Registry Cleaners

[lafill]

Has any one had experience with registry cleaners? I'm thinking of
buying "Registry Mechanic" and I wonder if it is a worthwhile purchase.
Thanks.

 

[S.Sengupta]

It's always safe to avoid so called 'registry cleaners'.Infact the
registry doesn't need any maintenance.


regards,
ssg MS-MVP

 

[Rock]

Has any one had experience with registry cleaners? I'm thinking of
buying "Registry Mechanic" and I wonder if it is a worthwhile purchase.
Thanks.

Stay away from them - waste of your money for the most part.

 

[Edward W. Thompson]

Has any one had experience with registry cleaners? I'm thinking of
buying "Registry Mechanic" and I wonder if it is a worthwhile purchase.
Thanks.

Registry Mechanic is as good as any and better than some of this type of
software. I have used it for several years over different version of
Windows and it has never caused me a problem. I acknowledge the validity of
those that claim WINXP is a different 'beast' to previous versions of
Windows and doesn't need 'junk' entries removed to remain efficient but
having a machine clear of redundant stuff suits me. I suppose it is a
little like having your home full of junk; doesn't stop you living there and
likely does no harm but most but not all would prefer to throw junk out.

 

[Jim Byrd]

Hi Lafill - This question comes up all the time. Here's my standard
response:

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.geocities.com/ggmartau/tu.html or
direct dwnld here: http://files.webattack.com/localdl834/tun234.zip, in the
first place.)

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

 

[Edward W. Thompson]

Hi Lafill - This question comes up all the time. Here's my standard
response:

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.geocities.com/ggmartau/tu.html or
direct dwnld here: http://files.webattack.com/localdl834/tun234.zip, in
the
first place.)

snip

I really have to question your statement that Registry Cleaners are 'fraught
with danger'. It is possible, perhaps likely, that some badly written
'cleaners' are fraught with danger but the thread was specifically about
Registry Mechanic. As I said I have used Registry Mechanic for several
years, at least ten I would say, possibly more, and have never experienced a
problem with it. In that respect I would venture to say that this software
does not damage the OS (Windows) or it would have damaged mine in that time.
It is possible, I suppose, that it could remove an essential entry of a
third party program but I have yet to hear of anyone complaining that it
does. Perhaps you could be specific with respect to what danger Registry
Mechanic poses.

Generalities are really meaningless. Please advise what specifically is the
danger that Registry Mechanic poses and why if damage is caused to the OS or
to a third party program the damage it cannot be rectified by restoring the
Registry using the 'restore' utility incorporated with System Mechanic.

I certainly would not dispute your words of caution with respect to ensuring
there is a useable Registry backup if any editing of the Registry is
attempted whether or not a Registry Cleaner is used. While I fully agree
with your comments re ERUNT, as most drives are formatted NTFS, ERUNT is
useless if the Registry is damaged to the extent that WINXP does not boot.
Unless you have a utility to allow you to write to an NTFS drive from DOS,
ERUNT will not help. There is only utility I know that permits writing to
an NTFS drive from DOS and it is not freeware.

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

I really have to question your statement that Registry Cleaners are
'fraught with danger'.

All of them are 'fraught with danger'. You may want to run a simple
test. If you have a program that allows to determine the name and the
path of a particular file (eg. logfile), all of these shady "Registry
Cleaners" will remove this registry entry (because "orphaned") unless
this file has been created. In case that this program attempts to write
to this file after cleaning the registry, it will either crash or fail
at least due to the missing location. And this is just a rather artless
example.

As I said I have used Registry Mechanic for several years, at least
ten I would say, possibly more, and have never experienced a problem
with it.

To be more specific, you didn't notice that problems have been caused by
that Cleaner. Note that you can only recommend a particular Registry
Cleaner when testing with *all* available Software (incl. Office 2K3)
installed. I doubt that this was the case even during ten years.

Generalities are really meaningless.

Not in this case. The risk (Probability x Consequences to cripple the
registry) is extremely high compared to the immeasurable gain of system
performance.

 

[Jim Byrd]

Hi Edward - As I said, this issue comes up quite frequently. I don't argue
about it anymore - it's kinda like religion and politics. If your
experience with a particular Registry Cleaner has been so far uneventful,
then "Well Done!". Since it costs and the trial version is very limited, I
haven't checked out Registry Mechanic; however, on Dec 12 I did comment in a
different forum about this specific issue with regard to Registry Seeker,
another Registry Cleaner which was being touted as being perfectly safe, in
part as follows:

"After reading your post, I installed RegSeeker just to see how good it
might
be and did a scan with it. It found 817 items - both red and green - on my
fairly large Win2kProSP4/IE6SP1 fully updated test system. After finding
five erroneous deletes in just the first 15 or so greens that I looked at,
I quit bothering.

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. (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 the
CoolWebSearch 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 .)

Good luck to you, though!"


This kind of thing is fairly typical of available Registry Cleaners in my
experience, but YMMV. Good luck to you, also!



As to Erunt/Erdnt - There is a method of partially restoring from the
Recovery Console opened from your installation CD (if you've made previous
provision for this) so as to get back to being bootable that doesn't require
DOS w/NTFS drivers (although otherwise your comments are correct). See the
Readme on the site.


