Registry Cleaners. A question ..

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lou
  • Start date Start date
beamish said:
Hello, Subject not new, but deserves repeating.
1. Use JV16PowerTools (free version).
2. Use RegSeeker v1.45 (free vesion).
3. Have GoBack3 installed.
4. Have True Image backup on second drive. Updated weekly.
5. Have True Image clone on external drive. Thank You "Anna". Updated
weekly.
6. Have erunt, do not use as GoBack3 is easier for me to use.
O.S. WindowsXP Home SP2, all security updates.
Use these utilities for the last 2 years, without known problems.
Install and remove programs weekly, some are small some are in the GB
range. I agree with most of the replies including, Crystal, Hoppy and
Jim Byrd's I found useful. Thank You.
If your unit is not critical in terms of need and you use some kind of
backup, then why not. Learning comes in all shades, positive and
negitive. Take Care.
beamish.

I have seen all of those programs except True Image and Erunt cause problems
that necessitated either a clean install or a full restore of a backup.
GoBack in particular causes major problems if it goes bad.

Kerry
 
Keep in mind that reviewers depend on advertising streams to
pay the bills. Especially reviewers in magazines. They are loathe
to say anything negative that would hurt their magazine's ad
revenue stream. They'll say something such as "Performance
needs streamlining" when they really want to say "This is a
serious piece of crap!"

And some reviewers don't bother to test all the products
they review. Some write their reviews based on the
vendor's literature. Would you want to muck up your
test systems with 75 new products a week? Recovery
must be a bear in such test environments.

I'd be much more impressed if five MVPs specializing
in the product's arena were give the test product a "Five
thumbs up!" award.

I license Registry Mechanic but after reading all the
comments in this forum about registry cleaners over
the past 6-8 months, I retired the product and won't
renew it. My system runs nice and clean without
Registry Mechanic. I'm much more a fan of Registry
Mechanic's sister product, Spyware Doctor. It's
terrific.
 
Kerry Brown said:
I have seen all of those programs except True Image and Erunt cause
problems that necessitated either a clean install or a full restore of a
backup. GoBack in particular causes major problems if it goes bad.

Kerry

WINXP causes a fair bit of trouble if it goes 'bad' too!
 
Uncle Joe wrote:

I license Registry Mechanic but after reading all the
comments in this forum about registry cleaners over
the past 6-8 months, I retired the product and won't
renew it. My system runs nice and clean without
Registry Mechanic. I'm much more a fan of Registry
Mechanic's sister product, Spyware Doctor. It's
terrific.

I've never used Registry Mechanic but if it has a manual mode it may be
worth keeping. It's when programs are set to automatic that problems happen.
Occasionally after uninstalling programs like some Norton products or some
firewalls, basically anything that really hooks itself deep into the OS, I
run a registry checker to find anything left behind. Also as others have
said they can sometimes find and remove troublesome malware keys. They can
be very powerful tools. They should be used with caution. They should not be
used as a regular maintenance tool.

Kerry
 
No, Kerry, Registry Mechanic doesn't offer a
manual mode. The only thing I really like about
it that it offers an option to perform a System
Restore before scanning or compressing the
Registry. That, however, no longer matters
since I quit using the application. I am not
technically competent to perform analyses
on my registry, and only work with the
Registry when I have specific "how-to-do-it"
instructions. I used to delve deeply into the
Macintosh internals but stopped when I
switch to PCs in 1995.
 
Joe

If ever I see Registry Mechanic or anything like it on a prospective
customer machine, I always recommend that it is removed..
 
Joe - Just to follow up on Mike's comment - This is the second question I
ask clients, "Do you have a Registry Cleaner installed and when was the last
time you remember using it?" (The first question I ask is whether they have
ANY non-commercial Symantec/Norton software installed or have recently tried
to remove same.)
 
Okay, you guys have convinced me. Since I don't use
Registry Mechanic anymore, I'll remove it tonight.

I don't have any non-commercial Norton products, but
do run the full Norton Internet Security 2005 suite. Have
been giving thought to dumping it favor of Zone Alarm's
suite, but from what I've read in this forum, removing Norton
Internet Security 2005 is not for the faint of heart. Even
if I succeed in removing it, it supposedly leaves tons of
"trash" behind. Rather than to cope with that, I just let it
run. When I switch to Vista in 2007, I'll drop Norton at
that time. (Grin.)
 
Well Joe, JIC you do decide to 'brave' it, some data/approaches :) :


Norton NIS or Firewall Uninstall - do everything but the reinstall stuff.
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nip.nsf/docid/2001090510510636


Take a look here for the AV removal tool:
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/2001092114452606
(Click on the little + signs to read the detailed instructions) For manual
removal, it may also depend on your OS. See at the end of this document for
appropriate links.

