Is there any use for Registry Cleaners

All around the Web you can read about the use of registry cleaners,mainly there are two camps,One are against any use of registry cleaners and Two use them on a regular basis.I personally think that because the windowsregistry is the most complex part of the system,you better take the utmost care in deleting keys,but then there is quite some understanding needed to make decisions, its difficult item,its not for some reason that there are quite educated people who warns against any messing with the registry[it makes no difference in gain they used to say],and other even educated people who promote the use of it. So Guys what do you think about !!

 

I didn't use Registry Cleaners until now, but I'm planning to use one after my re-installation in September and it doesn't really matter which registry cleaner I use as long it can do three things :
- backup/restore registry
- remove registries
- ignore or exclude registries (which isn't always available)
99% of the registry cleaners have only one goal : clean as many registries as possible, because that is the wish of the user.
That's the reason, why the ignore function doesn't have the same selection options as the remove function. Sometimes the ignore function doesn't even exist or is poorly programmed.

1. I don't remove registries, that are created by legitimate softwares, even when they are reported by any registry cleaner. I put these registries on ignore, so that I won't see them again during the next scan, but I KEEP them.
I see no valid reason to remove unused legitimate registries.
So after a clean install, my registry cleaner won't report anything anymore.

2. I will use my registry cleaner also after uninstalling softwares, in case "Total Uninstall" makes a mistake to remove registry leftovers.
At this moment, I don't know if "Total Uninstall" does a complete job or not.

3. Since my registry report is supposed to be blank in a normal situation, any registry that is still reported will be considered as a possible suspicious one.
My registry is normally protected by my frozen snapshot, so that is in theory not possible.

I will certainly not use my registry cleaner as a regular cleaning tool for my registry, like many users do, because that makes a registry cleaner really 'dangerous'. So I will keep my registry cleaner under control.

 

Click here for previous response to same sort of question

 

Hi All

About the registry , bugaboo utilities for registry, and some hints:*

First some preliminary informations about the W xp registry.

1- Unlike the previous version of Windows, the Registry Size Limit
functionality has been removed from Windows XP and W 2003 as
explained in this MSKB article:
http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;292726&x=13&y=12

2- The access to the registry by the system or an application is not
sequential. They don't reads the registry keys from the beginning until
they found the correct key, therefore the size of the registry and the
number of the keys have no real impact for the access performances.

3- It's a fact that sometimes it's necessary to delete some keys to
fix a specific problem. An example of this is the problem with AVI files
which are impossible to delete or rename.The solution is to delete
that key :
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}\InProcServer32.

4- It's a fact that the vast majority of programs uninstalled do not remove
all their keys in the registry.The uninstallation programs are too much
often an example of bad programmation.

I some case the bad uninstallation prevent the reinstallation of the
program itself. An example of this is Norton Anti-virus.
To uninstall it you must download a specific program to finished the job.

An other worst example is Zone Alarm which can't be uninstalled except with
a complicated manual remove explained on their Web site... The keys
remainings in the registry prevent also the installation of an other
firewall untill you clean all the ZA keys remaining in the registry.

5- But it's also a fact that many registry cleaners clean too much
and have a negative impact to the operating systems. When this happen
the problems don't appear immediatly after deleting an important registry
keys.The negative impact may happens days or week after.
How to find what's going on in this case?


6- The worst things who happen to the registry is the registry corruption Preventing Windows XP to boot and not the orphan keys which have few impacts if they have one...

Most of the times this important problem comes from bad programs or malwares. But the most important factors comes at the shutdown time.

a) a power failure, surcharge or important current variations.

b) defective hardware related to writing such as disk, disk controler, ram
etc.

c) a "wild" shutdown or a program or a driver causing bad entries in the
registry

Did registry "tools" prevent or fix these issues

I ) Since there is no more size limit of the registry, the number of
orphans keys is not so important if they have some...
The claim of registry cleaner vendors about this factor is an hoax.

II ) Since the access is not sequential their claim about performances
and optimisation is also an hoax.