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



In

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Has any one had experience with registry cleaners? I'm thinking of
buying "Registry Mechanic" and I wonder if it is a worthwhile purchase.
Thanks.

Having seen the results of inexperienced people using automated
registry "cleaners," I can only advise to you to avoid them all.

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 it claims to be.

I always use Regedit.exe, and strongly recommend the others learn
to do so. I trust my own experience and judgment far more than I would
any automated registry cleaner.

--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH

 

[lafill]

Having seen the results of inexperienced people using automated
registry "cleaners," I can only advise to you to avoid them all.

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 it claims to be.

I always use Regedit.exe, and strongly recommend the others learn
to do so. I trust my own experience and judgment far more than I would
any automated registry cleaner.

I'm coming to that conclusion. I'll leave well enough alone.

Thanks.

 

[Edward W. Thompson]

Having seen the results of inexperienced people using automated
registry "cleaners," I can only advise to you to avoid them all.

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 it claims to be.

I always use Regedit.exe, and strongly recommend the others learn to
do so. I trust my own experience and judgment far more than I would any
automated registry cleaner.

I suppose you can use that line of reasoning to apply to virtually anything.
As an example you could equally well say: "Having seen the results of
inexperienced people upgrading to WINXP SP2 I can only advise not to do it."
Your and other MVP criticism of the danger and inadvisability of using
Registry Cleaners seems very non-specific and based wholly on hearsay.
I am sure problems may be caused by the use of Registry Cleaners just as
problems occur in the installation
and use of virtually any software, that does not mean the software is
necessarily at fault or potentially dangerous to use.
My comments should not be taken to mean I think Registry Cleaners are
required for WINXP only that problems caused by their use are being
grossly overstated..

If you can point to a problem with say 'System Mechanic' , the subject of
the thread,
that causes a problem with the OS or other program, I and likely others,
will be very interested to hear it.

 

[Larry(LJL269)]

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 18:39:44 -0700, Bruce Chambers

|The only thing needed to safely clean your registry is knowledge
|and Regedit.exe

I would add time & motivation to both learn & apply
them. So of 4 things needed I have a measly 1 => I
leave it alone.

Any advise is my attempt to contribute more than I have received but I can only assure you that it works on my PC. GOOD LUCK.

 

[Edward W. Thompson]

All of them are 'fraught with danger'. You may want to run a simple
test. If you have a program that allows to determine the name and the
path of a particular file (eg. logfile), all of these shady "Registry
Cleaners" will remove this registry entry (because "orphaned") unless
this file has been created. In case that this program attempts to write
to this file after cleaning the registry, it will either crash or fail
at least due to the missing location. And this is just a rather artless
example.

I hardly think the deletion of registry entries to 'log' files , to
justify the expression 'fraught with danger'. The removal of registry
entries of log files certainly does not cause a crash or a discernable
problem on any machine I run.

To be more specific, you didn't notice that problems have been caused by
that Cleaner. Note that you can only recommend a particular Registry
Cleaner when testing with *all* available Software (incl. Office 2K3)
installed. I doubt that this was the case even during ten years.

If I haven't 'noticed' a problem, then I think it fair to say a
problem doesn't exist. There is a large number of entries in the
registry that serves no purpose and the removal of such entries is
the purposes of the program.

Of course I haven't used a registry cleaner with all available
programs but I do run most 'main stream' programs including Office
2K3, all without problems.

It is my understanding that registry cleaners, as a class, are
programmed not to allow the removal of registry entries that are
essential to the health of the OS. If my understanding is correct, it
is hard to see what irrepairable damage to the OS that can be caused
by these programs.

Not in this case. The risk (Probability x Consequences to cripple the
registry) is extremely high compared to the immeasurable gain of system
performance.

I very much doubt whether you have any specific data to justify your
statement 'fraught with danger'. From recent postings this expression
could be more properly applied to the recent WINXP SP2 upgrade but
would be equally unjustified. I suspect the potential of damage to
Registry by users is very much higher when editiing using Regedit than
by the use of a registry cleaner

I do not claim that registry cleaners improve system performance and
anyone using one of these programs with that in mind is likely to be
disappointed although many seem to claim performance is enhanced (a
placebo effect I suspect)..

I do not intend by my response to open some acrimonious debate on the
issue but simply to require the registry cleaner naysayers to justify
what I consider to be careless comments wrt to their danger.
Unfortunately unjustified statements seem to be the norm rather than
the exceptions in NGs.

 

[Larry(LJL269)]

On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 19:41:27 -0800, lafill

|Has any one had experience with registry cleaners? I'm thinking of
|buying "Registry Mechanic" and I wonder if it is a worthwhile purchase.
|Thanks.
This thread is like mushrooms- they just keep
popping up based in BS. AT least 8x since 12/7.
& they have UFO flavor of assuming u have to prove
a negative: they do NOT exist or do NO good.
But in science U have to prove ur hypothesis NOT
assume it's true unless others prove U wrong. I tested
& reviewed ~6 of these & cant recall 1 making any
quantitative claims. I think it is foolish to do
something that involves risk with benefits not
quantified. Faster, better or smaller aint good enuf.

