Registry Cleaner?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Phyllis
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Phyllis

What is a good registry cleaner? Naturally I would like a free one, but am
willing to pay for a good one. I respect the advice that I receive here.
Thanks
 
Phyllis said:
What is a good registry cleaner? Naturally I would like a free one,
but am willing to pay for a good one. I respect the advice that I
receive here. Thanks
Click to expand...


I always recommend against the routine use of registry cleaners. Routine
cleaning of the registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry
alone and don't use a 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.
 
This is an FAQ - it pops up about once every week. The
last one was posted 5 days ago - scan the Subject lines
for "Registry" to locate it.
 
Thank you so much. I will not pursue this.

Ken Blake said:
I always recommend against the routine use of registry cleaners. Routine
cleaning of the registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry
alone and don't use a 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.
Click to expand...
 
Phyllis said:
What is a good registry cleaner? Naturally I would like a free one, but am
willing to pay for a good one. I respect the advice that I receive here.
Thanks
Click to expand...


By "good," I assume you mean the one least likely to render your
computer completely unusable? No such products are particularly safe,
unless being used by an experienced technician.

Why would you think you need to clean your registry?

What specific problem are you experiencing that you believe 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:



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. -Bertrum Russell
 
Actually it is my son that is having trouble with a bogged down, slow
computer. He ran a "free" online registry scanner or something like that
and naturally it found 1100 hundred registry errors or unused entries. He
thought he needed a registry cleaner. Thanks for the info, I will pass it
along to him.
 
Also, what is your opinion of CCleaner?

Bruce Chambers said:
By "good," I assume you mean the one least likely to render your
computer completely unusable? No such products are particularly safe,
unless being used by an experienced technician.

Why would you think you need to clean your registry?

What specific problem are you experiencing that you believe 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:



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. -Bertrum
Russell
Click to expand...
 
Phyllis said:
Also, what is your opinion of CCleaner?
Click to expand...

CCleaner seems relatively benign, as long as you step through each
detected "issue" one at a time, to determine if it really is an "issue"
or not, and then decide whether or not to let the application "fix" it.
In my experience, most of the reported "issues" won't be issues, at
all. (CCleaner's registry "tool" is a great source of false alarms. I
tried the latest version on a brand-new OS installation with no
additional applications installed, and certainly none installed and then
uninstalled, and CCleaner still managed to "find" over a hundred
allegedly orphaned registry entries and dozens of purportedly
"suspicious" files.) CCleaner's main strength lies in its usefulness
for cleaning up unused temporary files from the hard drive.


--

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. -Bertrum Russell
 
Bruce said:
CCleaner seems relatively benign, as long as you step through each
detected "issue" one at a time, to determine if it really is an "issue"
or not, and then decide whether or not to let the application "fix" it.
In my experience, most of the reported "issues" won't be issues, at
all. (CCleaner's registry "tool" is a great source of false alarms. I
tried the latest version on a brand-new OS installation with no
additional applications installed, and certainly none installed and then
uninstalled, and CCleaner still managed to "find" over a hundred
allegedly orphaned registry entries and dozens of purportedly
"suspicious" files.) CCleaner's main strength lies in its usefulness
for cleaning up unused temporary files from the hard drive.
Click to expand...

I never use the Issues feature. I use SystemSuite5 for that. I do like
the way it will not delete cookies you want to keep from either IE or
Firefox.

Alias
 
Phyllis said:
Actually it is my son that is having trouble with a bogged down, slow
computer. He ran a "free" online registry scanner or something like that
and naturally it found 1100 hundred registry errors or unused entries. He
thought he needed a registry cleaner. Thanks for the info, I will pass it
along to him.
Click to expand...

A "bogged down" computer is rarely a symptom of a "dirty" registry.
Instead, your son should scan for, and remove, and ad-ware and spyware,
using Ad-Aware from www.lavasoft.de and SpyBot Search &
Destroy from www.safer-networking.org/. Both have free versions.
It's even possible to use SpyBot Search & Destroy to "immunize" your
system against most future intrusions. I use both and generally
perform manual scans every week or so to clean out cookies, etc.

