Registry cleaner and slow computer

[mholt]

I just ran a registry checker that said I have 540 errors. The
machine (A Dell Insprion 2200) has been slowing down over the last few
weeks.

Is there a free registlry cleaner that will do what needs to be done?

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I just ran a registry checker that said I have 540 errors. The
machine (A Dell Insprion 2200) has been slowing down over the last few
weeks.

OK, but what does that have to do with a registry cleaner? Have you
even attempted to address the true causes of a slowing computer, such as
malware, badly fragmented partitions, too little free hard drive space,
too little RAM for the applications/processing now in use that weren't
used when you first set up the computer, too many unnecessary background
applications running simultaneously, incorrect device drivers, etc?

Is there a free registlry cleaner that will do what needs to be done?

"... Registry cleaner ... do what needs to be done?" There's no such
thing, free or otherwise.

A registry cleaner - even a safe one, should such ever be developed
- is an exercise in, at best, futility. There is no real need for
registry cleaners, other than to provide a profit to their
manufacturers. On rare occasions, registry cleaners can be, in the
hands of a skilled technician, useful, time-saving diagnostic tools.
Otherwise, they're nothing but snake oil.

Why do you even think you'd ever need to clean your registry? What
specific *problems* are you actually experiencing (not some program's
bogus listing of imaginary problems) that you think can 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. 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 only thing needed to safely clean
your registry is knowledge and Regedit.exe.

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 repeatedly 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. 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.

More importantly, no one has ever demonstrated that the use of an
automated registry cleaner, particularly by an untrained, inexperienced
computer user, does any real good, whatsoever. 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. Given the potential for harm, it's just not worth the risk.

Granted, most registry "cleaners" won't cause problems each and
every time they're used, but the potential for harm is always there.
And, since no registry "cleaner" has ever been demonstrated to do any
good (think of them like treating the flu with chicken soup - there's no
real medicinal value, but it sometimes provides a warming placebo
effect), I always tell people that the risks far out-weigh the
non-existent benefits.

I will concede that a good registry *scanning* tool, in the hands
of an experienced and knowledgeable technician or hobbyist can be a
useful time-saving diagnostic tool, as long as it's not allowed to make
any changes automatically. But I really don't think that there are any
registry cleaners that are truly safe for the general public to use.
Experience has proven just the opposite: such tools simply are not safe
in the hands of the inexperienced user.



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I just ran a registry checker that said I have 540 errors. The
machine (A Dell Insprion 2200) has been slowing down over the last few
weeks.

Is there a free registlry cleaner that will do what needs to be done?

No, free or not, there is no such thing.

Registry cleaning 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.

Whatever is causing your performance problem, it's not "errors" in the
registry. Look elsewhere for the cause of your problem.

The most common cause of slowdowns these days is malware infestation.
What anti-virus and anti-spyware programs do you run, and are they up
to date?

 

[HeyBub]

I just ran a registry checker that said I have 540 errors. The
machine (A Dell Insprion 2200) has been slowing down over the last few
weeks.

Is there a free registlry cleaner that will do what needs to be done?

Registry cleaners have nothing to do with the slow-down of the computer.
Nothing.

The "errors" which your registry checker found are similar to the names of
people in the 'phone book who have recently died or moved away. These
alleged "errors" have NO effect on the remaining entries.

 

[Arte Marte]

True . However even the telephone company cleans up the errors with every
new publication of their phone directory.
To add my other 1cents worth I've used my brand of registry cleaner for
about 5 yrs on my WinXP system with no ill
effects. So to say that its snake oil.....well lets leave it open for
further discussion it makes for a good laugh.

 

[Daave]

True . However even the telephone company cleans up the errors with
every new publication of their phone directory.
To add my other 1cents worth I've used my brand of registry cleaner
for about 5 yrs on my WinXP system with no ill
effects. So to say that its snake oil.....well lets leave it open for
further discussion it makes for a good laugh.

Many times, snake oil doesn't produce any ill effects.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

To add my other 1cents worth I've used my brand of registry cleaner for
about 5 yrs on my WinXP system with no ill
effects.

Nobody claims that every time someone uses a registry cleaner,
something terrible will happen. The point is that using a registry
cleaner does nothing that needs to be done, and that it increases the
*risk* of problems. Driving without your seatbelt on doesn't guarantee
that you'll be killed in an automobile accident either, but it too
increases the risk.

If you've successfully used one, I'm glad to hear that you weren't
burned by it. But it did nothing useful for you, and you needlessly
subjected yourself to risk during that time.

If you continue using it, you may continue being lucky, or you may
not. It's your choice of course, but considering that it doesn't do
anything useful, it's a very bad bargain, in my view.

 

[Jim]

True . However even the telephone company cleans up the errors with every
new publication of their phone directory.
To add my other 1cents worth I've used my brand of registry cleaner for
about 5 yrs on my WinXP system with no ill
effects. So to say that its snake oil.....well lets leave it open for
further discussion it makes for a good laugh.

