Register cleaner

[henpat]

Hello all
What's the best cleaner tool to "clean up" the register?

Thanks
Henry

 

[Guest]

I would say Registry Mechanic provided by the spyware doctor creators. Its
very good... but it also made me had to reformat my computer. -_-

So i dunno if you are going to get it or not.. but lol. >.> But yea its gd,

 

[MAP]

Hello all
What's the best cleaner tool to "clean up" the register?

Thanks
Henry

You are.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

None. You don't need them except in the unlikely circumstance that a
particular program did not uninstall properly. In those cases you should use
a clean up tool specific to that program. General registry cleaners often do
more damage than good and should be avoided. There is no need to remove dead
entries as WinXP does not suffer from registry bloat as did some earlier
iterations of Win9x.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[henpat]

WOW
....

You are.

 

[henpat]

Thanks

Henry

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Hello all
What's the best cleaner tool to "clean up" the register?

The best is none at all. Any of these is more likely to create a
problem than to solve one.

 

[Guest]

The replies you've received so far , especially from the "techies", are
interesting and noteworthy.

I have tried four different registry cleaners, Registry Mechanic, Registry
Healer, Windows Registry Repair Pro, and Registry Fix. The first two are
purchased programs and the last two are free to try for a limited period. All
four of them find different problems, even when one says it's all clean. I
still use all four alternately and I guess I've been lucky not to have
suffered any irreparable damage.

I do admit that you have to carefully look at what these programs call
"errors". Sometimes they are just things that you have not used in a long
time. I exclude certain things that I do not consider to be errors and I let
the programs fix everything else. I definitely keep logs of all changes.

I would agree with the techies - don't change anything in the registry if
you don't know what you're doing. This is where you can mess things up
royally!

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Hello all
What's the best cleaner tool to "clean up" the register?

Thanks
Henry

What specific problem are you experiencing that you *know* beyond
all reasonable doubt will be fixed by using a 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.

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.

--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I would say Registry Mechanic .... Its
very good... but it also made me had to reformat my computer. -_-

How does that qualify as "very good?" Sounds unnecessarily
destructive, to me.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

None. They all think they know what they're doing, but I haven't found one, yet, that won't screw something up.

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

You hit the nail directly on the head, Linda. You look to see what they want to remove/clean up. Most users are not experienced enough to say, "Sure, go ahead and delete that, but I want to keep this."

My advice is to leave well enough alone. With the exception that Rick noted. If you have a specific problem with a specific program, use the tool for that issue, or well documented instructions.