Disk Cleanup

Ken Blake, MVP wrote, On 4/6/2014 11:42 AM:
On Sun, 06 Apr 2014 12:11:51 +0100, Brian Gregory
wrote:

On 05/04/2014 22:12, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
Because registry cleaning (with any such program) provides no benefit
and is very dangerous


Registry cleaning programs are *all* snake oil. Cleaning of the
registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone and
don't use any 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 registry cleaner erroneously
removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit
it may have.

Read
http://www.howtogeek.com/171633/why-...r-fix-crashes/
and also
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussino...t-of-life.aspx

You also might want to read the section on the CCleaner Registry
Cleaner he
http://www.howtogeek.com/113382/how-...9-tips-tricks/

Let me point out that neither I nor anyone else who warns against the
use of registry cleaners has ever said that they always cause
problems. If they always caused problems, they would disappear from
the market almost immediately. Many people have used a registry
cleaner and never had a problem with it.

Rather, the problem with a registry cleaner is that it carries with it
the substantial *risk* of having a problem. And since there is no
benefit to using a registry cleaner, running that risk is a very bad
bargain.


I have had a registry cleaner break functionality I needed but never the
one in CCleaner which seems as near harmless as possible


It's true that CCleaner's registry cleaner is not as dangerous as most
of the others. However, it *is* dangerous and provides no benefits, so
using it is still a bad bargain.


and since it
can save every change it makes in a .reg file for easy undoing later is
very safe to use.


No. It makes it safer, but not "very safe." If what it does is make
the computer unbootable (all registry cleaners have that risk), that's
not true.




I agree that registry cleaners are not necessary and have seen many
systems incapacitated by them...yet in the last decade or so I have
never, ever seen a single report of CCleaner registry cleaning option
impacting a system negatively.

Maybe those users are lucky, or just more knowledgeable on what they
remove than we give them credit, or even more knowledgeable from using
the product's registry cleaner feature than those who comment about it
without never having used it.


--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps

On Sun, 6 Apr 2014 20:12:27 +0000 (UTC), lew
wrote:

On 2014-04-05, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Sat, 05 Apr 2014 22:11:48 +0100, Roderick Stewart
wrote:

On Sat, 05 Apr 2014 13:20:54 -0700, "Ken Blake, MVP"
wrote:

I highly recommend you give CCleaner a try instead - it's free, and you
can do a partial scan of your system or turn off stuff that you don't
need cleaning up to speed up the scanning.


CCleaner is an excellent program, as long as you don't use its
registry cleaning functionality.

I regularly do, and have not noticed any ill effects. Is there
anything I should watch out for?


You've been running a very big risk.

Let me point out that neither I nor anyone else who warns against the
use of registry cleaners has ever said that they always cause
problems. If they always caused problems, they would disappear from
the market almost immediately. Many people have used a registry
cleaner and never had a problem with it.

Rather, the problem with a registry cleaner is that it carries with it
the substantial *risk* of having a problem. And since there is no
benefit to using a registry cleaner, running that risk is a very bad
bargain.

So, one shouldn't be concerned about "low registry space" msgs that
even happens on win7? I think that I've read that win nt had a 32 meg
limit on registry size & that the reg space used can be affected
by large entries for the registry.


I've never seen that message.


Then we should leave all dead/outdated entries in the registry?


They don't hurt at all. Better to leave them than to try and remove
them and have the software mistakenly remove something that is needed.

On 4/5/2014 5:12 PM, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Sat, 05 Apr 2014 17:03:36 -0400, Alek Trishan
wrote:

On 4/5/2014 4:20 PM, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Sat, 05 Apr 2014 20:41:19 +0100, Alan Ralph
wrote:

I highly recommend you give CCleaner a try instead - it's free, and you
can do a partial scan of your system or turn off stuff that you don't
need cleaning up to speed up the scanning.


CCleaner is an excellent program, as long as you don't use its
registry cleaning functionality.

Because?


Because registry cleaning (with any such program) provides no benefit
and is very dangerous


Registry cleaning programs are *all* snake oil. Cleaning of the
registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone and
don't use any 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 registry cleaner erroneously
removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit
it may have.

