Registry Cleaner - any suggestion?

I learn more fascinating information on this board. In the past week I've been told several backup imaging programs never fail despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. Now, I've been assured that I and thousands of other folks are "stupid" and "unteachable" if we don't embrace an opinion you hold.

Since his SAT score was only 1,590 out of 1,600 (the highest possible at the time), "stupid" and "unteachable" would explain why Bill Gates has a registry cleaner included in his Windows LiveOne Care Safety Scanner: "A registry cleaner to help remove invalid or obsolete registry items on your computer."

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/products/computer/safetyscanner.mspx

Then there's Microsoft software engineer and recognized authority on the Windows operating system Mark Russinovich who recommends the use of registry cleaners. Apparently, he's cognitively-deficient ... excuse me, "stupid" and "unteachable", too: "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."

http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2005/10/02/registry-junk-a-windows-fact-of-life.aspx

It was Microsoft who originally developed RegClean; why they would go to the trouble of creating a "useless" program eludes me. Then there's that "stupid" and "unteachable" Fred Langa at InformationWeek: "In all versions of Windows, the Registry can accumulate obsolete and nonfunctioning entries. Older versions of Windows, in particular, were notorious for this, often ending up with Registries containing huge numbers of erroneous entries. This slowed computer operations; and could even lead to crashes. This led to the creation of a number of third-party software utilities that purported to "clean" the Registry, finding and eliminating the extraneous, useless, or just plain bogus data stored there."

http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=171203805

 

I have been doing that for years. I don't see the point of imaging a system that is full of junk. Sooner or latter things will be so mucked up on the image that it will be little better than the system itself. Of course thats just what I believe to be the case and most certainly just because I believe something doe not make it correct.

 

I sort of suspected that. Thanks

 

Could I trouble you for some links to this research? Please do not take it that I am challenging you, I really do want to learn and decide for myself if cleaning is beneficial. As to it being harmful, many years of personal experience with the programs I use would indicate it is not harmful to any significant degree. I am almost as likely to have my drive fail as I am to have one of my reg cleaners mess up my system from what I can see. And if my cleaning does cause a problem i can simply restore the backup registry. A failed drive is not quite so easy to remedy. Still, I have an open mind and am willing to learn.

 

I couldn't give a fig about how many knowledgeable people have said whatever they have said. I do know that if I install a clean windows xp system plus my usual programs and then run Advanced System Care that boot times improve by 15 seconds

 

I suppose that you can cite those 'real world experiments' - not that I deny your opinionated conclusion.

 

To deny sarcasm,there is so much about these proofs on the web,just search for usefullness of registry cleaners.

http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=643

 

No sarcasm intended ....and that link is just another opinion!

 

Microsoft suggests it is up to the individual to either use or not use a registry cleaner .

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-us/help/449a5c7d-f9f9-4392-800c-83503145889f1033.mspx

Cheers,
SourMilk out

 

The way I read it, they are suggesting you don't really need one, and note the warning they give you about understanding what values your changing. Thank's for the link by the way.

 

That's precisely what I did before I ever used one. What you appear incapable of accepting is the fact genuinely knowledgeable people can hold, in good faith, different opinions on this subject without denigrating other folks as "stupid" and "unteachable." If you possess greater expertise on Windows system architecture than Mark Russinovich then you've failed to disclose it.

I don't know if using (carefully selected) registry cleaners improves my PCs' startup times by one nanosecond or increases performance by a fraction of a per cent or not. What I do know is I prefer leftover registry entries belonging to long-uninstalled programs and similar garbage not be present. As anyone who ever uninstalled True Image and attempted to install ShadowProtect discovers, certain leftover ATI registry entries (e.g. snapman) conflict with SP and it's necessary to weed them out in order to use SP. There's nothing unusual about leftover registry items causing conflicts with other programs.

As I stated in my initial post, there's a good argument for not using registry cleaners, particularly if a person doesn't diligently use backup imaging software. However, IMHO, your notion that anyone who doesn't share your belief is "stupid" and "unteachable" is nonsensical and unwarranted. I'm reasonably confident Mark Russinovich and other experts on the Windows operating system who share his opinion aren't "stupid."

