Registry Cleaner - does one exists?

[Sage - John Leonard]

Is there a safe registry cleaner out there, that will work with Vista and
XP?

What about RegDefense?

thx

 

[The Real Truth MVP]

Download CCleaner from here http://www.ccleaner.com

 

[John John (MVP)]

No, these tools cause more harm than good. If you want to keep your
Windows installation in good working order don't clean your registry
with these useless programs!

John

 

[thecreator]

Hi John,

I disagree for while they did cause more harm than good at first, now
these Registry Cleaners have gotten better.

A good one is TuneUp Utilities 2009 which can be downloaded from here:
http://www.tune-up.com/products/tuneup-utilities/

Have you used / tried the one I recommended yet?

 

[Pauli Taglia]

I disagree for while they did cause more harm than good at first, now
these Registry Cleaners have gotten better.

Better at what? They don't screw up the system as often as they might
have in the past?

You surely can't show that they do what they claim: increase
performance.

 

[John John (MVP)]

Hi John,

I disagree for while they did cause more harm than good at first, now
these Registry Cleaners have gotten better.

A good one is TuneUp Utilities 2009 which can be downloaded from here:
http://www.tune-up.com/products/tuneup-utilities/

Have you used / tried the one I recommended yet?

The premise for using these cleaners is that the registry needs regular
cleaning, that is a false premise. These cleaners do nothing to improve
computer performance and they do introduce a risk of damage to the
Windows installation, as far as I am concerned all of these cleaners are
next to utterly useless. Why bother when there a possible risk to
contend with and nothing to be gained in return?

John

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Is there a safe registry cleaner out there, that will work with Vista and
XP?

Although some are safer than others, none is completely safe and none
is needed. You shouldn't run any of them.

Here's my standard message on this subject:

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.

Read http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html

 

[Leonard Grey]

I have yet to see a before-and-after benchmark test proving that
registry cleaners do any good at all. But we have plenty of evidence of
how much damage they can cause.

Registry cleaners -- like fad diets and memory improvement pills -- are
marketed to people who are swayed by half-truths and unsubstantiated
hype. The more you learn about Windows, the more you realize that
so-called registry cleaners -- like those diets and those pills -- are
just so much junk.

Personally, I don't care whether someone uses a registry cleaner. It's
their computer, they are allowed to do whatever they want with it,
right? However, if they experience a problem with their computer, and a
registry cleaner is involved, they may be in for plenty of frustration
because no one knows what the software did to the computer and what
effect it may or may not have had.

 

[CBoom]

I advise against using a registry cleaner unless you know exactly what you
are doing

 

[CBoom]

even if they clear thousands and thousands of mistakes the difference in
registry size is only a few KB

registry cleaners should be avoided..

I do use one that's part of ccleaner... but I do It very seldom and make a
restore point before and check what changes it will do..

but I understand the registry...

 

[Roy Smith]

No, these tools cause more harm than good. If you want to keep your
Windows installation in good working order don't clean your registry with
these useless programs!

John

If a registry cleaner is not safe, then why does Windows Live Onecare have
one?

http://onecare.live.com/site/en-US/article/registry_cleaner_why.htm

 

[Tom [Pepper] Willett]

Just because it has one, why is it safe? BTW, Windows Live Onecare is being
discontinued.

:
: : > No, these tools cause more harm than good. If you want to keep your
: > Windows installation in good working order don't clean your registry
with
: > these useless programs!
: >
: > John
: >
: > Sage - John Leonard wrote:
: >
: >> Is there a safe registry cleaner out there, that will work with Vista
and
: >> XP?
: >>
: >> What about RegDefense?
:
: If a registry cleaner is not safe, then why does Windows Live Onecare have
: one?
:
: http://onecare.live.com/site/en-US/article/registry_cleaner_why.htm
:
:
:

 

[Leonard Grey]

Marketing.
---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

If a registry cleaner is not safe, then why does Windows Live Onecare
have one?

http://onecare.live.com/site/en-US/article/registry_cleaner_why.htm

 

[Unknown]

Even if YOU know exactly what you're doing, you don't know what the registry
cleaner is doing.
Avoid them.

 

[John John (MVP)]

If a registry cleaner is not safe, then why does Windows Live Onecare
have one?

http://onecare.live.com/site/en-US/article/registry_cleaner_why.htm

Perhaps you should ask why Onecare steadfastly refused to include a
registry cleaner in its "paid for" version, maybe Onecare and the
support team didn't want to deal with problems caused by useless
registry cleaners. You should ask why any application that deals with
user security and malicious pests surreptitiously enables ActiveX
without asking or even informing unwary users that it has done so. And
finally, you should ask yourself why Onecare is being discontinued.

