Recommendations for best Registry Cleaner

"Charles C. Perkins" wrote:

I have never been one to clean the registry, nor do I know the benefits
of doing it, but I am under the impression that it could make my
computer run quicker and better.

Any Suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Chaz


While there are some circumstances where a registry cleaner can be of
signifcant value, these are relatively rare.

In my opinion the major performance impact caused by leftover items in
the registry would be the increased size of the registry, as Windows
loads it into RAM. But it would take a really huge number of
leftover/obsolete/invalid items in order to use up enough RAM to make
any substantive difference. And much of that would probably be
quickly paged out to the pagefile and left there, thereby minimizing
the impact.

I did encounter one situation on my own computer a couple of years
ago, when I had installed Microsoft Visual Studio onto a second hard
drive. The drive failed shortly thereafter, but not until I was
pretty well finished with Visual Studio. Because the drive was gone
I could not uninstall the application and rather than trying to
reinstall it I opted to use a registry cleaner to help sort things
out. It removed over 15,000 registry entries and eliminated pretty
much all of the problems, although I did have to manually set up some
new file associations for some file types that had been associated
with Visual Studio. I did this on an "as and when needed" basis and
it worked out quite well.

I used RegSeeker for that project, and I also use it occasionally on
customer's machines for projects such as de-Nortoning.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."

Today, with great enthusiasm and quite emphatically, POP laid
this on an unsuspecting readership ...

All Things Mopar wrote:
Today, with great enthusiasm and quite emphatically, Pegasus
(MVP) laid this on an unsuspecting readership ...

The registry is an indexed database. Having a few hundred
(or a few thousand) orphaned entries, left behind by
incompletely uninstalled applications, makes no
difference to access speed. On the other hand, if the
applications are still installed and active then deleting
their registry entries is probably a bad idea.
whatsoever to access speed

You need to re-read my post. I was talking about crap
Windoze puts in there and /orphaned/ entries left behind by
errant apps and uninstall or update processes. And, while I
am not nearly as knowledgeable as you might be (or would
like us to believe), I do understand the makeup and
operation of the Registry. My comments stand. The Registry
can and does get bloated and app crashes, slow launches,
aberrant app behavior, and other problems can be prevented or
greatly minimized by correctly cleaning the Registry. And, by
backing it up to prevent a nuke and reinstall when Windoze
trashes it itself. Had Bill the Gates had his wits about him
when he designed this thing, he would've planned for and
executed a means for preventing all this, but we all know he
isn't nearly as bright as he'd like us to believe.

Very few MVPs will hear you, All. Whatever it is about that
MVP culture, whether it be ignorance or a condition of keeping
the "fancy" title of MVP, they are to this issue as closed
minds are to any issue. I've never fathomed why

I know I do a Don Quixote with this stuff. I don't expect the
MVPs to change, they've been bought out by M$. It is the regular
folks that I hope to influence in some positive way with my
intentionally "negative vibes"

And then every once in awhile one will post something
overheard about it being a "database" and the size of the
database having no relation to use of said database, amongst
many other things that have oozed from the ether from them.

I did 10+ years of DBMS programming when I wore the clothes of a
younger man, and it is generally true that any random access DB
is relatively unaffected by "cleaning". However, and this is the
important part, whatever app(s) are randomly accessing their part
of the Registry, seemingly by definition, they must read what
they want sequentially. In my PSP 9 example, all the 5,000
entries left behind were things like the position of all the
tools, dialog boxes, preferences, etc. While PSP got no faster, I
did fix the problem I was having, which was that it refused to
properly associate graphics file extensions. Had I not cleaned
the Registry, a "clean" reinstall would've been immediately
corrupted by the old crap, rendering my effort useless. Been
there, done that, so I know.

Most MVPs are pretty good in their tested areas, but they
don't stick to them, and worse, a few will often respond that
the reason for being so short in their responses is the "time"
they have to invest. Uh, huh. And yet they'll keep on going
with a thread such as this one, firing off excuse after excuse
with little to nothing for any kind of clarifying or verifying
information.