Was that ever in doubt? It's a fact, however, that Microsoft has developed registry cleaners for over a decade and touts the presence of one in their current Windows LiveOne Care Safety Scanner. Presumably they wouldn't do this if their software engineers thought it was "useless."

 

Yes Mark knows how to deal with OS internal workings,sure about that and he is respected engineer at M$,but how many of us can claim to be equal in knowledge as he is ?
My only intent here is to warn against to indiscriminate using this stuff mostly done by lesser knowledgeable people blindly believing the bla bla bla....surrounding it.
Everybody i assume knows that just visiting some websites cause immediately a message to pop up '' your computer maybe at risk,do a free registry scan now'',then its easy to push the button and the scan results are invariable hundreds of critical errors !! '' Buy now to fix it''.
But Mark knows how to fix some exceptional conflicts manually and use a cleaner in order to find the suspect.
So i myself included amongst the majority of computer users who are lesser knowledgeable its better to stay away from this stuff it can do more harm then good.

Referring to uninstall an orphaned driver,yes this is one of situations where just deleting it cause problems.Manually unregistering it is complicated,so if a cleaner can do that for you the better.But i have my doubts about that.

 

Huupi how would you explain the point I made in post #55 ? A freshly installed Windows Xp SP3 plus Office and other work programs boots in 15 seconds less after Advanced System Care has been installed and run.

 

Only reason i can think off is that Windows comes native with much bloat,many useless services always running at startup.I know ASC take care of that after initial scan asking you what to do,disable or not but ASC know nothing about your specific network configuration so if you'r guessing chances are that it disable needed services.

 

Softpedia's recent review didn't fill me with enthusiasm for Comodo System Cleaner:

"Judging strictly from the list of modules available and set of options Comodo System Cleaner sounds like a great idea. But testing the application reveals plenty of bugs still to be attended.

Among the unsafe entries of the Registry Cleaner we also found an item of an application that had been long uninstalled and there was absolutely no trace of it in the location given by Comodo System Cleaner.

Secure file wipe does not work properly and all data safely erased was recovered completely and with absolutely no trouble using a freebie file undeleter. All in all, Comodo System Cleaner acts as if in early beta stage and there are plenty of bugs to fix."

http://www.softpedia.com/reviews/windows/Comodo-System-Cleaner-Review-104568.shtml

 

I have been using these cleaners for far too long without negative effect that its hard to take the warning of the danger seriously. If things were as ominous as claimed they are there would be far fewer of these programs out there and the majority of folks would know not to play with them. Certainly reg editors are more potentially hazardous.

So possibly they really do nothing but they certainly are not generally causing mayhem. Sort of like vitamin C, it possibly helps fight off a cold but if you are taking it for this purpose, taking it will very probably not cause you a great deal of harm.

If you want to argue the "it does nothing" positive fine. You may be able to make a case for this, but experience is a very powerful ally on the side of reg cleaners not necessarily being dangerous to the health of the PC. Can things sometimes go wrong? Sure they can, but this can happen anytime for many reasons and none of them require the use of a reg cleaner.

It is well known that installing software, even from reputable publishers, can cause your PC to develop serious problems. The simple act of installing program A can cause all sorts of conflicts etc. So would you seriously suggest not ever installing programs?

Likewise it is often said that it is imperative to image drives and to confirm the validity of the image. However, in reallity, it is imperative to do this for a relatively small segment of the PC user population. Particularly those that like to muck with their PCs internals system wise and to try lots of programs. For the rest the reformat and reinistalation of an OS and all programs etc will be rare enough for imaging to not be critical (and really I suspect it is relatively rare across the entire PC using universe, say 10% of the daily casual PC users). Still a good idea, but hardly critical (now I have probably started a whole new argument but be that as it may ......).

