Do you use Registry cleaners in Windows 7??

*This is a Windows Seven only Poll*

Being relatively new to windows 7 I have an issue I'd like your comments on. As a long-time XPer I'm inclined to reach for a Reg cleaner by habit. The Win7forum lads claim Win7 does NOT need third party Registry cleaners etc. And they're pretty forceful about it.

In a recent Wilders Poll on Registry Cleaners -Do you use any? The 'users' slam-dunked the 'abstainers' 281-104:

Admittedly the poll didn't differentiate between XP & Win7. Is win7's Registry really 'self-suffient'?? Please vote AND an give an opinion about use/abstention please.

 

Well i have a registry cleaner called registry life installed but i only use it after uninstalling an application and not on a regular basis.As a personal opinion i dont really think windows 7 needs one as a rule unless there are some issues where a cleaner would help.
I know its not much help to you but as a regular maintenance regime i would say no.

 

I must have missed something here. Does Win7 have a built-in registry cleaner, is it that it does "perfect uninstallations" so that it doesn't leave registry leftovers or what?

I use Wise Registry Cleaner.

 

No poll to vote on as of yet, but no, I don't use any anymore. After recent issues and performance degrading with CCleaner, I've decided against them. It's really nothing for me to simply head into RegEdit and delete the entries myself, usually more effectively since I'm targeting specific ones and not "obsolete" entries. Even after CCleaner use I almost every time found leftovers that it somehow missed. If I can do a better, more thorough job without risk, I might as well.

 

No, it's just that I think the registry is less affected by leaving in old, no longer used entries than it may have been in the past. Windows has never done a "perfect uninstall"

 

Yes, i know that registry cleaning at the end is a sort of voodoo science, where it's more about believing or not. But my doubt comes exactly on why those "lads" say that Win7 does not need cleaners? I mean, why Win7 and not XP? What changed since XP that made Win7 different?

I clean the registry just because i like the idea of "clean" things, nothing more. And after using Wise Cleaner since the first day i installed Win7, i trust it enough to avoid disasters.

 

Not much between XP and 7, but earlier versions were more prone to becoming corrupted and just weren't as "well built" so to speak. Registry virtualization also has made a difference, and really, back then you could see performance increases by carefully getting rid of junk entries. It just isn't needed these days, and most people will brick their systems in the hopes of a tad more "speed".

 

Sorry about the poll. Awaiting mod assist. And yes, Win7 Mods. are fanatical about win7's perfunction. though they'll look the other way if they catch CCleaner on a submitted log.

 

You don't need to clean the registry no matter what version of Windows you use. With Windows XP and later it is very rare indeed to see any noticeable increase in speed from cleaning the registry. Regardless of what version of Windows you use, it is extremely rare to fix and kind of computer problems at all by cleaning the registry. I am an expert at fixing computer problems, and I regularly fix computers. If the computer is running slowly with no obvious cause, or has problems I often will clean the registry. But, you know what? It never works.

I've been using registry cleaners for years, and I only recall three instances where they have fixed problems, and only one where the computer ran faster after having the registry cleaned.

On the other hand, there are numerous times when problems have been caused by cleaning the registry.

It may seem nice to have a clean registry, but around 99.9% of so called registry errors are harmless, and there is absolutely no benefit to be gained by removing them. If you use on the very few registry cleaners which don't give problems it is safe to remove the "errors", but sadly nearly all registry cleaners will mistakenly identify at least some valid registry keys as being errors and delete them. Often, this can cause problems.

I don't recommend the use of Wise Registry Cleaner as it wants to remove some valid registry keys - making it unsafe to use. I know this as I tried the latest version just two days ago.

Unless you are 100% sure the registry cleaner you are using is safe, then the best advice I can give you is to never ever clean the registry.

 

I'm sure that a lot of CCleaner users never use the registry cleaner module, and in any case the registry cleaner in CCleaner is for the most part safe to use, and if you disable the check for obsolete software keys then it is very safe.

The same can't be said for 99% of other registry cleaners.

 

I agree.

 

In decades of Windows usage, I have never once used one...