Quit using the useless thing before it causes problems.
Jim

 

[iPC]

For those that get an adrenaline rush from computing so-called dangerously:

http://www.glaryutilities.com/
then
http://www.auslogics.com/registry-defrag

 

[CrabbyOlMan]

I checked out the auslogics site and here in part is what they say concerning
the registry:
"What is Windows Registry?
The Registry is very much like hard disk drives. Programs on your computer
access the Registry thousands of times per second. That means that the
Registry, just like disk drives, gets bloated and fragmented with time.

Do You Know the Facts?
Most of you already know that a fragmented registry slows down computer
speed (same as hard disks). But few are aware that the registry is fully kept
in the memory when your PC is running. Memory on your PC is much smaller than
disk space and the more bloated the Registry becomes, the less space there is
for other programs to run. Knowing that, it should not come as a surprise to
you that Windows Vista or XP runs noticeably slower after a few months of
work.

Download FREE Auslogics Registry Defrag to defragment and compact the
Windows Registry in less than a minute. The program will scan through the
registry to remove slack spaces, reducing the registry size and ultimately
the amount of RAM the registry takes up, and improving your computer
performance. <end of quote>

This doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe it's not supposed to make sense.
I have used another registry tool called Registry Booster 2, from Uniblue. I
admit, my usage was purely experimental, on systems that, should they die an
untimely death because of tinkering with the registry, there was no loss.
Would I try them on another system, containing much valuable data and work?
I would rather not, even though the Booster takes a back up of the registry
before it cleans all the invalid entries. Reasoning that I just don't have
enough evidence to point to showing improvement in performance. Another
reason is that, without a way to accurately quantify before/after
performance, there's no certainty that what was done actually helped. On one
system, running XP home, SP3, there was what seemed to be a significant
effect on the amount of time it took to load Windows. Before, I could go
away and get a cup of coffee while I waited after log in. After the Registry
Booster was used, it was so quick I didn't have time to stand up. However,
does this mean that all is well? Hmmmm. Waiting to see on that one. I
guess what it boils down to is that we're looking for a silver bullet, and
these yo-yos peddling their registry tools know that, and they exploit it too.
When a program that is no longer needed or outdated is uninstalled, most of
the time, the installer does a poor job of removing it cleanly. If you use
the find function in regedit, you can find a lot of left over entries which
probably should have been deleted. That was the case on the drive with XP
home on it. It began life with Win98, then ME, finally upgraded to XP.
Booster found 458 invalid entries many of which were left overs from old
programs and drivers I uninstalled whilst making the drive XP ready. Do all
those old vestiges make the OS more sluggish? I think they do, to an extent,
but I also think that Defrag, and disk clean up and the like remain the more
important maintenance tools.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I checked out the auslogics site and here in part is what they say concerning
the registry:
"What is Windows Registry?
The Registry is very much like hard disk drives. Programs on your computer
access the Registry thousands of times per second. That means that the
Registry, just like disk drives, gets bloated and fragmented with time.

Do You Know the Facts?
Most of you already know that a fragmented registry slows down computer
speed (same as hard disks). But few are aware that the registry is fully kept
in the memory when your PC is running. Memory on your PC is much smaller than
disk space and the more bloated the Registry becomes, the less space there is
for other programs to run. Knowing that, it should not come as a surprise to
you that Windows Vista or XP runs noticeably slower after a few months of
work.

Download FREE Auslogics Registry Defrag to defragment and compact the
Windows Registry in less than a minute. The program will scan through the
registry to remove slack spaces, reducing the registry size and ultimately
the amount of RAM the registry takes up, and improving your computer
performance. <end of quote>

This doesn't make any sense to me.

That's because it doesn't make any sense. It's marketing-speak, rather
than truth.

Maybe it's not supposed to make sense.
I have used another registry tool called Registry Booster 2, from Uniblue. I
admit, my usage was purely experimental, on systems that, should they die an
untimely death because of tinkering with the registry, there was no loss.
Would I try them on another system, containing much valuable data and work?
I would rather not, even though the Booster takes a back up of the registry
before it cleans all the invalid entries. Reasoning that I just don't have
enough evidence to point to showing improvement in performance. Another
reason is that, without a way to accurately quantify before/after
performance, there's no certainty that what was done actually helped. On one
system, running XP home, SP3, there was what seemed to be a significant
effect on the amount of time it took to load Windows. Before, I could go
away and get a cup of coffee while I waited after log in. After the Registry
Booster was used, it was so quick I didn't have time to stand up. However,
does this mean that all is well? Hmmmm. Waiting to see on that one. I
guess what it boils down to is that we're looking for a silver bullet, and
these yo-yos peddling their registry tools know that, and they exploit it too.
When a program that is no longer needed or outdated is uninstalled, most of
the time, the installer does a poor job of removing it cleanly. If you use
the find function in regedit, you can find a lot of left over entries which
probably should have been deleted. That was the case on the drive with XP
home on it. It began life with Win98, then ME, finally upgraded to XP.
Booster found 458 invalid entries many of which were left overs from old
programs and drivers I uninstalled whilst making the drive XP ready. Do all
those old vestiges make the OS more sluggish?