It is also often argued that sooner or latter everyone will experience a hard drive failure, its not known when but it is almost certain that sometime in a persons PC using life this will happen. I have been using a PC for 18 to 20 years and have not had it happen yet, a few folks I know had it happen but most have never encountered this. So given that the majority will not use their PC long enough before upgrading for the drive to fail, and given that a drive will fail (or most hardware for that matter) within the first few months of use if its going to fail at all. Its not really a big issue for a lot of folks to image at all (now back to the topic). By the same token for many folks its not nec to run reg cleaners because the way they use their PC does not generate enough obsolete and erroneous entries to cause a problem with them simply sitting forever on the PC.

For the rest of the population, that portion that tries out lots of software, repeatedly installing and uninstalling software and tweaking the PC, most will be happy with the so called safe reg cleaners. For these the cleaners may or may not do any good but they are likely not to do much harm. IF these mess up a PC at all it generally will be simply a case of a certain program not running properly and more often than not thats easily fixed.

Then there is the relatively small percentage of power users who really do need to know their stuff. Who need to be able to understand what they are doing because they use cleaners that dig deep enough to possibly do real harm to the PC. I would suspect that the majority of these people can deal with whatever comes their way. They very likely have scores of images to restore to if necessary so they are safe from most anything including the entire range of issues that does not in any way involve reg cleaners.

So what point am I trying, in a roundabout and convoluted way, to make? Just that this issue is nothing more than a tempest in a tea pot. The extreme position of both sides is just that, generally a tempest in a tea pot. Use reg cleaners as and if you see fit or don't if thats your preference. For the majority of folks (that is the majority of all computer users) it will not matter one way or another. It may or may not help a bit but its not likely to hurt much if you do.

Sorry about the long post, I get that way sometimes.

 

Hey! Post away, because I enjoy reading a lot of your posts.

I am post deficient....LOL

P.S. There used to be someone else that that I looked forward to reading and from whom I learned much,... herbalist from the old Lavasoft forum days. Easter mentioned him one of his recent posts in these forums.

 

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I have a couple of registry cleaners. If you are interested in which ones, go to my website and look. And yes, I use them. However, I do not recommend them to be used by most people because they can damage your system and most people either do not realize this, do not accept this, or do not know how to recover from this. Or some combination of those three options. Myself, I have a rigorous backup and recovery strategy that I regularly test and validate. And yes, now and again I do step on myself and need to use it. But it is there, I know it works, and I know how to use it. That strategy is also documented on my hobby website. If you do not have these precautions in place, be prepared to reinstall your OS and rebuild your user data. I assure you that sooner or later, whether you use a registry cleaner or not, you will need to do that. Perhaps your harddrive will fail. Maybe you will get a virus or spyware infestation. Any number of reasons. Preparedness is the key. Risk management. That is really the best you can strive towards.

 

For Vista64 I'm using & am happy with Wise Registry Cleaner 4 Free.

 

i will ALWAYS use a reg cleaner and i also recc them to my clients. i only really rec ccleaner to clients because its not at all as aggressive as most reg cleaners are and i can set it up to not be very dangerous for them to use. myself and for anyone with knowledge jv16 hands down. ive tried a LOT of cleaners and i always end up with jv16 installed in the end.

but i agree they can be dangerous if you do not know what you are doing. for my customers like that i explain what to do with it and only to do that. they 99.9% of the time listen to me.. the other .01% well they pay to fix the system again since they didnt listen lol.

 

OK., I USE : CCleaner, RegSeeker, Advanced SystemCare PRO, also PureRa, yes.

Wise Registry Cleaner, I used, is excellent.

Yours PROROOTECT, ami qui vous veut du bien ...

 

So just translate it,100% of the NOT listeners,all failed in their cleaning routine !! Hmmmm.........LOL.

How dangerous without knowledge. not LOL

 

This is true.

A similar stat is that 100% of folks who died from cancer even though they had cancer treatment are dead. Thats 100% of them. Scary stat if you ask me. It really makes one wonder if treatment to fight cancer is something worth doing.

I agree with this as well, without knowledge statistics can be very dangerous LOL

 

Actually since 100% of the people who have ever lived, died, it makes one wonder about life itself. Especially life with statistics.