Registry cleaner / repair for win xp

[Guest]

I've been told that there are several freeware registry cleaner / repair
programs available. Anyone have success / horror stories from using these?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I've been told that there are several freeware registry cleaner /
repair programs available. Anyone have success / horror stories from
using these?

It's like throwing gasoline on a bonfire.. (This question.)

My opinion - no need for them. Shouldn't be used by anyone who wouldn't
have been comfortable getting around the registry without the tool and it
provides minimal (nanoseconds or less over a long period of time) if any
improvements in performance. Sure - there are registry entries that if
changed can improve some performance areas - but notice - I said "changed".
*smile*

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I've been told that there are several freeware registry cleaner / repair
programs available. Anyone have success / horror stories from using these?

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

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[AJR]

Microsoft provides a cleaner - not supported - but free. search for
regcleaner. Regarding previous comments - trim a little fat here and a
little there - also "nanoseconds "milliseconds" whatever - if your mental
attitude is one of some relief then go Regcleaner.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Microsoft provides a cleaner - not supported - but free. search for
regcleaner.

That's no longer true, and hasn't been for several years, now.

RegClean was designed for Win9x operating systems, and didn't work
particularly well on them. It's been discontinued and unsupported for
years, now. I certainly wouldn't advise trying to use it on a modern
OS. Or are you deliberately trying to get the OP to screw up his system?


--

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

 

[Guest]

It just seems that everything I've read indicates that a cluttered registry
is the primary culprit in performance drop. Are there definitive instructions
available JUST for cleaning the registry? I wouldn't know what belongs, what
doesn't and in what sequence the entries belong. Willing to learn but so far
haven't found a good tutorial on how to clean the registry.

 

[Guest]

What started me thinking about a registry cleaner is this; About a week or so
ago, I noticed that each time I clicked a link in a mail message, it would
start AOL instead of opening an IE page like it normally does. I had AOL on
this machine but had never installed it or activated it. So I uninstalled the
AOL program hoping to solve the problem. Then I started getting the following
error message at startup: ZHOTKEY HAS ENCOUNTERED A PROBLEM AND NEEDS TO
CLOSE. Now, the links in email messages are dead. They won't do anything at
all. They won't open a new window - nothing. Someone said zhotkey is a
registry key, so I thought a registry repair / cleaner might be the solution.
I don't notice any other symptoms and if I use Yahoo mail, the links in
messages work fine.

 

[DL]

You've been reading the wrong things, MS has stated that 'cleaning' the reg
of unused keys has no impact on performance.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

It just seems that everything I've read indicates that a cluttered registry
is the primary culprit in performance drop.

Really? I've worked in the IT industry for several years now, and have
used, built, and supported personal computers for roughly 20 years now,
and I've *never* seen any independent laboratory findings that confirmed
the claim that "cleaning" the registry has any measurable effect upon a
computer's performance. To the best of my knowledge, the only people
who consistently claim that cleaning the registry improves performance
are those who work in the marketing departments of companies who sell
registry cleaners. Some other, gullible computers sometimes also make
the same claim, but only until they hose their own systems.



--

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]

What started me thinking about a registry cleaner is this; About a week or so
ago, I noticed that each time I clicked a link in a mail message, it would
start AOL instead of opening an IE page like it normally does. I had AOL on
this machine but had never installed it or activated it. So I uninstalled the
AOL program hoping to solve the problem. Then I started getting the following
error message at startup: ZHOTKEY HAS ENCOUNTERED A PROBLEM AND NEEDS TO
CLOSE. Now, the links in email messages are dead. They won't do anything at
all. They won't open a new window - nothing. Someone said zhotkey is a
registry key, so I thought a registry repair / cleaner might be the solution.
I don't notice any other symptoms and if I use Yahoo mail, the links in
messages work fine.

What do you mean by "I had AOL on this machine but had never installed
it?" The sentence is completely self-contradictory. Either AOL was
installed, or it wasn't. Judging by the symptoms exhibited after your
attempted removal of AOL, I'm inclined to think that it was installed,
even if you didn't use it and don't have an AOL account.

Sadly, the only practical way I've ever found to completely remove
AOL from an operating system is to format the hard drive and perform a
clean installation. I absolutely loathe having to resort to a hard
drive format to fix what should be a relatively minor issue, but it
takes a lot less time than manually removing/replacing all of the
Windows system files that AOL replaces with their own proprietary
versions and the hundreds of unnecessary registry entries.


--

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

 

[pcbutts1]

RegScrubXP
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2048
YMWV

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[Guest]

You can have a program on your machine that's not installed can't you? If you
download a program file, it's a .exe until you run the file, right? At that
point it's an installed file. That's what I'm saying.

 

[Guest]

"Hundreds of unnecessary registry entries"? And that's just from uninstalling
AOL? Sure sounds like registry clutter. But it won't affect performance?

 

[Jim]

You can have a program on your machine that's not installed can't you? Most can, but some cannot.
If you
download a program file, it's a .exe until you run the file, right? At
that
point it's an installed file. That's what I'm saying.

No, there is far more to installing a program than merely running it.
Jim

 

[Pentium]

ANYTIME I buy a new system (Usually OEM), or set up someone's new computer,
the first thing I do is goto CONTROL PANEL>ADD or REMOVE PROGRAMS and just
get rid of the added junk like the TRIAL versions of stuff (Like Norton and
related Symantic), AOL is always SOL with me ... anything that's marketing
cr@p . Then I install the security and cleaners I've come to trust and
know, so none of these ghosts re-appear to haunt me down the road. (You'd
be surprised how many people THINK they have virus protection because the
salesman who sold them the computer says it has NORTON ... what they fail to
tell the buyer .. "it's try before you buy" then they live with the pop up
telling them their trial version is done.

 

[bumtracks]

I second that ,,, I've stumbled into MS xp support files mentioning things
at least twice... user ran ms reglean and it removed a necessary file
association. Nother thing too.

RegSeeker cleans mildly and offers some quite decent other features even if
you're not hip on registry items.
..

 

[DL]

no

"Hundreds of unnecessary registry entries"? And that's just from uninstalling
AOL? Sure sounds like registry clutter. But it won't affect performance?