S
Sammy Castagna
Some say thet are good and some say they are bad.
Sorry.
Sammy Castagna
Sorry.
Sammy Castagna
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A
Alan
Hi Sammy,
When you wrote: "some say they are bad and some say they are bad" in your
original post -- even though you didn't mean to write it that way -- it
pretty much sums up the situation.
Most people who frequent these newsgroups -- as well as most techs -- feel
that nowadays registry cleaners have the capability of doing lots of harm to
a PC and confer virtually no benefits.
Alan
When you wrote: "some say they are bad and some say they are bad" in your
original post -- even though you didn't mean to write it that way -- it
pretty much sums up the situation.
Most people who frequent these newsgroups -- as well as most techs -- feel
that nowadays registry cleaners have the capability of doing lots of harm to
a PC and confer virtually no benefits.
Alan
R
Ron Badour
The other posters have told you that registry cleaners should be
avoided--here's two specific reasons why:
MS made a registry cleaner during the W95/98 time frame and they could not
get it to work so that it was not destructive. After a couple of years,
they quietly gave up and removed it from their web site. If their
programmers (who just happen to know the registry inside out) could not make
a safe program, why should you believe that others can? MS has
demonstrated over the years that if there is a computer process worth
having, they either try to buy it or build their own version.
Even an undo feature will not save you in all instances. Let's say that you
perform maintenance weekly and your cleaner removes something important.
However, whatever is removed is not a function (or it does not belong to a
program) that you use frequently. The next week you run your cleaner, still
no hint of a problem. The third week you run your cleaner and shortly
thereafter you try the function that you seldom use and it doesn't work.
Most people will not even think that the problem was caused by the cleaner
but let's say you do and you use the undo feature. But guess what, it won't
fix the problem because the problem was created during the cleaning that was
done two weeks prior. I doubt anyone is going to go through every undo file
just to see if it fixes the problem.
The only time I recommend that a regcleaner be used is when the only
alternative is to format the drive and reinstall the operating
system/programs. At this point you have nothing to lose and on the off
chance that it actually fixes the problem, you have something to show for
the money you invested in a snake oil product.
--
Regards
Ron Badour
MS MVP
Windows Desktop Experience
avoided--here's two specific reasons why:
MS made a registry cleaner during the W95/98 time frame and they could not
get it to work so that it was not destructive. After a couple of years,
they quietly gave up and removed it from their web site. If their
programmers (who just happen to know the registry inside out) could not make
a safe program, why should you believe that others can? MS has
demonstrated over the years that if there is a computer process worth
having, they either try to buy it or build their own version.
Even an undo feature will not save you in all instances. Let's say that you
perform maintenance weekly and your cleaner removes something important.
However, whatever is removed is not a function (or it does not belong to a
program) that you use frequently. The next week you run your cleaner, still
no hint of a problem. The third week you run your cleaner and shortly
thereafter you try the function that you seldom use and it doesn't work.
Most people will not even think that the problem was caused by the cleaner
but let's say you do and you use the undo feature. But guess what, it won't
fix the problem because the problem was created during the cleaning that was
done two weeks prior. I doubt anyone is going to go through every undo file
just to see if it fixes the problem.
The only time I recommend that a regcleaner be used is when the only
alternative is to format the drive and reinstall the operating
system/programs. At this point you have nothing to lose and on the off
chance that it actually fixes the problem, you have something to show for
the money you invested in a snake oil product.
--
Regards
Ron Badour
MS MVP
Windows Desktop Experience
T
Twayne
The other posters have told you that registry cleaners should be
I went from 3 to 3.1 to WFWG to 95 to 98. Still have a machine running
98 in fact, with all the fixes; it's as or more stable than XP. But I
don't ever recall a 95/98 MS product do as you indicate. Can you kindly
cite a source for it?
Well ... I know people that have restored every undo; one of them is my
sister. Especially when the restores are properly named, it's not a lot
of thought to do so.
OTOH in my own case if it appears to take more than a few hours of
fumbling and I need the machine, I just re-image the drive.
Also, the scenario you envision is about as likely to happen as is
file/data corruption IMO so I don't see it as very relevant. I've used
such software since pre-Norton days and never once had any issue with it
damaging so much as a timestamp let alone anything else.
Well, that's your perogative to reinstall and rebuild but if in the
beginning you had a program that would have taken care of hte problem,
you've likely wasted a lot of time and effort.
There ARE bad "registry" maintenance programs, just like there are
any other kind of software you may find free or for purchase or under
any license of any type. Rogue Registry maintenance programs are no
more likely to screw up your machine than any other Rogue Application.
Besides the reality that cleaning a registry isn't necessary most of
the time, there are definitely times when it is called for and will
solve a lot of problems. I did so just a few weeks ago in fact, on the
Dell dual-Zeon sitting behind me here. An Avira update went astray and
I couldn't figure out where the calls for a particular program were
coming from and why backup was throwing some pretty strange error
messages about what should have been innocuous files. Uninstalling Avira
made no difference to it. So: After eliminating all the other possible
places where those calls could have come from, I was left with only the
registry as a likely suspect. Crapcleaner found someting but was unable
to fix it. So out comes my handy dandy paid-for trusty registry
maintenance application. About two minutes and a few keyclicks later
all was fine and everything was back to normal.
Avira looked good to me at the time; it's no longer on any of my
machines.
