HRH said:
Could anyone suggest a good XP registry cleaning tool.
There's no such thing that's safe for the average computer user.
Dell recommended
EASYCLEANER.
I'm glad I don't own any Dells, if that's the caliber of their support.
Does Microsoft endorse any? I have not seen this or can find any info on if
they do or don't.
No, of course they don't. Primarily because there's no real need to
ever use such a thing; and the use of such products is perilous.
I am not PC literate enough to go in and manually edit/clean up the registry.
Then you're most definitely "not PC literate enough" to be able to
safely use a registry "cleaner." How would you know if the action(s)
being proposed and/or performed by a "cleaner" will be safe, or will
leave your computer in an unbootable state, as often happens?
Why would you even think that you need to clean your registry?
What specific problem(s) are you experiencing that you believe will
be fixed by using a registry "cleaner?" 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. Why use a shotgun 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 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 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.
The only thing needed to safely maintain 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 they claim to be. 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.
Further, and more importantly, no one has ever demonstrated, to my
satisfaction, that the use of any automated registry "cleaner,"
particularly by an untrained, inexperienced computer user, does any real
good. 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.
--
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