Additionally, your son should be using an up-to-date anti-virus
application, and scanning regularly, to help ensure the absence of the
more malignant sort of malware.

If your son is using any sort of peer-to-peer (called P2P by tweens,
teenyboppers, and twenty-somethings trying to sound cool) file sharing
application, such as KaZaA, Grokster, LimeWire, E-Mule, Imesh, et al, be
advised that his computer just might be slow simply because he's sharing
his hard drive with thousands of other people via the Internet. Such
programs are also a leading source of malware.

Does you son periodically perform a disk cleanup (Start > My Computer >
right-click the C: drive icon > Properties, and select Disk Cleanup) and
a defragmentation? These two actions, taken regularly, can often
improve performance and keep it at a decent level.

How often does your son reboot the computer? Some less well written
applications can cause slow-downs by failing to properly release system
resources that they're no longer using. Over time, this can cause
problems that are easily cleared by simply rebooting the PC.


--

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. -Bertrum Russell
 
Thanks, guys for the info. I use this program all the time and I really
like it for cleaning temp internet files, cookies, etc. However, it usually
finds a couple of registry entries too.

Another question I just thought of. I recently uninstalled my Norton
Internet Security because it expired and I am using AVG now. If there are
any remaining entries in the registry that refer to Norton, would it be safe
to delete these? Just wondering. Thanks
 
Yes, my son does all of these things on a regular basis, as do I. He has an
older computer (6 yrs or so) and I guess it is just going to be slower. He
can't afford a new one right now and has been just looking for ways to maybe
speed it up a little. Thanks
 
Phyllis said:
Thanks, guys for the info. I use this program all the time and I really
like it for cleaning temp internet files, cookies, etc. However, it usually
finds a couple of registry entries too.

Another question I just thought of. I recently uninstalled my Norton
Internet Security because it expired and I am using AVG now. If there are
any remaining entries in the registry that refer to Norton, would it be safe
to delete these? Just wondering. Thanks
Click to expand...

It shouldn't hurt anything to remove them, no.

By the way, when you removed NIS, did you add a 3rd party firewall to
go along with the AVG anti-virus? A firewall is an important part of
any computer security plan.


--

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. -Bertrum Russell
 
Yes, I got Zone Alarms free version. I have been reading a rather lengthy
discussion on the microsoft.public.security.virus newsgroup about the
merits, or lack of, of Windows XP firewall. In one of the messages the
person said to leave the XP firewall on in addition to Zone Alarm to provide
boot protection. I also have read in the past from people that say never
run two different firewalls. Would it be safe to run Windows Firewall and
Zone Alarm at the same time? Thanks
 
By the way, when you removed NIS, did you add a 3rd party firewall to
go along with the AVG anti-virus? A firewall is an important part of
any computer security plan.
Click to expand...

The way prices have dropped recently it is worth considering
purchasing a router, even for a single computer, and not using a
software firewall. Especially on an older computer or one with
minimal RAM where the processing load imposed by a software firewall
would slow the machine noticeably.

The other day I saw a D-Link DL604 router on sale in a local
electronics chain for $24.95 CDN.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."
 
Phyllis said:
I have a wireless router, don't they have a firewall?
Click to expand...

Yup. Just like a wired one. Actually it is NAT (Network Address
Translation) which is technically a bit different from a firewall, but
the practical effect is the same insofar as incoming unwanted traffic
is concerned.

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."
 
I don't mean to be rude, but who is Bertrum Russell? I know of one
Bertrand Russell, no Bertrum Russell's !!

Could you also please tell me if there is a good resource for learning
how to edit the registry, somthing that explains the meaning, function,
and purpose of all these strange long identifiers (intended to be
self-explanatory I guess) starting with HKEY_

Thanks in advance.
 
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