I'd say that trumps your vague comments about "snake oil" above here.
Oh, and since you like the phrase "snake oil" I can only assume
you're a parrot or someone has an arm up your butt; it shows.
Twayne
avoided--here's two specific reasons why:
MS made a registry cleaner during the W95/98 time frame and they
could not get it to work so that it was not destructive. After a
couple of years, they quietly gave up and removed it from their web
site. If their programmers (who just happen to know the registry
inside out) could not make a safe program, why should you believe
that others can? MS has demonstrated over the years that if there is
a computer process worth having, they either try to buy it or build
their own version.
I went from 3 to 3.1 to WFWG to 95 to 98. Still have a machine running
98 in fact, with all the fixes; it's as or more stable than XP. But I
don't ever recall a 95/98 MS product do as you indicate. Can you kindly
cite a source for it?
Even an undo feature will not save you in all instances. Let's say
that you perform maintenance weekly and your cleaner removes
something important. However, whatever is removed is not a function
(or it does not belong to a program) that you use frequently. The
next week you run your cleaner, still no hint of a problem. The
third week you run your cleaner and shortly thereafter you try the
function that you seldom use and it doesn't work. Most people will
not even think that the problem was caused by the cleaner but let's
say you do and you use the undo feature. But guess what, it won't
fix the problem because the problem was created during the cleaning
that was done two weeks prior. I doubt anyone is going to go through
every undo file just to see if it fixes the problem.
Well ... I know people that have restored every undo; one of them is my
sister. Especially when the restores are properly named, it's not a lot
of thought to do so.
OTOH in my own case if it appears to take more than a few hours of
fumbling and I need the machine, I just re-image the drive.
Also, the scenario you envision is about as likely to happen as is
file/data corruption IMO so I don't see it as very relevant. I've used
such software since pre-Norton days and never once had any issue with it
damaging so much as a timestamp let alone anything else.
The only time I recommend that a regcleaner be used is when the only
alternative is to format the drive and reinstall the operating
system/programs. At this point you have nothing to lose and on the
off chance that it actually fixes the problem, you have something to
show for the money you invested in a snake oil product.
Well, that's your perogative to reinstall and rebuild but if in the
beginning you had a program that would have taken care of hte problem,
you've likely wasted a lot of time and effort.
There ARE bad "registry" maintenance programs, just like there are
any other kind of software you may find free or for purchase or under
any license of any type. Rogue Registry maintenance programs are no
more likely to screw up your machine than any other Rogue Application.
Besides the reality that cleaning a registry isn't necessary most of
the time, there are definitely times when it is called for and will
solve a lot of problems. I did so just a few weeks ago in fact, on the
Dell dual-Zeon sitting behind me here. An Avira update went astray and
I couldn't figure out where the calls for a particular program were
coming from and why backup was throwing some pretty strange error
messages about what should have been innocuous files. Uninstalling Avira
made no difference to it. So: After eliminating all the other possible
places where those calls could have come from, I was left with only the
registry as a likely suspect. Crapcleaner found someting but was unable
to fix it. So out comes my handy dandy paid-for trusty registry
maintenance application. About two minutes and a few keyclicks later
all was fine and everything was back to normal.
Avira looked good to me at the time; it's no longer on any of my
machines.
I'd say that trumps your vague comments about "snake oil" above here.
Oh, and since you like the phrase "snake oil" I can only assume
you're a parrot or someone has an arm up your butt; it shows.
Twayne
F
FredW
I went from 3 to 3.1 to WFWG to 95 to 98. Still have a machine running
98 in fact, with all the fixes; it's as or more stable than XP. But I
don't ever recall a 95/98 MS product do as you indicate. Can you kindly
cite a source for it?
RegClean 4.1a and can still be downloaded here:
http://www.download.com/RegClean/3000-2094_4-10007196.html
(I used it for Win98se)
T
Twayne
I went from 3 to 3.1 to WFWG to 95 to 98. Still have a machine
running 98 in fact, with all the fixes; it's as or more stable than
XP. But I don't ever recall a 95/98 MS product do as you indicate.
Can you kindly cite a source for it?
RegClean 4.1a and can still be downloaded here:
http://www.download.com/RegClean/3000-2094_4-10007196.html
(I used it for Win98se)[/QUOTE]
Woo, shades of yesterday! Somewhere I imagine just about any code that
ever existed is still stored somewhere. I was amazed once when I was
trying to recover some of WordStar for DOS files, to find a utility at
XXCopy.com to do it! Google came through for me on that one.
V
VanguardLH
Sammy said:Some say thet are good and some say they are bad.
Sorry.
Sammy Castagna
When adding a reply to an existing discussion, add your reply WITHIN
that discussion. Do not start a *new* thread.
B
Bob I
FredW said:RegClean 4.1a and can still be downloaded here:
yes and Microsoft removed it from their downloads section precisely
because it removed entries incorrectly.
T
Twayne
FredW said:yes and Microsoft removed it from their downloads section precisely
because it removed entries incorrectly.
Oh, gee, and 95/98 didnt' have another single instance of any other kind
of problem either, did it? MS can't even get it all into the urinal,
let alone keep their socks dry when it comes to coding.
Why remove the link; afraid someone will check it out and find it
works on their old 98 machine? Certainly you didn't remove it because
you think it was spam for MS! <g>
Thanks I don't know what I'd do without these little entertaining
excursions to get my mornings started.
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