I take nothing away from the technical knowledge of the MVPs, it
is their attitude that ****es me off. M$ hardly does everything
right and everybody knows it. If an MVP cannot in good
consciounse bite the hand that feeds them, at least they could
refrain from such obviously biased - and wrong - assertions

It's like anything else; you have to know what you're
buying
or you'll often get what you paid forg.

Yes, and in my reply to the OP, I gave a synopsis of the
precautions one must use whenever mucking around the innards of
an O/S.

--
ATM, aka JerryR

"Everything that can be invented has been invented" - U. S.
Patent Commissioner, Charles H. Duell, 1899

Today, with great enthusiasm and quite emphatically, Ken Blake,
MVP laid this on an unsuspecting readership ...

Charles C. Perkins wrote:

I have never been one to clean the registry, nor do I know
the benefits of doing it, but I am under the impression that
it could make my computer run quicker and better.



Your impression is wrong. You'll get conflicting points of
view here, but this is my advice: Leave the registry alone and
don't use a registry cleaner. Despite what many people think,
and what vendors of registry cleaning software try to convince
you of, having unused registry entries doesn't really hurt
you.

The risk of a serious problem caused by a the registry cleaner
erroneously removing an entry you need is far geater than any
potential benefit it may have.

You guys really have to stop reaching conclusions based on
unfounded assumptions and without knowing any of the facts,
except what you're taught by your Redmond buds. You are hardly in
a position to judge what is or is not going on with the tens of
thousands or millions of Windoze systems out there or what might
prompt a user to want utilities Bill the Gates is too damn dumb
to sell himself. In this case, the OP will likely hurt themselves
as they're going on hearsay that cleaning the Registry somehow
helps them, but in many years of solving various problems both
Windoze causes itself and misbehaving apps do to themselves,
there are indeed reasons to have a good cleaner as well as tools
to find entries by searching in a more sophisticated manner than
regedit.

I do the ROTFLMAO when I read many entries in the MS KB. It is
quite apparent that the wonks in Redmond regularly hose things
then have to put their tail between their legs and provide
sometimes very arcane Registry hacks for the inevitable tech
support calls.

So, rather than dismiss out-of-hand what you personally have no
direct experience with, why not increase your credibility and get
an OP to describe what they're trying to do and why before you
immediately reach the conclusion they are stupid.

--
ATM, aka JerryR

"Everything that can be invented has been invented" - U. S.
Patent Commissioner, Charles H. Duell, 1899

Can anyone explain how a registry cleaner works? Is it magic?



"Charles C. Perkins" wrote:

I have never been one to clean the registry, nor do I know the benefits
of doing it, but I am under the impression that it could make my
computer run quicker and better.

Any Suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Chaz

By resolving or validating items within the Registry. A common item
for cleaning might be a filename or pathname that does not exist. The
problem with cleaning is the "Associative" nature of keys/values. An
item may be linked or associated through other keys/values. Once
the association is broken, that function or reference may no longer be
valid. Registry Cleaning is akin to "Pealing-an-Onion" the more you
run a cleaner the deeper it drills into the Registry and the higher the
chance an association will become broken, breaking an application or
system operation.

It's not magic, but could be considered cryptic - like trying to decipher
Egyptian Hieroglyphics.

"callmark1" wrote in message
...
Can anyone explain how a registry cleaner works? Is it magic?



"Charles C. Perkins" wrote:

I have never been one to clean the registry, nor do I know the benefits
of doing it, but I am under the impression that it could make my
computer run quicker and better.

Any Suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Chaz

Charles C. Perkins wrote:
I have never been one to clean the registry, nor do I know the benefits
of doing it,



None, that I'm aware of...


but I am under the impression that it could make my
computer run quicker and better.


Where'd that "impression" come from?

