Regclean Question

[Patch]

Will the old Regclean that worked for Win98 also work for XP? I have it
installed, but I've not ran it yet.

Thanks

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

XP looks after the Registry by itself and doesn't need one of these so
called Registry 'cleaners'. Using one can cause more problems than it's
worth, including rendering a PC unbootable. May I suggest that you let XP
deal with the Registry?

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Regclean 4.1 for Win 9x will completely screw up XP.. do NOT use it..

--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/user

 

[John E. Carty]

XP certainly does not clean up it's registry from programs that do not
uninstall themselves properly and leave loads of dead links behind!

 

[Guest]

That may be the case but I'd have to recommend against using any Windows 98
utilities in XP. If you must use a reg cleaner, you might as well buy one
made for XP.

 

[Hugues-Antoine Suin]

XP certainly does not clean up it's registry from programs that do not
uninstall themselves properly and leave loads of dead links behind!

I use the freeware EasyCleaner. It makes a good job on XP.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Avoid registry cleaners for XP. They will identify left over entries from
installations and a few things like that which are never going to be read
again anyway, but the registry is huge and the few hundred you can delete
make no difference. The harm from an erroneous deletion, however, can be
significant. Your system will not run more efficiently using a registry
cleaner.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Will the old Regclean that worked for Win98 also work for XP? I have it
installed, but I've not ran it yet.

Thanks

No. Don't use that program on WinXP. There are large differences
between Win98's registry and WinXP's.

The registry contains all of the operating system's "knowledge" of
the computer's hardware devices, installed software, the location of the
device drivers, and the computer's configuration. A misstep in the
registry can have severe consequences. One should not even consider
turning loose a poorly understood automated "cleaner," unless he is
fully confident that he knows *exactly* what is going to happen as a
result of each and every change. Having seen the results of
inexperienced people using automated registry "cleaners," I can only
advise all but the most experienced computer technicians (and/or
hobbyists) to avoid them all. Experience has shown me that such tools
simply are not safe in the hands of the inexperienced user.

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 they claim to be.

Further, no one has ever demonstrated, to my satisfaction, that the
use of an automated registry cleaner, particularly by an untrained,
inexperienced computer user, does any real good. There's certainly been
no empirical evidence offered to demonstrate that the use of such
products to "clean" WinXP's registry improves a computer's performance
or stability.

What specific problem are you experiencing that you *know* beyond
all reasonable doubt will be fixed by using an automated registry
cleaner? If you do have a problem that is rooted in the registry, it
would be far better to simply edit (after backing up, of course) only
the specific key(s) and/or value(s) that are causing the problem. Why
use a shotgun when a scalpel will do the job? Additionally, the
manually changing of one or two registry entries is far less likely to
have the dire consequences of allowing an automated product to make
multiple changes simultaneously.

I always use Regedit.exe. I trust my own experience and judgment
far more than I would any automated registry cleaner. I strongly
encourage others to acquire the knowledge, as well.


--

Bruce Chambers

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both at once. - RAH

 

[plb2862]

Although a reg cleaner may not be advised by some, I believe that some
utilities that clean registry entries are good especially those pesky BHOs
in the registry. I use S&D spybot & Hijack This which will remove those
registry entries. I also have been using jv16 and regcompact without any
side effects on XPSP2. But how clean do you need to be? Some orphaned links
are harmeless and some may prevent reloading software --- and sometimes its
a matter of turning off a service to load/reload.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Yes, but Spybot and similar programs are not registry cleaners and registry
cleaners have no way of dealing with spyware.

 

[plb2862]

True they are not and are not meant to be. But they do get rid of BHOs
entries in the registry and other malicious / malignant registry entries and
in that respect clean what needs to be removed from the registry. As what
is being said is cleaning the registry should be done for performance and to
get rid of spyware entries and BHOs.

Yes, but Spybot and similar programs are not registry cleaners and
registry cleaners have no way of dealing with spyware.

--
Colin Barnhorst [MVP Windows - Virtual Machine]
(Reply to the group only unless otherwise requested)

Although a reg cleaner may not be advised by some, I believe that some
utilities that clean registry entries are good especially those pesky
BHOs in the registry. I use S&D spybot & Hijack This which will remove
those registry entries. I also have been using jv16 and regcompact
without any side effects on XPSP2. But how clean do you need to be? Some
orphaned links are harmeless and some may prevent reloading software ---
and sometimes its a matter of turning off a service to load/reload.

 

[Warren]

I have used RegCleaner 4.3 with two computers running XP and had absolutely
no problems. In fact, it has come in rather handy at eliminating leftover
entries from programs that have been uninstalled. In addition, I just used
it yesterday to clean my registry of a corrupted entry for a program that
was not working properly. After doing so, I reinstalled the program and all
is working well now.