Registry Repair Tool

[Steve]

Is there a reliable registry repair tool for Vista??? How about Registry
Mechanic by PC Tools? Thanks.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi Steve,

Reliable? No. Registry tools should be used sparingly, if at all. On the
whole, they are mostly unnecessary as Vista, like XP, does not suffer from
registry bloat and issues associated with dead entries as did earlier
versions of Windows. The only registry cleaner that I would recommend is one
that is program specific, IE: one that is designed by a company solely to
remove entries associated with software they created and distributed. Beyond
that, general cleaners often have a nasty habit of removing needed entries,
often causing problems for the user that are worse then those they were
trying to resolve.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Is there a reliable registry repair tool for Vista??? How about
Registry Mechanic by PC Tools? Thanks.

Why do you think you need to repair your registry? What specific
*problems* are you actually experiencing (not some program's bogus
listing of imaginary problems) that you think can be fixed by using a
registry "repair" tool?

If you do have a problem that is rooted in the registry, it would
be far better to simply edit (after backing up, of course) only the
specific key(s) and/or value(s) that are causing the problem. After
all, why use a chainsaw when a scalpel will do the job? Additionally,
the manually changing of one or two registry entries is far less likely
to have the dire consequences of allowing an automated product to make
multiple changes simultaneously. The only thing needed to safely clean
your registry is knowledge and Regedit.exe.

The registry contains all of the operating system's "knowledge" of
the computer's hardware devices, installed software, the location of the
device drivers, and the computer's configuration. A misstep in the
registry can have severe consequences. One should not even turning
loose a poorly understood automated "cleaner," unless he is fully
confident that he knows *exactly* what is going to happen as a result of
each and every change.

Having repeatedly seen the results of inexperienced people using
automated registry "cleaners," I can only advise all but the most
experienced computer technicians (and/or hobbyists) to avoid them all.
Experience has shown me that such tools simply are not safe in the hands
of the inexperienced user. 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 they claim to be.

More importantly, no one has ever demonstrated that the use of an
automated registry cleaner, particularly by an untrained, inexperienced
computer user, does any real good, whatsoever. There's certainly been
no empirical evidence offered to demonstrate that the use of such
products to "clean" WinXP's registry improves a computer's performance
or stability. Given the potential for harm, it's just not worth the risk.

Granted, registry "cleaners" usually won't cause problems each and
every time they're used, but the potential for harm is always there.
And, since no registry "cleaner" has ever been demonstrated to do any
good (think of them like treating the flu with chicken soup - there's no
real medicinal value, but it sometimes provides a warming placebo
effect), I always tell people that the risks far out-weigh the
non-existent benefits.

I will concede that a good registry *scanning* tool, in the hands of
an experienced and knowledgeable technician or hobbyist can be a useful
time-saving diagnostic tool, as long as it's not allowed to make any
changes automatically. But I really don't think that there are any
registry cleaners that are truly safe for the general public to use.
Experience has proven just the opposite: such tools simply are not safe
in the hands of the inexperienced user.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



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

 

[Spirit]

I recommend two,,, the trick to successful use is to NOT blindly
accept their recommendations. For each entry do a google search
and DECIDE whether it is safe to remove a entry or not. Be
proactive, NOT a dummy.

http://www.wisecleaner.com/

http://www.ccleaner.com/

Both of those are FREE and work well for me HOWEVER heed the
advice and check the entries B4 any removal and do backups!

 

[Guest]

ccleaner is hax, one of the best registry programs out there by far. All the
other programs out there pick up a bunch of stuff that can really mess up
your computer, I haven't had an issue with it yet.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

ccleaner is hax, one of the best registry programs out there by far. All the
other programs out there pick up a bunch of stuff that can really mess up
your computer, I haven't had an issue with it yet.

On the contrary, CCleaner is virtually useless as a registry tool. In
my testing, though, most of the reported "issues" won't be issues, at
all. I tried the latest version on a brand-new OS installation with no
additional applications installed, and certainly none installed and then
uninstalled, and CCleaner still managed to "find" over a hundred
allegedly orphaned registry entries and dozens of purportedly
"suspicious" files.

CCleaner's main strength, and the only reason I use it, lies in its
usefulness for cleaning up unused temporary files from the hard drive;
as a registry "cleaner," it's not significantly better or worse than any
other snake oil product of the same type.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



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

 

[Guest]

Yes, but for the average consumer it does what needs to get done, anything
that dives into the registry anymore, like Hijackthis or other programs you
usually need to have people look at it for a bit to see if theres actually
anything wrong.

As far as cleaning it does a fantastic job, which I understated in my last
post. Typically it will clean out more than what others do and puts the
windows disk cleaner to shame and is more efficient than loading up each
program and doing it manually.

 

[Steve]

My interest in a Registry repair tool is as follows: I loaded a very old
program into Vista. It actually ran fine, but later when I rebooted I found
a problem. I uninstalled the program, but the problem remained. When Vista
starts up, it goes looking for something that it cannot find, and it takes
some 20 seconds doing it. Once it gives up, it proceeds to load but gives
me a message to remove reference to " " from the registry. Using regedit, I
searched for any such empty notation, or for any reference to the
uninstalled software, but found none.

Maybe my next step should be to try the built-in "startup repair."

 

[Guest]

freeware : ccleaner
shareware : tune-up utilities

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

You can check the run keys in the registry for the null entry (check both
HKLM and HKCU entries), but if you want to make matters simple, this is what
System Restore is for. It would revert the system to the pre-install state.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Ken Blake]

Is there a reliable registry repair tool for Vista???

No. Just as with XP, they are all unneeded and potentially dangerous. I
recommend staying away from them.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

My interest in a Registry repair tool is as follows: I loaded a very
old program into Vista. It actually ran fine, but later when I rebooted
I found a problem. I uninstalled the program, but the problem
remained. When Vista starts up, it goes looking for something that it
cannot find, and it takes some 20 seconds doing it. Once it gives up,
it proceeds to load but gives me a message to remove reference to " "
from the registry. Using regedit, I searched for any such empty
notation, or for any reference to the uninstalled software, but found none.

Look in the C:\Documents and Settings\All
Users\Start Menu\Programs\Start Up and C:\Documents and
Settings\username\Start Menu\Programs\Start Up folders, and in the
system registry, primarily in the
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and
HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run keys. You can also
use RegScanner from http://www.nirsoft.net to search the registry
without fear of it making any changes.

How to Troubleshoot By Using the Msconfig Utility in Windows XP (but
applies to Vista, as well)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;310560

Maybe my next step should be to try the built-in "startup repair."

No, that's mostly designed for real (i.e., boot) start up problems.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



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

 

[Guest]

I have personal experience in using 'startup repair' in vista.

I was told to remove a couple of registry keys, winsock, in order to
reinstall them to fix a connection issue. Anyway, I ended up having to do
sys restore from the cd, when it wouldn't work from the os. Then I did a
startup repair from the cd and it apparently fixed the registry issues, and
solved ALL the problems. Interestingly enough, the startup repair found no
problems until I did the sys restore from the cd, then it found a startup
problem and did the startup repair on its own.

Interesting discussion on registry cleaners. I guess I will avoid them,
except startup repair.

Richard