What specific problem are you experiencing that you *know* beyond
all reasonable doubt 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.

To date, no one has ever demonstrated, to my satisfaction, that the
use of an 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:
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

All Things Mopar wrote:

The best registry cleaner is no registry cleaner. Using
them makes at best no difference to your PC's performance.
At worst they will cripple your machine. There is one class of
people who derive considerable benefit from registry cleaners.
The sellers.

yep, I can always count on an MVP to spout the company line here.



Sadly, however, that is *not* the company line. There is actually a
Microsoft web page recommending the cleaning of the registry. I'm not
going to do the general public the disservice of providing a link
however. If you want to damage your OS, find it for yourself.



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

All Things Mopar wrote:


You need to re-read my post. I was talking about crap Windoze


You can't even spell the name of the operating system, but you feel
qualified to offer technical "insights?" Now, that's chutzpah!


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

POP wrote:


Very few MVPs will hear you, All. Whatever it is about that MVP
culture, whether it be ignorance or a condition of keeping the
"fancy" title of MVP, they are to this issue as closed minds are
to any issue. I've never fathomed why



It's mostly from many years of first-hand experience supporting
computers. We've simply learned better.



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

You may be thinking of "RegClean"(??). It caused more problems than it was
worth, and MS decided to quit offering the download. I'm not positive, but
I don't think MS even gave official support to it when it was available
(kind of like TweakUI).

--
Curt BD-MVBT

http://dundats.mvps.org/
http://dundats.proboards27.com/index.cgi
http://www.aumha.org/
"Stuart Nathan" wrote in message
...
Sometime ago I downloaded a Registry cleaner from Microsoft which I used
on Windows 98. Can't find it now.

Pop,

Just as one should never say NEVER (I agree with you there), one should
*not* lump all MVP's into one catagory either. The "you guys" in your
phrase meant exactly the same thing too.

Callmark seems to avoid cleaners, as do I; and I've used a lot of them in
the past. All with decent results too. I'm just not comfortable
recommending them anymore.

--
Curt BD-MVBT

http://dundats.mvps.org/
http://dundats.proboards27.com/index.cgi
http://www.aumha.org/
"POP" wrote in message
...
Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
Charles C. Perkins wrote:

I have never been one to clean the registry, nor do I
know the benefits of doing it, but I am under the
impression that it could make my computer run quicker and
better.



Your impression is wrong.

See, that's the kind of statement gets you guys in so much trouble.
You're obliquely stating there is NEVER (a word which should NEVER be
used, BTWg) any reason to use such an app. And that just isn't true.

You'll get conflicting points of
view here, but this is my advice: Leave the registry alone
and don't use a registry cleaner.

I could live with that, but ...

Despite what many people
think, and what vendors of registry cleaning software try
to convince you of, having unused registry entries doesn't
really hurt you.

They can indeed "hurt", and if the right tool, there are good reasons to
use such a tool. Whether a registry cleaner is more useful than dangerous
depends on a lot of things which you guys, not you in particular, will
never bring up or admit even exists. I've been asking around my circle of
acquaintances, about 27 people so far, and have not found one yet who has
had a registry cleaner cause any damage.
I'll agree that not just any tool can be trusted. Same for anything
else, as a matter of fact, ranging from registry manipulation at install
and uninstall time, to registry manupulation through plain old, everyday
appications use.
When you consider the amount of activity going on with the registry even
when you don't install/uninstall anything, it begins to look like a
registry tool might be the least of anyone's worries. Even some MS apps
can corrupt the registry, as I've found out personally. The list is
long.
If anyone is curious, I think it's Sysinternals has a little,
non-registering program (makes no registry entries when it installs)
called regmon which will show you on the fly what/when/who about all
registry changes. If I'm wrong and that's not Sysinternal's, let me know
and I'll fix my misqote, but I'm about 99% they're hte ones with a decent
working one.
The biggest problem newbies et al have is telling what IS and what is
NOT a reliable source of software or programs, especially with all the
freebies floating around, which everyone wants naturally.
So, if you MVPs in general would like to actually do some good, get off
your arses and go see what's real and what's not in the world of registry
manipulation.
And here's another direction you can take if you really want to get
people off of registry programs: Start educating them about the Admin
Tools. There are very few registry entries indeed, which cannot be
tweaked using an MS supplied app. Only trouble is, the MS supplied admin
tools, don't offer the backing out protection the other "cleaners" do.

