Registry Cleaner

[BRH]

Is there a freeware or low-cost registry cleaner available for Windows XP?

A software program of mine recently crashed and stopped working.
Re-installing it hasn't helped, so I figure that it's registry settings
may have become corrupted somehow. I plan to uninstall it, then clean
out its registry settings, then re-install it and hope for the best
(unless someone has any better suggestion to deal with this.)

I used to use regclean when I was running Win98, but WinXP is never
listed as being compatible with it (just 98 and NT). Is XP comaptible
with Regclean or not?

Thanks!

 

[Guest]

Hi,

Mayb you can use the same software. Just make sure, that you "Right
Click" on the EXE, Go to "Compatibility" and under "Run this program in
compatibility mode for:", select "Windows 98".

I think that should help you.

Regards,
Hardik Shah
Microsoft Student Champ

 

[Malke]

Is there a freeware or low-cost registry cleaner available for Windows
XP?

A software program of mine recently crashed and stopped working.
Re-installing it hasn't helped, so I figure that it's registry
settings
may have become corrupted somehow. I plan to uninstall it, then clean
out its registry settings, then re-install it and hope for the best
(unless someone has any better suggestion to deal with this.)

I used to use regclean when I was running Win98, but WinXP is never
listed as being compatible with it (just 98 and NT). Is XP comaptible
with Regclean or not?

Thanks!

Do a search in Google Groups Advanced Search looking only in this
newsgroup and using the search term "registry cleaner". You'll get a
ton of posts, pro and against, with all kinds of opinions.

Malke

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Is there a freeware or low-cost registry cleaner available for
Windows XP?
A software program of mine recently crashed and stopped
working.
Re-installing it hasn't helped, so I figure that it's registry
settings may have become corrupted somehow. I plan to
uninstall it,
then clean out its registry settings, then re-install it and
hope for
the best (unless someone has any better suggestion to deal with
this.)

I used to use regclean when I was running Win98, but WinXP is
never
listed as being compatible with it (just 98 and NT). Is XP
comaptible
with Regclean or not?

In my view, registry cleaners (regardless of their cost) are more
likely to create problems than solve them. I recommend against
using any of them.

 

[Jim Byrd]

Hi BRH - Below is my 'standard' response about using Registry Cleaners.
Your case is one of the few for which they may be useful. Please note my
comments about Erunt/Erdnt and about Registrar Lite.


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, http://www.martau.com/tu.html or direct dwnld
here: http://www.simtel.net/product.download.mirrors.php?id=61416, 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 .)

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://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/index.htm 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://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/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.

--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In

 

[JTS]

Ive yet to see an issue resolved in xp with a registry cleaner, I've
yet to see a registry cleaner speed this operating system at all once
yhey've accomplished their work

You must be using the wrong ones.