Read
http://www.howtogeek.com/171633/why-...r-fix-crashes/

"Don’t bother with a registry cleaner. If you must, use the free
CCleaner, which has the best-tested registry cleaner out there. It will
also delete temporary files for other programs — CCleaner alone does
much more than these PC cleaning apps do."


and also
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussino...t-of-life.aspx

"So it seems that Registry junk is a Windows fact of life and that
Registry cleaners will continue to have a place in the anal-sysadmin’s
tool chest, at least until we’re all running .NET applications that
store their per-user settings in XML files – and then of course we’ll
need XML cleaners."


You also might want to read the section on the CCleaner Registry
Cleaner he
http://www.howtogeek.com/113382/how-...9-tips-tricks/

"That said, if you’re dead set on running a registry cleaner, CCleaner
is one of the safer ones. If you do run the registry cleaner, ensure you
back up any changes you make. You can restore the deleted registry
entries from the backup file if you encounter any problems."

On Sun, 06 Apr 2014 18:38:53 -0400, Alek Trishan
wrote:


"That said, if you?re dead set on running a registry cleaner, CCleaner
is one of the safer ones. If you do run the registry cleaner, ensure you
back up any changes you make. You can restore the deleted registry
entries from the backup file if you encounter any problems."


Yes, much the same thing I said.

On 06/04/2014 16:42, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
No. It makes it safer, but not "very safe." If what it does is make
the computer unbootable (all registry cleaners have that risk), that's
not true.

Would you like to explain how a registry cleaner could make a system non
bootable?

You do understand that a registry cleaner doesn't just delete anything
it doesn't understand? They delete things that they understand to be not
needed and redundant.

--

Brian Gregory (in the UK).
To email me please remove all the letter vee from my email address.

On 2014-04-06, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Sun, 6 Apr 2014 20:12:27 +0000 (UTC), lew
wrote:

On 2014-04-05, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Sat, 05 Apr 2014 22:11:48 +0100, Roderick Stewart
wrote:

On Sat, 05 Apr 2014 13:20:54 -0700, "Ken Blake, MVP"
wrote:

I highly recommend you give CCleaner a try instead - it's free, and you
can do a partial scan of your system or turn off stuff that you don't
need cleaning up to speed up the scanning.


CCleaner is an excellent program, as long as you don't use its
registry cleaning functionality.

I regularly do, and have not noticed any ill effects. Is there
anything I should watch out for?


You've been running a very big risk.

Let me point out that neither I nor anyone else who warns against the
use of registry cleaners has ever said that they always cause
problems. If they always caused problems, they would disappear from
the market almost immediately. Many people have used a registry
cleaner and never had a problem with it.

Rather, the problem with a registry cleaner is that it carries with it
the substantial *risk* of having a problem. And since there is no
benefit to using a registry cleaner, running that risk is a very bad
bargain.

So, one shouldn't be concerned about "low registry space" msgs that
even happens on win7? I think that I've read that win nt had a 32 meg
limit on registry size & that the reg space used can be affected
by large entries for the registry.


I've never seen that message.

cite: http://www.matthanson.ca/2013/01/ran...-on-windows-7/
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX130744
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqljourney/a...son-setup.aspx
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/For...dedwindowsmisc
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302594

and so on........

My computer is not in a working environment so unlikely will see the
low registry msg; also don't do visual studio c++, sql or have lots
of terminals attached or use autocad.

System hive part of the registry "really the problem"? If it is part
of the registry, then the registry is the problem if the hive cannot
be separated from the registry.

I have my apps installed in a different directory from the default
c:\program files (x86) whenever allowed by the app.




Then we should leave all dead/outdated entries in the registry?


They don't hurt at all. Better to leave them than to try and remove
them and have the software mistakenly remove something that is needed.

Brian Gregory wrote:
On 06/04/2014 16:42, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
No. It makes it safer, but not "very safe." If what it does is make
the computer unbootable (all registry cleaners have that risk), that's
not true.

Would you like to explain how a registry cleaner could make a system non
bootable?

You do understand that a registry cleaner doesn't just delete anything
it doesn't understand? They delete things that they understand to be not
needed and redundant.


Yes, and computer programmers never make mistakes; and misunderstandings
never occur; and everything is hunky-dory in this best of all possible
worlds, with such good weather.

Deo gratias

Ed

On Mon, 07 Apr 2014 00:31:42 +0100, Brian Gregory
wrote:

On 06/04/2014 16:42, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
No. It makes it safer, but not "very safe." If what it does is make
the computer unbootable (all registry cleaners have that risk), that's
not true.

Would you like to explain how a registry cleaner could make a system non
bootable?