John

 

[db ´¯`·.. >]

you should consider using
the cleaners that are highly
recommended by others
here and keep away from
those that are unknown
or unproven.

like many software, there
are phony registry cleaners
as well.

-------------

for all practical purposes, I
highly recommend you utilize
the one care safety scanner
at least once a month.

it has been highly tested and
proven safe by the makers
of windows:

http://onecare.live.com/site/en-US/article/registry_cleaner_why.htm

in addition to the above
you can also install a program
called pagedefrg and set it
to run at every boot.

it can be downloaded from
microsoft.com


as a final note, because
different registry cleaners
usually focus on different
aspects of the registry,

you can utilize another registry
cleaner in addition to microsofts.

--------------

incidentally, most people don't
know the difference between
a corrupt file system and
a dirty registry.

thus, running a registry
cleaner on a file system
that is crashing would only
make matters worst.

so remember to run a
check disk first, then
run a reg cleaner.

--------------

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces

"nirvana is shared and not hoarded" - dbZen

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Is there a safe registry cleaner out there, that will work with Vista
and XP?

What about RegDefense?

thx

There is no such thing as a "good" (meaning useful or beneficial)
registry cleaner, free or otherwise. Some are less harmful than others,
but because they're all nothing but snake oil, I won't recommend any.

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.

A little further reading on the subject:

Why I don't use registry cleaners
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=643

AumHa Forums • View topic - AUMHA Discussion: Should I Use a Registry
Cleaner?
http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=28099



--

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

 

[Sinbad The Sailor]

I'm afraid I have to disagree on that one too. I have been using Ccleaner's
registry cleaner for a while now, backing everything up beforehand, and have
never had a problem caused. I think the main reason I use mine, is because
sometimes programs don't uninstall properly and leave tracks through the
registry, tracks I'd prefer not to have. Although yes, I agree, they are
potentially risky, but who causes errors in their computer as a result of
registry cleaning, except the people who can't recognize when an important
registry entry is being deleted? Only fools would click the 'Repair All'
option, in my opinion. I am aware of Microsoft's 'Install Clean-Up' program,
but even that leaves out some things that Ccleaner finds.

This is why I use registry cleaner(s).

-Sinbad

 

[Leonard Grey]

"I am aware of Microsoft's 'Install Clean-Up' program,but even that
leaves out some things that Ccleaner finds."

The purpose of the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility is to remove
Windows Installer packages, e.g., *.msp files.

See what I mean? With all respect, you advocate fiddling with the
registry but you lack essential knowledge of Windows technology.

I use CCleaner as a cache cleaner. I do not use the registry cleaner
component, but I have asked it to "Analyze" my registry to see what it
suggests to remove. These are invariably benign fluff that wouldn't make
a bit of difference to my computer's speed or stability.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I'm afraid I have to disagree on that one too.

You are certainly free to disagree with John John's view (which is the
same as mine), but let me point out a couple of things.

I have been using Ccleaner's
registry cleaner for a while now,

That registry cleaner is safer than most (but *not* risk-free)

backing everything up beforehand,

That's certainly good to do.

and have
never had a problem caused.

There are *many* people who have similar experiences. None of us has
ever claimed that every time someone uses a registry cleaner, the
result is a problem. If that were the case, everyone would know that
they couldn't be used, and all registry cleaners would quickly
disappear.

But although no registry cleaner always causes a problem, there is
*always* a risk in using one. Since there is no benefit to using it,
running any risk at all is foolhardy.

So you've been lucky to not have a problem, and if you continue to use
it, I hope you continue to be lucky. But my advice is not to trust in
luck, and stop running the risks you are running, which provide you
with no benefit.

I think the main reason I use mine, is because
sometimes programs don't uninstall properly and leave tracks through the
registry,

That's unquestionably true.

tracks I'd prefer not to have.

You may prefer not to have them, but except for the tiny amount of
disk space they take, there is *no* disadvantage to their being there.
Running any risk at all (even if small) to get rid of them is a bad
bargain.

Although yes, I agree, they are
potentially risky, but who causes errors in their computer as a result of
registry cleaning, except the people who can't recognize when an important
registry entry is being deleted? Only fools would click the 'Repair All'
option, in my opinion. I am aware of Microsoft's 'Install Clean-Up' program,
but even that leaves out some things that Ccleaner finds.

If your knowledge of the registry is above that of most people, and
you are very careful in what you let the registry cleaner do, yes,
your risk is lower than that of most people. Nevertheless, it is not
zero, so I repeat my comment above: "except for the tiny amount of
disk space they take, there is *no* disadvantage to their being there.
Running any risk at all (even if small) to get rid of them is a bad
bargain."