Registry Cleaners?

[Bruce Chambers]

I've tended to agree with the assertions you and other have made and while I
have the experience to go into the registry I have no idea how to be
thorough doing the cleaning manually.

But there's no need to do a "thorough" cleaning. All one need do is
find and delete the individual specific entries that are causing the
specific problem one is experiencing.

Perhaps if we had some sort of
"scanning" tool as you implied. A tool that would scan and report keys in
respective hives as a group. Eh?

I use NirSoft;s RegScanner, on those few occasions when Regedit's
native search capabilities don't quite cut it.
(http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/regscanner.html)

The Filing Cabinet blog item [1] that has been suggested is promising for
VIsta users. I just got Vista for another machine within the past two weeks
so I'm learning all I can at the moment.

Why I want to do so on XP? Because the machine doesn't "run" it "crawls" and
I've been trying to do this and that to tune it up.

The registry and the cleaning thereof will have no humanly measurable
effect on the performance of the computer. Cleaning out unused files
from the hard drive, and removing unnecessary programs/processing from
the start up process will.


--

Bruce Chambers

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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

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

 

[DarkSentinel]

I strongly suggest you avoid using any registry cleaning program.
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.

Yeah, what he said. You may get away with using them once or twice, but
eventually using one will come back and bite you in the ass. Even under XP.
Do NOT mess with the registry unless you have no other alternative.

 

[DarkSentinel]

Ken:

It appears Microsoft marketing would disagree with you. At the live.com
website, one of the benefits of OneCare is the Registry Cleaner. And in
the
interest of full disclosure, I partially agree with you.

I don't know about Ken, but I've had to fix too many clients that have used
one of those products.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Yeah, what he said. You may get away with using them once or twice, but
eventually using one will come back and bite you in the ass. Even under XP.
Do NOT mess with the registry unless you have no other alternative.

If you know what you're doing, messing (figuratively) with the
registry manually is fine. It's the automated messing (and I mean that
word literally this time) that a registry cleaner does that's the
problem.

 

[Mark R. Cusumano]

No need for the hate... Just offering an opinion and (IMHO) an amusing
observation.

I can only say that every time I have run the OneCare registry cleaner I
have needed to use System Restore to undo the damage it does. Nothing
seems to work right after it cleans.

 

[CB]

All of the registry cleaner & manager reviews online appear to be from
2003-2004.
Anybody have any advice or recommendations how to avoid Windows Rot when
using Vista?

clintonG,

I would advise staying away from any and all Registry cleaners, unless
they give you a choice of what to delete and you know what you are deleting.
They cause more problems than they solve. However, they are very useful if
you realize what they are telling you and they give you control over the
process.
Anyway, leftover streams will not harm your registry or cause problems
with your machine if they are not associated with an application.
Have a nice day.

C.B.

 

[DarkSentinel]

If you know what you're doing, messing (figuratively) with the
registry manually is fine. It's the automated messing (and I mean that
word literally this time) that a registry cleaner does that's the
problem.

I know what I am doing, and I still don't like messing with it.