You do understand that a registry cleaner doesn't just delete anything
it doesn't understand? They delete things that they understand to be not
needed and redundant.


See Ed Cryer's excellent reply.

On 07/04/2014 11:19, Ed Cryer wrote:
Brian Gregory wrote:
On 06/04/2014 16:42, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
No. It makes it safer, but not "very safe." If what it does is make
the computer unbootable (all registry cleaners have that risk), that's
not true.

Would you like to explain how a registry cleaner could make a system non
bootable?

You do understand that a registry cleaner doesn't just delete anything
it doesn't understand? They delete things that they understand to be not
needed and redundant.


Yes, and computer programmers never make mistakes; and misunderstandings
never occur; and everything is hunky-dory in this best of all possible
worlds, with such good weather.

Oh sorry. I thought you meant registry cleaners not all third party
software of any kind.


--

Brian Gregory (in the UK).
To email me please remove all the letter vee from my email address.

Brian Gregory wrote:
On 07/04/2014 11:19, Ed Cryer wrote:
Brian Gregory wrote:
On 06/04/2014 16:42, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
No. It makes it safer, but not "very safe." If what it does is make
the computer unbootable (all registry cleaners have that risk), that's
not true.

Would you like to explain how a registry cleaner could make a system non
bootable?

You do understand that a registry cleaner doesn't just delete anything
it doesn't understand? They delete things that they understand to be not
needed and redundant.


Yes, and computer programmers never make mistakes; and misunderstandings
never occur; and everything is hunky-dory in this best of all possible
worlds, with such good weather.

Oh sorry. I thought you meant registry cleaners not all third party
software of any kind.



I earned my living as a computer analyst/programmer for well over 15
years. I did the full gamut of jobs, and worked for government and
private users.
I saw errors and problems of all kinds; so many that I couldn't recall
them all now. They included lots of human errors, lots of supplied
software errors, some hardware problems.
I spent a large part of my life tracking the errors to cause and
repairing them.

A frequent one these days is to do with updates and amendments. You
change a small part of the OS and the whole environment changes for all
the hundreds of progs and apps that run on a modern platform.
That's the ground of another large number of errors; we forgot to notify
everybody of the upcoming changes.

Another one is the highly individual layout and content of a modern PC.
No two are alike. Nobody has exactly the same configuration. And that
makes adequate system testing difficult.

I hold under suspicion any third party progs that handle crucial parts
of the OS.

Ed

Ken Blake, MVP wrote:

On Mon, 07 Apr 2014 00:31:42 +0100, Brian Gregory
wrote:

On 06/04/2014 16:42, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
No. It makes it safer, but not "very safe." If what it does is make
the computer unbootable (all registry cleaners have that risk), that's
not true.

Would you like to explain how a registry cleaner could make a system non
bootable?

You do understand that a registry cleaner doesn't just delete anything
it doesn't understand? They delete things that they understand to be not
needed and redundant.


See Ed Cryer's excellent reply.

No one seems to object to the use of virus and malware scanners. They
alter the registry as well as other important system files. And what of
software uninstallers like Revo Uninstaller? To totally uninstall an
app, to remove all traces of it from a system, you have to alter the
registry.

I have no objection to the judicious use of registry cleaners, if it's a
good one like the one in CCleaner. It's their indiscriminate use that's
the problem.


Stef

Ed Cryer posted this via news:li67ui$l81$1@dont-
email.me:

Brian Gregory wrote:
On 07/04/2014 11:19, Ed Cryer wrote:
Brian Gregory wrote:
On 06/04/2014 16:42, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
No. It makes it safer, but not "very safe." If what it does is make
the computer unbootable (all registry cleaners have that risk),
that's
not true.

Would you like to explain how a registry cleaner could make a system
non
bootable?

You do understand that a registry cleaner doesn't just delete anything
it doesn't understand? They delete things that they understand to be
not
needed and redundant.


Yes, and computer programmers never make mistakes; and
misunderstandings
never occur; and everything is hunky-dory in this best of all possible
worlds, with such good weather.

Oh sorry. I thought you meant registry cleaners not all third party
software of any kind.



I earned my living as a computer analyst/programmer for well over 15
years. I did the full gamut of jobs, and worked for government and
private users.
I saw errors and problems of all kinds; so many that I couldn't recall
them all now. They included lots of human errors, lots of supplied
software errors, some hardware problems.
I spent a large part of my life tracking the errors to cause and
repairing them.

