?

I was using Avast for 2 - 3 years but on the upgrade some months back
decided it had become bloated ; I now have Bit Defender free on my system .

 

[micky]

+1
I never have seen snake oil, but I'm guessing some vendors in the good old
days of the wild, wild, West, used to peddle that stuff as some miracle
cure?

Is snake oil oil made out of snakes, or is what they use for baking?

 

[micky]

Thanks Bill in Co and Ken Blake.

My understanding about ERUNT's NTREGOPT was that it wasn't a registry
cleaner as such. I got the impression that all it did was to remove
unnecessary space rather than outdated/corrupt registry files.

CAn you turn off Avast for a couple minutes while you run ntregopt?
From the systray icon.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Thanks Bill in Co and Ken Blake.

My understanding about ERUNT's NTREGOPT was that it wasn't a registry
cleaner as such. I got the impression that all it did was to remove
unnecessary space rather than outdated/corrupt registry files.

True; it essentially defragments the registry, and what I said wasn't
really appropriate for that.

However registry defragmentation isn't really necessary. Since access
to the registry is random, defragging it does little besides saving a
tiny amount of disk space.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Is snake oil oil made out of snakes, or is what they use for baking?

Wikipedia has a good article on it. IIRR it _is_ derived from snakes,
and there was originally a valid product, but it had to be made from the
right kind of snake, not common (possibly not existing at all - I think
it might have been an oriental species; see the article!) in the old
west, where the expression arose.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

On Sat, 7 Feb 2015 12:39:06 -0700, "Bill in Co"


Yes.


Is snake oil oil made out of snakes, or is what they use for baking?

No. It's made from a plant, Aristolochia watsonii (and other species
of Aristolochia, but a. watsonii is the species I'm familiar with,
since it grows around here), known as Pipevine, Dutchman's pipe, and
snakeroot.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

No. It's made from a plant, Aristolochia watsonii (and other species
of Aristolochia, but a. watsonii is the species I'm familiar with,
since it grows around here), known as Pipevine, Dutchman's pipe, and
snakeroot.

Hmm. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil, at least _one_
of the candidate substances _was_ made from the Chinese water snake,
used by Chinese labo(u)rers to treat joint pain. (Whether the original
product, made from the correct snake, had any actual effectiveness, the
Wikipedia article doesn't say, though it does go on to give the history
of the selling of other substances with the name, often fraudulently.)

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hmm. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil, at least _one_
of the candidate substances _was_ made from the Chinese water snake,
used by Chinese labo(u)rers to treat joint pain. (Whether the original
product, made from the correct snake, had any actual effectiveness, the
Wikipedia article doesn't say, though it does go on to give the history
of the selling of other substances with the name, often fraudulently.)

Perhaps that was used for that purpose in China, but the snake oil
that was sold by wandering street vendors as a nostrum to cure all
ills in the US (I think just the western US, but I'm not sure) was
made from Aristolochia. And that's the stuff (not the stuff in China)
I'm referring to when I say that registry cleaners are all snake oil.

 

[micky]

Hmm. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil, at least _one_
of the candidate substances _was_ made from the Chinese water snake,
used by Chinese labo(u)rers to treat joint pain. (Whether the original
product, made from the correct snake, had any actual effectiveness, the

That might bring up the placebo effect, which I just read something
interesting about. Though I've heard for decades that placebos actually
work much of the time, there was a recent article that said if the
patient was told his drug cost 100 dollars for 20, versus 5 dollars for
20, he got more relief (from pain perhaps) from the pill he thought was
more expensive. That's not surprising either, but then the article
went on to cliaim the placebos with no actual biologic effect were never
given to patients because it woudl be a violation of ethics and
doctor-patient trust. I find that hard to believe. I would think
doctors DO use placebos, at least when nothing else works. .

 

[Smirnoff]

True; it essentially defragments the registry, and what I said wasn't
really appropriate for that.

However registry defragmentation isn't really necessary. Since access
to the registry is random, defragging it does little besides saving a
tiny amount of disk space.

Thanks to all who replied.

I am aware that many people warn against any kind or registry cleaner
but as Ken Blake points out, NTREGOPT is more of a defragmenter than a
cleaner and probably isn't necessary anyway.

The thing that bothered me was that I had no way of knowing that Avast!
was stopping it running other than realising that the problem only
started when I installed Avast! There was no pop up warning, nothing in
Event Viewer and Avast's limited logs were of no help whatsoever.

It would have been easy to assume ERUNT was corrupted and could have
started me on an install/uninstall of ERUNT only to discover the problem
still existed. I would then assume that I had malware or that a system
setting had been changed etc.

It makes me wonder what other process/programme Avast would decide to
stop without me knowing.

I don't mind a protection programme being a bit intrusive provided it
tells me what it's blocking (that's its job). It would then be up to me
to tell it to ignore the file. But, as stated, I put ERUNT in Avast's
exclusion zones and this didn't solve the problem.

Have now decided to use Bitdefender and will see how that behaves.