You may want to try their removal tool in compatibilty mode before trying
the manual uninstall, above. See here:
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPOR...567ac0063608c&dtype=&prod=&ver=&osv=&osv_lvl=

or http://tinyurl.com/yuevl


NAV 2000 - 2002 Removal Tools

How to uninstall Norton AntiVirus 2000 manually when installed under Windows
NT/2000.
<http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/1999092715593506>
How to uninstall Norton AntiVirus 2000 manually when installed under Windows
95/98/ME.
<http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/1999082311591106>
How to uninstall Norton AntiVirus 2001 manually when installed under Windows
NT/2000.
<http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/2000091010030806>
How to uninstall Norton AntiVirus 2001 manually when installed under Windows
95/98/ME.
<http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/2000092310202906>
How to uninstall Norton AntiVirus 2001PRO manually when installed under
Windows 95/98/ME.
<http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/2001022711000006>
How to uninstall Norton AntiVirus 2001PRO manually when installed under
Windows NT/2000.
<http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/2001022714402906>
How to uninstall Norton AntiVirus 2002 manually when installed under Windows
NT/2000/XP.
<http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/2001083014161306>
How to uninstall Norton AntiVirus 2002 manually when installed under Windows
98/ME. <http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/2001081507511406>
How to uninstall Norton AntiVirus 2002PRO manually when installed under
Windows 98/ME.
<http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/2002020113223106>
How to uninstall Norton AntiVirus 2002PRO manually when installed under
Windows NT/2000/XP.
<http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nav.nsf/docid/2002020114021906>


From: http://www.supportcave.com/Windows-Norton-Removal-Tools.html

Brand NEW Norton Removal Tool
SymNRT http://www.supportcave.com/files/symnrt.exe is a program that can
remove some Norton software from your computer. SymNRT runs on Windows 98,
Windows Me, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.
SymNRT should be used only if you have tried to uninstall the Norton program
using Windows Add/Remove Programs and that did not work.
SymNRT will remove these--and only these--Norton programs:
· Norton AntiVirus 2004/2005
· Norton AntiVirus Professional 2004
· Norton AntiVirus 3, 5 and 10 User Pack 2004/2005
· Norton SystemWorks 2004/2004 Professional Edition
· Norton SystemWorks 2005/2005 Premier edition
· Norton Password Manager 2004
· Norton Internet Security 2004/2005
· Norton Internet Security 5 and 10 User Pack 2004/2005
· Norton Personal Firewall 2004/2005
· Norton AntiSpam 2004/2005
· Ghost 2003 or Ghost Version 9.0



NAV2004 Removal Tools

Removes Norton Anti virus Any Version
http://www.supportcave.com/files/Rnav.exe
Removes Norton Anti virus Any Version Windows XP/2000 only
http://www.supportcave.com/files/NAV2004 registry removal.reg
Removes Norton Anti virus Any Version Windows 98/ME only
http://www.supportcave.com/files/NAV2004 registry removal 9x.reg
Remove Norton Internet Security Any Version
http://www.supportcave.com/files/RnisUPG.exe
Remove Norton Internet Security Any Version Windows XP/2000 only
http://www.supportcave.com/files/NIS2004 registry removal xp v6.reg
Remove Norton Internet Security Any Version Windows 98/ME only
http://www.supportcave.com/files/NIS 2004 registry removal 98 v1.reg
Removes Norton System Works Any Version
http://www.supportcave.com/files/SYMCLN.exe
Removes Norton System Works Any Version Windows XP/2000 only
http://www.supportcave.com/files/nsw2004registryremoval.reg
Removes Norton System Works Any Version 98/ME only
http://www.supportcave.com/files/NSW2004pro 98.reg
 
Most registry cleaners work OK most of the time, and problems *are* rare.

Make that V E R Y R A R E.

That said, such cleaners are pretty useless given today's hi-speed
computers with all their disk space, all their memory, etc.

Only the most anal of users continue to use them (and I are one <g>)
 
Jim

Thanks for all the fantastic links. I got brain freeze from
examining all the potential steps and pitfalls involved. Wish I
had visited this newsgroup and read its many Norton comments
before installing Norton Internet Suite 2005. Oh well, live
and learn, right?

Uncle Joe
 
Lou said:
I hear all sorts of horrendous stories about the actions and potential
dangers of registry cleaners. I use Registry Mechanic and have found
it to be effective and reliable. I am told that it could create mayhem
on my HD.

Anyone any experience with this and other reg cleaners?

Lou.

I use regcleaners to locate and eliminate malware entries that are
designed to hide themselves from other methods (RegCleaner often finds
entries that HijackThis can't, for example), I also use them to help
clear out leftover crap from software un-installations prior to
re-installing the software in question if said software re-installation
has proven problematic without doing so, but then I know what I'm doing.
Sure, I could use regedot and manually find such entries, but some 3rd
party registry tools are a lot faster at locating and categorizing
software entries.

As with all powerfull system utilities, if you don't know what you're
doing then leave well enough alone, if you've got a real problem with a
system and don't know how to deal with it then seek qualified
assistance. IF you're confident that you know what you're doing, go for
it. I do NOT recommend using automatic registry cleaners for novices,
unless of course for the sake of learning, they are prepared to possibly
re-install and have verified backups.

Steve N.
 
Back
Top