No. These "old vestiges" represent a tiny percentage of the total size
of the registry. Moreover, access to the registry is random anyway, so
having it slightly bigger because of the "old vestiges" does not do
nothing but waste a very small, insignificant amount of disk space.

Registry cleaning 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.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I checked out the auslogics site and here in part is what they say concerning
the registry:
"What is Windows Registry?
The Registry is very much like hard disk drives.

That's patently absurd. An indexed database file is "very much like" a
physical device? Whoever wrote that knows little or nothing (beyond a
limited vocabulary) about computers.

Programs on your computer
access the Registry thousands of times per second.

Well, many times per second, almost certainly. "Thousands of times?"
Maybe while installing a new application, or during massive OS
configuration changes.

That means that the
Registry, just like disk drives, gets bloated and fragmented with time.

Untrue and irrelevant. And since when did "access" mean that something
had to have been moved, added, changed? Most of the time, it's simply
being read. How could that possible lead to fragmentation or bloat?

Do You Know the Facts?

What an ironic turn of phrase. It's clear the author isn't interested
in (and is unacquainted with) facts.

Most of you already know that a fragmented registry slows down computer
speed (same as hard disks).

Completely untrue. Only people who have no understanding, whatsoever,
of the registry could possibly think - or be tricked into thinking - that.

But few are aware that the registry is fully kept
in the memory when your PC is running.

*Parts* of the registry are stored in memory during use, but the whole
thing? Not so.

Memory on your PC is much smaller than
disk space ...

True, but irrelevant.

.... and the more bloated the Registry becomes, the less space there is
for other programs to run.

Now the writer is displaying his/her complete ignorance of WinXP's
memory management process. WinXP uses as much memory for itself as it
can at any given time, sure, but then it frees and "hands over" any
memory that applications need to run, dynamically.

Knowing that, it should not come as a surprise to
you that Windows Vista or XP runs noticeably slower after a few months of
work.

Ah. but we don't know that, because it's all a lie.

This doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe it's not supposed to make sense.

You're right. It doesn't make sense, not is it intended to do so.
It's just a typical scam, preying upon the typical consumer's technical
ignorance and fears, using either out-right lies or deliberately false
analogies to sell a snake-oil product.

I have used another registry tool called Registry Booster 2, from Uniblue. I
admit, my usage was purely experimental, on systems that, should they die an
untimely death because of tinkering with the registry, there was no loss.
Would I try them on another system, containing much valuable data and work?
I would rather not, even though the Booster takes a back up of the registry
before it cleans all the invalid entries. Reasoning that I just don't have
enough evidence to point to showing improvement in performance. Another
reason is that, without a way to accurately quantify before/after
performance, there's no certainty that what was done actually helped.

And no one else has *ever* been able to provide any sort of
independently verifiable scientific evidence that the use of any
registry cleaner measurably improves performance. I've certainly asked
registry-cleaner advocates for such data enough times, and none have
even made the attempt, other than to point to the sort of marketing
drivel that you've (without buying into, to your credit) found and cited.

On one
system, running XP home, SP3, there was what seemed to be a significant
effect on the amount of time it took to load Windows. Before, I could go
away and get a cup of coffee while I waited after log in. After the Registry
Booster was used, it was so quick I didn't have time to stand up.

And what else, if anything, changed, in the meantime?
Another pertinent question to ask: Was it really necessary to use a
registry cleaner to achieve the same perceived results, or could you
have accomplished the same thing by other means, without taking the
risks inherent in the use of a registry cleaner?

However,
does this mean that all is well? Hmmmm. Waiting to see on that one.

Time will tell, you may have been lucky.

I
guess what it boils down to is that we're looking for a silver bullet, and
these yo-yos peddling their registry tools know that, and they exploit it too.

Exactly.


When a program that is no longer needed or outdated is uninstalled, most of
the time, the installer does a poor job of removing it cleanly. If you use
the find function in regedit, you can find a lot of left over entries which
probably should have been deleted. That was the case on the drive with XP
home on it. It began life with Win98, then ME, finally upgraded to XP.
Booster found 458 invalid entries many of which were left overs from old
programs and drivers I uninstalled whilst making the drive XP ready.

Yes, that's all true, but irrelevant.

Do all
those old vestiges make the OS more sluggish? I think they do, to an extent, ...

No, they have no measurable affect upon performance. Remember, the
registry is an *indexed* database. The OS doesn't have scan through
each and every registry entry to find the one that it's looking for. To
use an imperfect analogy, try thinking of the registry as a book with a
very detailed table of contents. Once the OS knows to which "page" it
must turn to find the information needed, the OS goes *directly* (much
more so than you or I could do with a physical book) to the pertinent
data. The number of intervening "pages, paragraphs, and words" is
utterly irrelevant.

The only time the sheer number of registry entries matters, and can
possibly affect performance, is when one is doing something that
requires a full entry-by-entry scan of the registry. And one does this
*only* on those rare occasions when it is necessary to search the
registry for a particular value, or when using something like a registry
scanner or "cleaner." Day-to-day operations remain untouched.

.... but I also think that Defrag, and disk clean up and the like remain the more
important maintenance tools.

You're quite correct in this assessment.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot