I'm using Eusing Free Registry Defrag. EDIT: the gains probably aren't bigger than disabling windows time service (in terms of RAM saved), but I just like to maintain the system as tidy as possible.
I voted "Other specific Registry Defrag..." - I use ERUNT Gui and PageDefrag...and BTW I don't see e.g. Vit Registry Fix, Glary, Argente...
The performance increase is noticed more in the HD than in the registry and how much can you compact on average...8% maybe.
Ussualy ~50%. A month ago it decreased registry size from 100MB to 40MB and I do it about 1-2 times per month. I am not an expert, but I suppose, that if registry entries have ~20MB size, registry can have like 200MB, because free space will not to be reused, if there is not enough clusters for other entries, so it is not like HDD where 20MB is allways 20MB, just fragmented. I guess, that is why Linux has no registry, txt forever. P.S.: LastDefrag=7/3/2011 18:44:08 - SizeRecovered=28,820 KB (30%)
NTRegOpt by Lars Hederer. Using it and ERUNT to backup hive registry files. Both with command line switches that allows perform an automated registry backup/registry optimize, without user interaction.
Registry defragmentation has never been shown to increase any performance. However, messing with your registry can completely destroy your OS. Therefor, none.
Auslogics guys explain this better: So this is not a performance myth, neither a dangerous registry edit. Stop confusing things, people.
Yes, Auslogics wants to sell their program. You can find plenty of articles explaining the myths of defragging/ cleaning your registry. Here's a quick google search result explaining some myths: http://lifehacker.com/5033518/debunking-common-windows-performance-tweaking-myths
There is nothing in that article about defragging/compacting/compressing registry. Try to read the articles you link people to, before posting them.
Auslogics point was that you safe space when you defrag your registry -- you reduce the size. Removing registry values will reduce the size as well. IE: Reducing the size has no performance benefits. And if something went wrong during the defrag your registry could end up corrupted. edit: I could be wrong. I've long heard it was a myth. I'm not inclined to believe Auslogics' own review of their product.
Sigh. But the article you linked (which is good btw) didn't tell you this lie. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Your logic is flawed as the free space isn't recovered after programs are installed, used and removed - the data will be marked as blank but remains in place, which makes the registry more and more fragmented over time. FYI, registry defragging is recommended by Mark Russinovich, Technical Fellow in the Platform and Services Division at Microsoft, and author of the PageDefrag tool, that does just that (among with defragging the paging file). ~Off topic comments removed. Discuss the software disagreements in a rational manner please.~
Ok, if you copy a file to a clean hard drive, it gets stored as close to the beginning as it can get. Normally, this causes files to happily line up. Sometimes though, when you delete a file, then copy a new file over, the new file is bigger than the free space from the old one. So it lays a chunk into the free space, then the rest in the next free space. This is fragmentation, and can cause slowdown as the hard drive has to spin about to locate the entire file. The Registry is composed of 5 files. These files are in "reserved space" and cannot normally fragment, since they don't change size dramatically so they tend to sit in their happy place with no issues. The Registry itself cannot fragment because the stuff inside has a certain place it has to live. It can't be chopped up and stuck in different locations in the registry because that would be stupid and serve no purpose. However, it can get junk like lines that no longer function or point to anything, and those bog it down since it still has to read those lines to do stuff. CCleaner gets rid of most of those lines, though, like any other automated process, does have a small chance of messing things up by deleting things it shouldn't. But that's life.
Again, you are confusing things. We aren't talking about physical defragmentation of registry files (which really isn't necessary). We are talking about simply compacting the registry hives to the minimum size possible (which came to be known as registry defragmentation)! This procedure removes any slack space, reducing the registry size and ultimately the amount of RAM the registry takes up, improving the computer performance. That can be done and should be done, according to Microsoft: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897426
1) Runs on: Client: Windows XP (32-bit) Server: Windows Server 2003 (32-bit) 2) Published: November 1, 2006
"PageDefrag does not defragment the contents of the registry files, only the placement of these files on the hard drive. " from the wikipage on it SO, basically, you MIGHT save yourself maaaaaaaybe 1MB of RAM from defragging the registry. Maybe.
PageDefrag is a limited tool, that's why people use NTREGOPT and/or others to achieve a better result. I use Eusing Free Registry Defrag and it does an excellent job.
Regardless of the tool you can reduce the space of the registry all you like and you'll only ever end up with about 1MB of extra RAM if you're lucky. I personally would not bother installing an entire program to save 1MB of RAM. edit: I ran the registry defrag from auslogics. It saved me approximately 4,200Kb of space in my registry....