Registry Cleaner - any suggestion?

Hi

Can someone reccomend a good registry cleaner/fixer? Better if it can be deployed from a server.

Regards

Yamin

 

You're going to get lots of suggestions.

Mine is to avoid using automated registry cleaners/fixers. Unless your computer is pretty much needing Windows to be re-installed, you should not normally need a registry cleaner. And even then, the re-install is still the best solution.

IMO, automated registry cleaning is NOT computer maintenance...

 

Best cleaner is no cleaner, even the dirtiest of registry would cause little slowdown and MS would agree with that. OTOH, screw around with registry and pay a huge price or face strange future crashes. I have a 2 year old XPx64 install running daily, I just clean with crap cleaner but no registry, don't touch that and have no issues whatsoever.

 

I agree that to use a registry cleaner can lead to serious problems. I use RegSupreme Pro from Macecraft Software (one license can be used on up to 5 personal computers).

With Vista I use it sporadically, and selectively. It has two modes, normal and aggressive. I've always used it in normal mode, and have always backedup the changes, which the program does almost by default.

For some reasons it seemed more effective on XP than Vista, possibly my Vista machine has more memory and CPU to cope with a chaotic registry.

 

There's a good argument that registry cleaners are unnecessary and an even better argument they can be dangerous. I would strongly encourage anyone to use imaging software (or an ISR program) to create a backup image before allowing any registry cleaner to make changes or deletions. After using a registry cleaner to scan your PC, you should carefully review the list of "errors found" before approving any modifications or deletions.

With that disclaimer out of the way, I've never had any registry cleaning difficulties with Registry Mechanic, Ace Utilities (good tech support), Registry Healer, TuneUp Utilities (lousy tech support), and Advanced SystemCare. A couple years ago, I had some problems with Glary Utilities and CCleaner. I still use CCleaner but not for registry cleaning.

 

A lot of good advice from people. I personally use JV16 Powertools and Systemsuite and have never had any problems.

One piece of software that helps reduce the need for registry cleaners is Revo Uninstaller. If you use this to uninstall programs, instead of the built-in Windows uninstaller, it runs the software uninstaller and then finds all registry and file traces and offers you the ability to remove these. This goes a long way to keeping your registry clean.

 

the best idea is to not use one

 

Follow Skytroopers advice. Especially the part about having a good image prior to running a registry cleaner.

I've tried a ton of registry cleaners, some were good, some terrible YMMV. The ones I keep available are JV 16 Power tools and Tune-Up Utilities. JV 16 is run in "Normal" not "Aggressive" mode.

To be quite honest though, I've never seen a performance increase by using a registry cleaner, But... I've seen many problem e.g. BSOD, crashing boxes... -by using a registry cleaner

Why I still use one =


...screamer

 

I have used the MS Live Onecare free registry scanner and cleaner a few times.
It seems to work OK, but there is some particular problem with MathCad registry entries such that it identifies them as invalid, removes them, and then I have to reinstall Mathcad to get it to find all its functions and quicksheets.

It took me a while to figure out that the registry cleaning was the problem.

Maybe I will use thenm to scan the registry, But I will be very reluctant to make automated changes from here on. I just don't understand the logic algorythm they are using to decide what is "invalid".

I haven't noticed any other problems besides MathCad, but who knows ?!?!

 

System TuneUp is what I use.

http://www.acelogix.com/systuneup.html

 

CCleaner is free app and it does the job well.
Never used a commercial app.

 

RegVac from www.superwin.com. All program upgrades to newer editions as they become available are free.

Very good support too!

 

I think in general it is good advice not to mess with your registry. But it is not voodoo to touch it. On the contrary, because windows relies so heavily upon the registry, it can be helpful and a great learning experience. Remember, that the registry is a database. Databases grow large and fat and need to be maintained.

Much great advice is being given for anyone who does not know how to recover from messing with the regsitry. Wehter it be 'dont touch it' or 'use system image for backup', very very fine suggestions.

But the registry can and does directly affect some performance. I can give my favorite example. The context menu. The registry is responisble for this. It could be a drive or dll that the context menu item is trying to use that hangs, but the cure still resided in the regsitry. There are many other ways that the registry can effect performance. I don't buy it at all that the registry does not slow you down. Been through way too many installs to know otherwise. Think about it. If a fresh install of OS on exact same computer can make it feel brand new again, do you think it is only the file system? The debates still go on here about wether or not defragging actually gains you anything or not. The whole registry cleaning topic is the same.

My advice, if you are willing to burn to learn, is totally fux around with it. Try a lot of the cleaner available. Be prepared to be burnt though, as has been stated already. But, you WILL learn how to recover, and that is the bonus of using reg tools. You are almost forced to learn.

For a newb, who just wants to run a cleaner, I would not. AusLogics makes a reg defragger, that I have used on countless computers with never an issue. I think it just does a re-index, not any cleaning/deleting/optimizing stuff that some claim.

Yes, I have been burnt many many times using reg tools. It can make a difference in your performance, the same as defragging can. lol, that perfomance might be milliseconds difference, but at least you can sleep at night knowing it is that much faster.

Not tryin to step on toes here, but I think the registry does get bloated and does slow SOME things down, noticably so. I am not advocating using a reg tool particuarily, but if the user is knowlegdable enough and ready to reinstall, it is a good exercise.

Sul.

 

Another user who has now dropped these Registry Cleaners.

Two of my programs, LooknStop and DefenseWall are well known not to like these automatic cleaners.

 

there is a very good one I use MV Regclean 5.9 its very good safe give it a try.

 

With the current version 1.80 they are reaching a point of almost perfection,earlier versions had difficulties to discriminate between software installs with differing releases but same software.
Recently i did some uninstalls with the latest version and afterthat i did a registry search scan with regseeker as always and to my surprise regseeker found nothing !
Note : Be carefull though and look over the findings,earlier i said ''ALMOST''.

 

Good (& relatively *safe*) registry cleaners are...

Argente free

Ace Utilities (AU) 1-off license fee of $29.95. AU includes a plethora of file management/cleaning tools, only one of which is its registry cleaner.

 

i use ccleaner and have for years no probs

i also clean the registry of all the ms crap straight after a fresh install of xp pro
never had a problem

 

Though registry cleaners are pretty useless, you may want a registry defragger. I personally use auslogics' free one.

 

Registry cleaners are very dangerous. They may screw up your system or therd-party programs in a minute. If you don't absolutely understand what registry keys and values they clean up- don't use!

 

No need use reg cleaner rather use a drive backup prog .

 

Comodo Registry Cleaner is rock solid, portable and free:

http://registry-cleaner.comodo.com/download.html

 

Spot on.

But I know of no other tool that you can use to bork the registry as well as these. From a learning standpoint, they are excellent tutors. Nothing like forcing you to learn like many of these. Sometimes though, they do work.

I like to use in a vmWare box with snapshots. I run InstallRite before and after to see just what would be changed. It can be very enlightening to see just what can be deleted without affecting the system. Or, it can show just how badly you can get borked, but this way you can see the borking.

Sul.

 

It isn't anymore free...

NTRegOpt is very good and trusty. Like Free Registry Defrag.

BTW, I don't advice Comodo Reg. Cleaner.

With the Registry is adviced to choose cleaners that doesn't clean to much. People likes to see many items to clean; this is a dangerous posture.

I use Eusing Registry Cleaner and MV RegCleaner. Both are reliable and does a good work. They allow to export a list of items to clean; user can analyze easily before clean. With MV RegCleaner I use the automatic cleaner with command line (keeps .reg backup file).

 

but is there a reg cleaner with a online database ,that can use to more safe?