 

Yes I use. I bought a lifetime license of jv16 PowerTools. Another one is CCleaner, which has a more limited registry cleaning functionality.

 

After trying nearly every reg cleaner out there and getting nothing but problems. I stopped using them. period

Speaking of my tests, JV16 Power Tools was the worst, the moment I cleaned the registry after the restart I could not even boot to Windows. This is the worst program you can ever get on a PC

 

When I was a noob's noob 2 years ago I used Registry Cleaners like they were toilet paper - clean!...must clean!
Now that I'm only a noob, I hardly ever use them. I use CCleaner maybe just to check after I have done a uninstall of a program to see if some junk left over.

 

Just CCleaner like . . . once in a month or even less, like once in a couple months. Too lazy and after all these years no noticeable difference.

 

I never had this sort of problem with jv16 PowerTools. Anyways, I use its safest and slowest cleaning settings.

 

+1. Macecraft develops the most reliable Registry Cleaner.

 

There has never been a noticeable increase in speed, unless probably someone has installed tons of applications and then uninstalled leaving all their junk. It isn't Win version related either, as registry is loaded in the memory. The only reason why some people claim that in older Windows there was a speed up, was really related to the fact that RAM back then had less bandwidth than more modern RAM has.

I do it, just because i hate the idea of junk files. Psychological reason if you like. Been using them since Windows 95. Sometimes they do resolve some issues, mainly between versions of programs, where the old one wasn't uninstalled cleanly and the new one can't install properly because the license is messed up or something like that.

Thanks, but i 've been lucky with Wise Registry Cleaner since 2009, so i guess, i can keep my lucky streak for a bit longer. I usually update to a newer version only after seeing the release notes. Right now i m using a bit older version.

Most registry cleaners will remove some "valid" entries, which though get recreated automatically next time. On the bright side, they also clean a few hundred references to my DVD drive, where i keep the installers of the programs when i re-install Windows, and these entries are all pure junk as they point to removable media (just an example). And i don't like junk. Some cleaners can get you into trouble, yes. But i 've never had issues with Wise or Eusing. The good thing today is that there are several free imaging software or recovery software, so even if you were to get bit by a reg cleaner, you are 1 image/snapshot away from eliminating the problem. In XP or Win98 days, that was worse.

 

This is quite simply not the case. Even after many years of development, JV still can't get it right, and to this day it continues to have issues with false positives.

Sure it is safer than almost all other registry cleaners, but it does give false positives, which is why I will never ever clean my registry with it.

 

As Fuzzfas pointed out, some false positives are harmless, as they get recreated automatically.

The safest/slowest settings of JV16 PowerTools Lite EX 2013 (it's free for those with valid licenses of the complete suite and I'm using it until the most complete 2013 version is released) are yet to give me any issues (my previous issues were fixed as well).

 

I have never used a registry cleaner with any version of Windows. I used to delete obsolete entries manually with XP, but I seldom mess w/ it on 7. (FWIW, the staff at Microsoft.com forums are adamant about the importance of not using reg cleaners, especially not using CCleaner with MSE.)

 

All registry cleaners do that (false positives); even the one of CCleaner.

I guess you will never use any registry cleaner or you will try another product?

I agree with you on the issue that
''jv16 PowerTools is Safer than almost all registry cleaners, but it offers FPs".

Being the most reliable Registry Cleaner does Not mean Being a 100% Accurate Registry Cleaner.

Besides, what's the "Perfect" Registry Cleaner? None.

I feel sorry that you had such a bad experience with jv16 PowerTools...

 

No. I don't see any need for it at all.

I do use CCleaner for removing temporary files from time to time, though. Windows accumulates file cruft very quickly, and the built-in cleanup tool is inadequate for dealing with third-party programs.

 

From my extensive experience with CCleaner (with the search for obsolete software) it has never given me a false positive. Auslogics has also never given me a false positive. Also apart from some early version, with deep scan disabled Vit Registry Fix has only ever given me one false positive.

No I was talking just about JV16.

I'm sure it works quite well if you take the time to manually check the results and uncheck the valid registry keys.