I posted here 3x the benefits I got- they were either
negligable or not noticable.

I asked TS about some of entries that had multiple
fixes & even they couldnt tell- like rundll with
lots quotes.

Also I noticed that most of 'bad' entries return in 2-3
days. May not be same 1's but similar.

Try running 2 different cleaners back to back, permute
the order, & then query TS about entries missed by 1st
1 run. Talk about BS !!

Waste of time.
DOA
RIP

Just my 2¢ worth- Larry

Any advise is my attempt to contribute more than I have received but I can only assure you that it works on my PC. GOOD LUCK.

 

[dev]

On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 19:41:27 -0800, lafill

|Has any one had experience with registry cleaners? I'm thinking of
|buying "Registry Mechanic" and I wonder if it is a worthwhile purchase.
|Thanks.
This thread is like mushrooms- they just keep
popping up based in BS. AT least 8x since 12/7.
& they have UFO flavor of assuming u have to prove
a negative: they do NOT exist or do NO good.
But in science U have to prove ur hypothesis NOT
assume it's true unless others prove U wrong. I tested
& reviewed ~6 of these & cant recall 1 making any
quantitative claims. I think it is foolish to do
something that involves risk with benefits not
quantified. Faster, better or smaller aint good enuf.

I posted here 3x the benefits I got- they were either
negligable or not noticable.

I asked TS about some of entries that had multiple
fixes & even they couldnt tell- like rundll with
lots quotes.

Also I noticed that most of 'bad' entries return in 2-3
days. May not be same 1's but similar.

Try running 2 different cleaners back to back, permute
the order, & then query TS about entries missed by 1st
1 run. Talk about BS !!

Waste of time.
DOA
RIP

Just my 2¢ worth- Larry

Any advise is my attempt to contribute more than I have received but I can
only assure you that it works on my PC. GOOD LUCK.

Interesting debate, I'm a poweruser and need my system in tip top condition,
I think I will use the logic of if there is no discernable benefit then why
take the risk? So I won't be using registry cleaners in the future.

 

[dev]

/Dev/ said:

Well I am not using them in future after reading what has been posted here.
I have deleted JV16 and Tonyarts, and we have previously used registry
mechanic. I am a power user and I need to keep my PC in tip top working
condition at all times and can't afford to take chances with using programs
that potentially can damage or cause problems even if the emphasis is on
"potential".

TonyArts EZ-Cleaners and some others incorporate an UNDO function - a must
have IMO if using these utils.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I suppose you can use that line of reasoning to apply to virtually anything.
As an example you could equally well say: "Having seen the results of
inexperienced people upgrading to WINXP SP2 I can only advise not to do it."

On the contrary, I've never personally encountered an installation of
SP2 that caused any problems on a well-maintained and properly prepared
machine.

Your and other MVP criticism of the danger and inadvisability of using
Registry Cleaners seems very non-specific and based wholly on hearsay.

No, it's _not_ hearsay. Have you never heard of first-hand personal
observation and experience? I build, configure and repair computers for
a living. I've *seen* and had to repair the damage done by automated
registry cleaners.





--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH

 

[Dev]

On the contrary, I've never personally encountered an installation of SP2
that caused any problems on a well-maintained and properly prepared
machine.





No, it's _not_ hearsay. Have you never heard of first-hand personal
observation and experience? I build, configure and repair computers for a
living. I've *seen* and had to repair the damage done by automated
registry cleaners.





--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH

Well I am not using them in future after reading what has been posted here.
I have deleted JV16 and Tonyarts, and we have previously used registry
mechanic. I am a power user and I need to keep my PC in tip top working
condition at all times and can't afford to take chances with using programs
that potentially can damage or cause problems even if the emphasis is on
"potential".

 

[Jim Byrd]

FWIW just in complete support of Bruce, one of the first questions I ask a
client is whether s/he's used a Reg cleaner recently and, if so, whether
s/he's done any software or hardware installtions since doing so. (Right
after whether they've got any non-commercial Norton/Symantec c**p installed.
)

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



In

 

[Edward W. Thompson]

On the contrary, I've never personally encountered an installation of SP2
that caused any problems on a well-maintained and properly prepared
machine.





No, it's _not_ hearsay. Have you never heard of first-hand personal
observation and experience? I build, configure and repair computers for a
living. I've *seen* and had to repair the damage done by automated
registry cleaners.

Well you have your experiences and I have mine, they seem not to agree.
You seem absolute sure this software gives rise to problems so I ask again
please give me a simple test to perform that demonstrates
how 'System Mechanic' (the software at the root of this exchange) will
damage my installation of WINXP Pro (SP2).
I know it removes redundant files but that does not class as damage. Surely
if 'System Mechanic is so potentially dangerous and your experience
seemingly is
so extensive, such a test should not be beyond you. Would you also explain
why Microsoft advertises/promotes System Mechanic or at least use to, which
seems
odd if the software poses so much of a risk to their software.

I have noted many posts from those having problems with SP2 but none that
refer to problems resulting from the use of Registry Cleaners.
How do you account for that?