Which Registry Cleaner?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Prabhat
  • Start date Start date
If you cannot boot at all, as you postulate, you start your machine using
your Image Program bootable CD or floppy and restore your system image.
Don't backup or image your system? Well that's the start of another thread!

There is little to be gained by citing extremes in trying to make your
point. If you are going to mess with the Registry either by using 'cleaner
programs' or by manually editing by Regedit, you should recognize the
potential risk and ensure that you are able to recover from any errors that
may occur. I have used Registry Cleaners (mostly System Mechanic) for many
years now and never had a problem. I've been lucky? Possibly.

Does so called cleaning the Registry do any good, probably not? (millisecs
gained or even a few seconds do not feature for me, my life is not that
finely tuned). Cleaning the Registry of redundant entries may well be a
placebo but in the general effort of keeping my machine 'lean and mean' it's
a part of my computer chores as is weekly imaging.
 
You keep saying 'ill-advised'. That is where you and I and many others differ.
If you have a perfectly good, and safe registry cleaner then issuing warnings
not to use etc. is merely spreading fear.
 
Unknown said:
You keep saying 'ill-advised'. That is where you and I and many others
differ. If you have a perfectly good, and safe registry cleaner then
issuing warnings not to use etc. is merely spreading fear.
Click to expand...

1) There's no good reason for a novice to use a registry cleaner. If
edification is your goal, how will anyone learn anything about editing
the registry by using an automated tool?

2) There are very few legitimate reasons for *anyone* to use a registry
editor. Satisfaction of one's own neurotic impulses is fine, but don't
try to justify your own neurosis by trying to convince others that
cleaning the registry is beneficial.
 
TY Jim for explaining why exporting the entire registry is a poor to
disasterous method of backing up/restoring the registry. I am a new user of
XP Pro but always wondered why that wasn't the preferred method for backing
up the registry in win98 as it was simpler and easier than the prescribed
method under that OS. I in fact did on several occasions export the entire
registry before running some 'registry cleaner' apps I was trying. I see
now that I was fortunate in that I never did have a bad outcome and attempt
use the exported .reg files.
A person could learn some things hanging about these newsgroups.

Hardware above my means courtesy of my benefactors, Angel, Weezy and ER__RN

Epox EP-8RDA+ mobo
AMD 1.8 Ghz 2500+ Barton processor
1gig Corsair XMS3200 400 mhz DDR
FX5700LE
 
YW, Sam - Glad you found it useful.

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



In
 
Phil McCracken said:
1) There's no good reason for a novice to use a registry cleaner. If
edification is your goal, how will anyone learn anything about editing the
registry by using an automated tool?

2) There are very few legitimate reasons for *anyone* to use a registry
editor. Satisfaction of one's own neurotic impulses is fine, but don't try
to justify your own neurosis by trying to convince others that cleaning
the registry is beneficial.
Click to expand...
While I do not dispute that the usefulness of Registry Cleaners in WINXP is
at best marginal, it is equally relevant to note that there are many more
postings with respect to damage to systems brought about by the installation
of SP2 than due to damage brought about by Registry Cleaners. In both cases
it may be said the problems are brought about by the action or lack of
action by the unwary and again in both cases any problem, no matter how
catastrophic, can be easily rectified if basic 'safe' procedures are
followed i.e. backup of the Registry and Imaging the system.
 
In
Edward W. Thompson said:
While I do not dispute that the usefulness of Registry Cleaners
in
WINXP is at best marginal, it is equally relevant to note that
there
are many more postings with respect to damage to systems
brought
about by the installation of SP2 than due to damage brought
about by
Registry Cleaners.
Click to expand...



But bear in mind that, almost certainly, far more people install
SP2 than use registry cleaners.
 
And most of those who do use Reg Cleaners and have resultant problems
probably don't realize that that was the source of them. One of the first
questions I ask a client is whether s/he's done so recently, and I then try
to restore, if possible/appropriate after looking at the Reg Cleaner's
restore file to see what was damaged and whether it's even reasonably safe
to try and do a restore (other installs since, etc.).

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



In
 
I know of only one problem ever caused by a registry cleaner. And that was it
rendered 'help and support' to fail. It was because the user failed to set the
cleaner to ignore 'help'. Not only that, it was in the documentation. It was
so easily fixed however and almost immediately posted on a news group. (Cause
and fix).Can you post data on other registry caused problems? Or do you just
have a fear of the registry?
 
Phil,

Maybe the first sentence here was a typo??

2) There are very few legitimate reasons for anyone to use a registry
editor. Satisfaction of one's own neurotic impulses is fine, but don't
try to justify your own neurosis by trying to convince others that
cleaning the registry is beneficial.
 
Wesley said:
Phil,

Maybe the first sentence here was a typo??

2) There are very few legitimate reasons for anyone to use a registry
editor. Satisfaction of one's own neurotic impulses is fine, but don't
try to justify your own neurosis by trying to convince others that
cleaning the registry is beneficial.
Click to expand...

OK, I see it now. I should have said "cleaner" instead of "editor." Thanks.
 
Far and above, JV16 Power Tools. Used to be free but now there is a small fee
for it. However it is many tools in one. And I might add you will never worry
about it causing any kind of problem. It has a restore feature and you can
select what you want to delete from the registry which the cleaner finds.
 
Version 4.1a of RegClean is not supported in Windows XP.
Click to expand...

And has never worked in any of my XP installations, it starts to scan
and then hangs up indefinitely. FWIW, it worked in Win2000.
 
Sorry for butting in, just tried one called "tune up utilities 2004".

Not for the complete idiot but good for most with a vague idea of how
things work.

My system has sped up immensley just when I was going to give up with
these tools and buy myself some more RAM.

This one is free (trial anyway!) unlike Norton.

Ed,,
 

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