Also, if one is going to crosspost to all creation lke this, hoping to get
a larger audience, for heaven's sake, SET A F'UP! Then go there to play.
Quit wasting bandwidth like this! If anyone's really interested,
following a f'up is no big deal to them. For MVP's to perpetuate long
crossposts to 6 groups like this is purely assanine, I don't care who
started it.

F'ups to public.windowsxp.general.


The risk of a serious problem caused by a the registry
cleaner erroneously removing an entry you need is far
geater than any potential benefit it may have.

And that is just a pure crock of crap! The risk of an erroneous registry
entry from daily use is, IMO, much more likely.
The same para you wrote above can be used for ANY application, making it
irrelevant. Nearly EVERY app on everyone's computer has already and is
continuing to, make registry changes. Even e-mail.

Pop
--

HI all, and thanks for your replies. And yes, I am even more confused,
but I will tell you that I have decided NOT to clean my registry. I am a
power user, and depend on my computer for many things. I usually just
restore the entire computer every 4 months with the disk my computer
came with, but haven't done it in a while, and was just wondering.

I do appreciate the help and suggestions!

Charles Perkins

Bruce Chambers wrote:

Charles C. Perkins wrote:

I have never been one to clean the registry, nor do I know the
benefits of doing it,




None, that I'm aware of...


but I am under the impression that it could make my computer run
quicker and better.


Where'd that "impression" come from?

What specific problem are you experiencing that you *know* beyond
all reasonable doubt 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.

To date, no one has ever demonstrated, to my satisfaction, that
the use of an 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.

Charles,

You've got the right idea. If you routinely re-install the OS every 4
months anyway...forget the Reg. cleaners!
Happy computing,
--
Curt BD-MVBT

http://dundats.mvps.org/
http://dundats.proboards27.com/index.cgi
http://www.aumha.org/
"Charles C. Perkins" wrote in message
...
HI all, and thanks for your replies. And yes, I am even more confused, but
I will tell you that I have decided NOT to clean my registry. I am a power
user, and depend on my computer for many things. I usually just restore
the entire computer every 4 months with the disk my computer came with,
but haven't done it in a while, and was just wondering.

I do appreciate the help and suggestions!

Charles Perkins

Bruce Chambers wrote:

Charles C. Perkins wrote:

I have never been one to clean the registry, nor do I know the benefits
of doing it,




None, that I'm aware of...


but I am under the impression that it could make my computer run quicker
and better.


Where'd that "impression" come from?

What specific problem are you experiencing that you *know* beyond all
reasonable doubt 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.

To date, no one has ever demonstrated, to my satisfaction, that the
use of an 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.

(invalid newsgroup name removed)

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 08:19:42 -0400 from Charles C. Perkins zahc76
@aol.com:
I have never been one to clean the registry, nor do I know the benefits
of doing it, but I am under the impression that it could make my
computer run quicker and better.

Any Suggestions?

Just one: don't.

More general advice: if you don't know why you're doing something,
you're probably doing the wrong thing.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:24:48 +1000 from Pegasus (MVP) :

"Stuart Nathan" wrote in message
...
Sometime ago I downloaded a Registry cleaner from Microsoft which I used
on
Windows 98. Can't find it now.

I think your post wins the prize for the most useless
contribution in this thread. By a big margin.

Ah, but the night is young. :-)

Seriously, it could have been worse: he might actually have posted a
link.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/