Registry First Aid

[Jeff]

I downloaded a trial version of Registry First Aid and ran it without
allowing it to do anything.

Has anybody used this Registry cleaner? It seems to find an inordinate
number of errors in the registry (900+) and I do not think these are all
really errors. I am planning to uninstall it but thought to ask the experts
here for their opinion and advice.

--

Jeff Williams
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free by AVG

 

[Guest]

I use that program regularly, and it can be trusted. If your computer is a
few years old, than it's quite possible that you have 900 invalid entries. My
computer is less than a year old, but the first time I ran the program it
found about 100 invalid entries. However, remember that you're messing with
your registery; before you clean I would really recomend backing up your
registery or entire computer, just in case.
Hope this helps.

 

[CS]

I downloaded a trial version of Registry First Aid and ran it without
allowing it to do anything.

Has anybody used this Registry cleaner? It seems to find an inordinate
number of errors in the registry (900+) and I do not think these are all
really errors. I am planning to uninstall it but thought to ask the experts
here for their opinion and advice.

Be very careful about using any registry cleaner. Some are more
aggressive than others. Always backup your registry prior to making
any changes, deletions, etc. A good registry backup program to use
is ERUNT, freeware from here:

http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt

 

[Malke]

I downloaded a trial version of Registry First Aid and ran it without
allowing it to do anything.

Has anybody used this Registry cleaner? It seems to find an inordinate
number of errors in the registry (900+) and I do not think these are
all really errors. I am planning to uninstall it but thought to ask
the experts here for their opinion and advice.

You will find most techs - myself included - do not believe in using
third-party registry cleaners. Most of us feel they do more harm than
good. If you know what you're doing in the registry, Regedit is fine.
If you don't know what you're doing, you're better off staying out and
you won't have any idea if the registry cleaner is removing stuff that
should stay.

This is just my opinion, mind you.

Malke

 

[R. McCarty]

Before you run "any" Registry cleaner, I would be sure to use
an Imaging program on my Windows System partition or drive.
Most all Registry cleaners employ a backup, where removed
keys & values are saved. However, if a change renders the PC
unable to boot, those backups aren't of much value.
For manual edits on the Registry, just export the key(s) before
you make changes or delete. I agree with Malke that Registry
changes are best done via Regedit.

 

[Jeff]

Thank you both. I am not comfortable with automated changes either and I
have made plenty of registry changes in my time. Just don't like wholesale
changes going in the background. I appreciate your advice.

--

Jeff Williams
Email address deliberately false to avoid spam
(e-mail address removed)
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free by AVG

 

[Vanguardx]

You will find most techs - myself included - do not believe in using
third-party registry cleaners. Most of us feel they do more harm than
good. If you know what you're doing in the registry, Regedit is fine.
If you don't know what you're doing, you're better off staying out and
you won't have any idea if the registry cleaner is removing stuff that
should stay.

This is just my opinion, mind you.

Malke

Here, here. The only point in using a registry cleaner is to facilitate
finding *potential* problems and do it faster and easier than you
hunting around. However, they should always prompt you regarding each
change they propose and it is YOU that decides what action to take (no
action, their recommended action, or you perform a manual change because
you know better what really should be done). The registry cleaner
should be likened to hiring someone else with keener eyes or
easier-to-use equipment to find a slow leak in your tire and they
recommend a fix, but *YOU* make the decision as to whether or not to fix
it and how to fix it. That means the expertise comes down to YOU
knowing what should be done in the registry. Any registry cleaner that
performs actions without user prompting and permission is pretty much a
variable-impact trojan, even if it has an undo feature (because the
impact of a bad change may exhibit itself much later than when you
cleaned up, er, screwed up the registry).