Registry cleaner recommendations (JSF)

[Joseph Ferraro]

Can someone recommend a registry cleaner?

I have been looking at Registry First Aid 6.0, but before I buy it I would
like to know if it is worth it or if there is anything better out there.
Not surprisingly, all the products websites claim to be the best!

Thanks in advance

Joe

 

[shegeek72]

Can someone recommend a registry cleaner?

I have been looking at Registry First Aid 6.0, but before I buy it I would
like to know if it is worth it or if there is anything better out there.
Not surprisingly, all the products websites claim to be the best!

I've used regclean for years and never had a problem deleting reg
entries it deemed useless. It got thumbs up from MS. You can d/l the
freeware version (that I use) here:
http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/

 

[Iceman]

Can someone recommend a registry cleaner?

I have been looking at Registry First Aid 6.0, but before I buy it I would
like to know if it is worth it or if there is anything better out there.
Not surprisingly, all the products websites claim to be the best!

Thanks in advance

Joe

Before you buy anything at all, you should have a look at the freeware
choices available. I have used EasyCleaner myself (on Win98), and it seemed
to do a decent job.

http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/2007/PL2007SYSTEMUTILITIES.php#3.02RegistryAndFileTools

Or shorter: http://tinyurl.com/26cc5y

 

[Daave]

Can someone recommend a registry cleaner?

Do you feel you *need* a registry cleaner? And if so, why; what problems
are you experiencing that lead you to conclude you need to use one?

More often than not, automated registry cleaners are nothing more than
snake oil, and sometimes they actually cause significant problems!

Occasionally it may be necessary to edit or delete registry keys. But
often the Windows program regedit is sufficient for this.

 

[shegeek72]

Do you feel you *need* a registry cleaner? And if so, why; what problems
are you experiencing that lead you to conclude you need to use one?

More often than not, automated registry cleaners are nothing more than
snake oil, and sometimes they actually cause significant problems!

Occasionally it may be necessary to edit or delete registry keys. But
often the Windows program regedit is sufficient for this.

Go to microsoft.com, type in "registry cleaner" and look at all the
links that come up with recommendations to clean the registry.

From "Windows XP Tips & Tricks," by Stuart Yarnold, "Streamline the

Registry":

Over time., the registry becomes bloated with obsolete and invalid key
information, and as these invalid items build up, the effect
degradation of system performance. The solution is to scan it
periodically with a suitable application that will locate all the
invalid entries and delete them.

While XP's registry editor is adequate for editing purposes, it does
not provide a cleaning option. However, there are many of these
applications available for download from the Internet. A typical
example is "Registry Mechanic." These programs provide various
options, such as full or selective scans, backups, and the creation of
system restore points.

Regular use of a registry cleaner will keep you registry lean and
mean, which will result in a faster and more responsive PC.

 

[DL]

And those links are to Forum pages or to Live One Care The MS link that is
'cleaner specific' referes to win9* which is completely different to WinNt
based systems

 

[Vanguard]

in message

I've used regclean for years and never had a problem deleting reg
entries it deemed useless. It got thumbs up from MS. You can d/l the
freeware version (that I use) here:
http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/

Regclean has limited scope. It was not designed to scan the entire
registry. It just cleans up or fixes registry entries for MS Office.
Microsoft pulled it because they received too many support calls after
users used it for later versions of Office that were distributed for
which RegClean was not designed to handl Microsoft yanked RegClean many
years ago so obviously it will never support those later products.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/299958/en-us

If RegClean doesn't screw up your Office install, using it is like
hitting an unconnected cross-walk button: does nothing useful but
placates the user. Microsoft has not given the thumbs up to regclean
and, in fact, Microsoft gave the thumbs down on its own program and
yanked it from circulation.

 

[glee]

The simple fact is that XP does not need a Registry cleaner, and you will most
likely do more harm than good by using one. Their use was quite limited in Win9x,
and they are useless in XP, IMO.

Have a look at this discussion thread (a "sticky") at the AumHa Forums, and decide
for yourself:
http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=28099

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Can someone recommend a registry cleaner?

I have been looking at Registry First Aid 6.0, but before I buy it I would
like to know if it is worth it or if there is anything better out there.
Not surprisingly, all the products websites claim to be the best!

The registry cleaner I recommend is *none* of them.

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.

 

[z1z1z1]

Can someone recommend a registry cleaner?

I have been looking at Registry First Aid 6.0, but before I buy it I
would like to know if it is worth it or if there is anything better
out there. Not surprisingly, all the products websites claim to be the
best!

Thanks in advance

Joe

All of the ones claiming to be the best are lying.
"Cleaning" the registry is, in most cases, useless, and in most of the
other cases, harmful.
The theory is that useless stuff builds up in the registry, and that
"cleaning" it will speed things up. Actually, it will make little
difference - particularly because removing entries often does not even
reduce the size of the registry, it just marks some of the space in the
registry as unused.

