bm said:
Has any one any experience with this software (RegCure) which claims to
clean up all the settings on a PC including the Registry and speed up the
operation of the PC.
Blair
A long reply - but
I do not let any registry cleaner etc on my one and only computer.
If I get a problem then I fix it - if it aint broke don't fix it - and that
includes RM.
If a computer owner, like me, has only basic user skills, and do not know
what goes on in the Registry, then the last thing they should use is a tool
to do it.
The problem with me(and thousands of others) of limited techno ability, is
that I have no idea what goes on in registry.
Until I am able to learn the hidden secrets in there I do not enter unless
held by the hand by somebody far more capable.
More damage can be caused than good done - it has been widely posted that
such a prog. gives a user no particular benefit.
Whether or not one gains any significant performance is questionable - I
have read more posts/articles to say that performing a registry clean does
not enhance performance to any degree.
In every thread I have read in newsgroups in the last 2
years or more, the advice has come down against these Reg Cleaners. What
your opinion is of MVP's, I do not know, but I have come to know the ones I
can trust - and most caution against their usage.
I have no problem with those who recommend/support or whatever the use of
these cleaners.
I just wish they would point out the other side of the coin to those who may
not have a clue what they are doing.
I sometimes wonder if they ever consider the capabilities of the poster to
whom they reply.
When I had my rush of blood to the head I had not heard of 'backup' and
there was no such thing as System Restore.
Antioch
Quotes-
Rock
I would recommend against using a registry cleaner unless you know exactly
what you are doing and so can decide, before letting the cleaner make any
changes, what changes it should make from what it suggests. There are other
things to look at to help a computer that is running slowly, but registry
cleaning will have little if any impact on speed.
------------------------
Bruce Chambers
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. After all,
why use a chainsaw 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.
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 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.
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.
---------------------------
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
I always recommend against the routine use of registry cleaners.
Routine cleaning of the registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the
registry alone and don't use a 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 anypotential
benefit it may have.
Your advice is probably good, but I wish that providers of application
software would do a lot better job with their uninstall facilities.
I wish so too, but the lack of thoroughness in this by so many different
companies tells me that doing what we would want them to probably isn't as
easy as we might think.
----------------------------
Katy Pluta, MS_MVP
What I recommend against is the indiscriminate use of those cleaners without
a back-up... Few things left over in the registry are harmful and it is so
much easier to create a mess while tinkering with it.
General myths with the cleaning of the registry: do it regularly like
defragging in every situation. Unless you install/un-install lots of
software all the time, there is no need to check the registry more than once
every few months...
Some cleaners are a bit like some anti-spyware finding hundreds of
"dangerous cookies", finding a lot of false positives or completely
unharmful entries just to boost their search results and look more
efficient, make sure you research which utility to use before either
spending money and/or messing with such important files on your system.
If you start cleaning your registry you have to make back-ups with every
change/installation. Say you have a restore point a month old and a problem
starts appearing from the cleaning you made at that time, all the changes in
between will be lost, cleaning the registry pushes you to have small
incremental back-ups regularly if you want to keep secure.
Also just cleaning the registry leaves empty spaces in the files, if you are
after better performance it is more important to compact it to remove
fragments..
It is all a trade-off, frankly with the hardware and prices today ifyou
can't use your computer comfortably without resorting to W95 tactics to get
performance out of it, It would be better to upgrade the hardware than risk
loosing data while tweaking. Just make sure you research what you are doing
------------------------------
Vic Baron
I used to make my living as a computer consultant - still do a bit here and
there. Your attitude re the registry is a smart one. More people should have
it.
Working in the registry is relatively simple if you're aware of what you're
doing. The problem is that one little mistake or keystroke can completely
trash your system. The registry cleaners are, IMHO, for the most part very
safe. BUT before you delete anything, you should understand what you're
doing. The traditional registry clean is "orphaned" files or dead
links -they are *usually* quite safe to delete but not always and that's the
problem.
Anyhow, I agree with your sentiment Antioch, it is a wise one.
As a word of advice, before you do anything in the registry - back it up -
at least if you don't screw it up too badly you can recover.
Just MHO