A frequent one these days is to do with updates and amendments. You
change a small part of the OS and the whole environment changes for all
the hundreds of progs and apps that run on a modern platform.
That's the ground of another large number of errors; we forgot to notify
everybody of the upcoming changes.

Another one is the highly individual layout and content of a modern PC.
No two are alike. Nobody has exactly the same configuration. And that
makes adequate system testing difficult.

I hold under suspicion any third party progs that handle crucial parts
of the OS.

Ed

In the old days your suspicions would be valid within the context and
parameters set by the qualifier "any"...

Nowadays, the reliable 3rd-Party software are safe at default settings.

HTH.

--

I AM Bucky Breeder, (*(^; and FYI :
If I had just $1 for everytime I got distracted...
I sure wish I had me some Neopolitan ice cream.

On Thu, 10 Apr 2014 16:27:45 +0000 (UTC), Stef wrote:

No one seems to object to the use of virus and malware scanners. They
alter the registry as well as other important system files. And what of
software uninstallers like Revo Uninstaller? To totally uninstall an
app, to remove all traces of it from a system, you have to alter the
registry.

Altering a program's *own* settings in the Registry is possibly not the
same thing as altering large numbers of *other* programs' settings in
the Registry...

I have no objection to the judicious use of registry cleaners, if it's a
good one like the one in CCleaner. It's their indiscriminate use that's
the problem.

The suspicion expressed here is that even within CCleaner and other such
programs, the use *is* indiscriminate[1] and that the user has no way to
be sure it's otherwise.

I am not at all religious about CCleaner; I keep it around and use it
occasionally for some purposes, e.g., disk wiping, but when I ran its
registry cleaner and was presented with the opportunity to accept or
reject many dozens of entries that I had no understanding of, I balked
and never tried it again. That's my personal choice; I am not asking you
to agree with me.

[1] Whether by design or lack thereof :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 4/10/2014 2:10 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

I am not at all religious about CCleaner; I keep it around and use it
occasionally for some purposes, e.g., disk wiping, but when I ran its
registry cleaner and was presented with the opportunity to accept or
reject many dozens of entries that I had no understanding of, I balked
and never tried it again.

So you ignored the ones you did understand? :-)

Bucky Breeder wrote:
Ed Cryer posted this via news:li67ui$l81$1@dont-
email.me:

Brian Gregory wrote:
On 07/04/2014 11:19, Ed Cryer wrote:
Brian Gregory wrote:
On 06/04/2014 16:42, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
No. It makes it safer, but not "very safe." If what it does is make
the computer unbootable (all registry cleaners have that risk),
that's
not true.

Would you like to explain how a registry cleaner could make a system
non
bootable?

You do understand that a registry cleaner doesn't just delete anything
it doesn't understand? They delete things that they understand to be
not
needed and redundant.


Yes, and computer programmers never make mistakes; and
misunderstandings
never occur; and everything is hunky-dory in this best of all possible
worlds, with such good weather.

Oh sorry. I thought you meant registry cleaners not all third party
software of any kind.



I earned my living as a computer analyst/programmer for well over 15
years. I did the full gamut of jobs, and worked for government and
private users.
I saw errors and problems of all kinds; so many that I couldn't recall
them all now. They included lots of human errors, lots of supplied
software errors, some hardware problems.
I spent a large part of my life tracking the errors to cause and
repairing them.

A frequent one these days is to do with updates and amendments. You
change a small part of the OS and the whole environment changes for all
the hundreds of progs and apps that run on a modern platform.
That's the ground of another large number of errors; we forgot to notify
everybody of the upcoming changes.

Another one is the highly individual layout and content of a modern PC.
No two are alike. Nobody has exactly the same configuration. And that
makes adequate system testing difficult.

I hold under suspicion any third party progs that handle crucial parts
of the OS.

Ed

In the old days your suspicions would be valid within the context and
parameters set by the qualifier "any"...

Nowadays, the reliable 3rd-Party software are safe at default settings.

HTH.


Hell fire, man, why not tell me you've seen some dark matter? I wouldn't
believe that either.

You should have been a passenger on flight 370. When the cabin
depressurised, or a raging fire broke our, or some bungling hijackers
bungled, or the pilot decided to commit suicide, or whatever happened,
you might have reassured all the passengers that it was statistically
unlikely to happen.

Ed