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

I recommend none.
Unless you are knowledgeable of the registry, I would suggest against
using them.
By familiar I mean you can recognize an entry marked for deletion as
necessary or not.
If you can not determine the difference, you may get yourself into
trouble if something unknown by you but important to Windows or
another program is deleted.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Can someone recommend a registry cleaner?

I have been looking at Registry First Aid 6.0, but before I buy it I would
like to know if it is worth it or if there is anything better out there.
Not surprisingly, all the products websites claim to be the best!

Why do you 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:



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

 

[Ron Badour]

Let me be a ME TOO guy but only because I have been throwing rocks at reg
cleaners since before MS pulled RegClean. Most cleaners will contain an
undo file but what happens if you don't think of the undo file when a
problem occurs weeks later? Another point--what's a few hundred obsolete
entries when there must be a million entries in a well used registry? These
programs are simply not required in my view.

 

[Jim Byrd]

Hi Joe - I'm going to be a little 'me too' as well.


In my experience all of these Reg cleaners, even the best, are fraught with
danger. I advise against using them except in one specific instance, that
is when you have one that is capable of doing specific Reg searches, and you
NEED (not just WANT) to remove the remaining traces of something that didn't
get uninstalled correctly. (and you didn't have foresight enough to install
it using Total Uninstall, here:
http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/files/tun235.zip, in the first
place.) (As an aside, there are, however, some third party Registry Editors
which can be of great help with both the incorrect uninstall and with
certain malware problems, especially some of theCoolWebSearch types such as
the AppInit_DLLs variant of the about:blank version of CWS, for example. I
can recommend Registrar Lite, here:
http://www.resplendence.com/reglite .)

There are a couple of specific bugs that can cause abnormal growth in either
the System or Software hives; however, they are rare, and unless these hives
in %SystemRoot%\System32\config are very, very large (in the hundreds of
megabytes), then I would council you to leave your Registry alone except for
the special circumstances I mentioned above.

I and most other MVP's that I know believe that Registry modifications of
any type are probably best done manually, very carefully, with a thorough
knowledge of what's installed on your machine, and what you're doing, and
then only when necessary. There's very little (if any!) noticeable benefit
in either space saving or speed achievable by cleaning out the Registry
except in those few cases where there's a specific problem the client is
experiencing (usually uninstall or malware related in my experience) that
needs to be fixed.

Lastly, if you must screw around with your Registry, then at least get
Erunt/Erdnt, and run it before you do the Reg clean. You'll then have a
true restore available to you. Read below to see why you might not just
using the Reg cleaner's restore:

Get Erunt here for all NT-based computers including XP:
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/I've set it up to take a
scheduled backup each night at 12:01AM on a weekly round-robin basis, and a
Monthly on the 1st of each month. See here for how to set that up:
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/erunt.txt, and for some
useful information about this subject.

This program is one of the best things around - saved my butt on many
occasions, and will also run very nicely from a DOS prompt (in case you've
done something that won't let you boot any more and need to revert to a
previous Registry) IF you're FAT32 OR have a DOS startup disk with NTFS
write drivers in an NTFS system. (There is also a way using the Recovery
Console to get back to being "bootable" even without separate DOS write NTFS
drivers, after which you can do a "normal" Erdnt restore.) (BTW, it also
includes a Registry defragger program). Free, and very, very highly
recommended.

FYI, quoting from the above document:

"Note: The "Export registry" function in Regedit is USELESS (!) to make a
complete backup of the registry. Neither does it export the whole registry
(for example, no information from the "SECURITY" hive is saved), nor can the
exported file be used later to replace the current registry with the old
one. Instead, if you re-import the file, it is merged with the current
registry, leaving you with an absolute mess of old and new registry keys.

FWIW, the second question I ask clients is whether they've recently used a
Reg Cleaner or tried to restore from one. (The first question I ask is
whether they've any non-commercial Norton/Symantec software installed.
) )


--
Regards, Jim Byrd,
My Blog, Defending Your Machine,
http://defendingyourmachine2.blogspot.com/



In Joseph Ferraro <[email protected]> typed:
|| Can someone recommend a registry cleaner?
||
|| I have been looking at Registry First Aid 6.0, but before I buy it I
|| would like to know if it is worth it or if there is anything better
|| out there. Not surprisingly, all the products websites claim to be
|| the best!
||
|| Thanks in advance
||
|| Joe

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Let me be a ME TOO guy but only because I have been throwing rocks at reg
cleaners since before MS pulled RegClean. Most cleaners will contain an
undo file but what happens if you don't think of the undo file when a
problem occurs weeks later?

Or if the result is an unbootable system, the undo file isn't very
useful.

 

[Daave]

Regular use of a registry cleaner will keep you registry lean and
mean, which will result in a faster and more responsive PC.

Most of us in this newsgroup are aware of this claim. However no one has
ever seen any hard evidence to back it up.

Conduct your own experiment with a stopwatch before and after a registry
scan and cleaning. Is your PC faster and more responsive?