III ) When it's time to delete a specific registry key as stated in # 3 is
needed, the Windows XP regedit is the tools you need to do that job.
Why pay for somethings else ? Did any of thoses registry utilities can
find and fix a problem like the one I have talked previously at # 3?

IV ) It's a fact that most registry cleaners can find a reasonable number
of orphan keys leaved by an uninstallation but there is no guaranty of
this.

The best solution is to prevent that kind of problem by using a specific
utility such as Total Uninstall which monitor the installations and provide
a complete and targetted cleanup... Not a "guess" of what are the orphans
keys... TUN : http://www.martau.com/

V ) The best things we can do for a sane registry is to keep Windows XP
free of malwares.

VI ) The others cares for the Windows XP registry are :

a) Keep an eye to the hardware componants, keep the PC free of dust and
cool.

b) Used on regular basis the tools provided by Windows XP :

Event Viewer : Start | Run | evntvwr.msc
Hints about errors:http://www.eventid.net/

Devices manager : Start | Run | devmgmt.msc
Hints about dev errors:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310123

CHKDSK : to check and fix the errors on the hard disk.
I'm sure you realise the impact if the system attemps to save the registry
on a bad sector...

Defragmentation :
( give a better acces to the disk and keep the disk cooler...)
Start | Run | dfrg.msc

c) Used of some reliable third party tools to protect the registry :

Defragmentation of the protected files of W XP including the registry
hives:
C:\Windows\System32\config\default
C:\Windows\System32\config\SAM
C:\Windows\System32\config\SECURITY
C:\Windows\System32\config\software
C:\Windows\System32\config\system
etc.

with Page Defrag of Mark Russinovich :
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/FileAndDisk/PageDefrag.mspx

Registry Backup with ERUNT of Lars Hederer:
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

d) Install the MS UPHClean service in your system :

User Profile Hive Cleanup Service
A service to help with slow log off and unreconciled profile problems.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582&displaylang=en

With those informations and tools you'll be able to decide yourself if
using a registry cleaner is a good option and if you to pay to have a
good one.

And always use caution if you're using one of these "cleaner"...

Don't "crunch" the W xp registry please.

 

I think they are useless.

 

Thanks Climinole, for me its an eyeopener and a very thorough explanation !!

 

A question about Total Uninstall, hoping that is not OT.
I always wondered how it can work with multiple installs. Assume that I install softwares A then B then C then D over time. According to my (admittedly fuzzy) understanding of how TU works, to make sure I have a correct unistall of A I should first uninstall - in order - D then C then B, and this sounds extremely laborious (not to mention the reinstall of BCD afterwards). Am I missing something?

 

I use CC plus Wise and Eusing on my 2K and XP64, I also defragment with NTEGOPT, I have had no issues, both my installs are over year old.

 

The One Defragger with intelligence and user intervention is Ultimate Defragg from Disktrix. Here defragging is one component of an al encompassing defrag strategy where placing and relocating the files is just as important as defragging,the only dependency is the windows API(as with all defraggers)but now you have the freedom to configure your disk the way you like best rather then some all automatic suited for all hardwired thingy do it for you.

 

In general, I do not recommend or use automated registry cleaners. I just don't believe they are necessary. Of course, if I had a broken copy of Windows, I suppose it's possible I could end up changing my mind. (But prevention of just such an issue is the reason I use an imaging app at least monthly.)

That said, I have tried out a few auto registry cleaning apps (before coming to the above conclusion.) The one and only freebie I would currently recommend is TweakNow RegCleaner Standard. It's quite gentle and would likely not break things (unlike some VERY aggresive cleaners like, IMO, RegSeeker.)

Paid, I really would only trust Jouni Vuorio's products (jv16 PowerTools and the like.) While I haven't bought any of his most recent efforts, once in a while I have done some manual registry cleanup with his older, last freeware version of jv16 PowerTools (version 1.3.) I believe he understands the Windows registry as well as or better than most programmers out there.

http://www.tweaknow.com/RegCleaner.html
http://www.macecraft.com/jv16powertools2007/
http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=jv16

 

For me its quite clear reading the post from Climinole,how to deal with these registry cleaners.The bottomline "beware off " is well taken.

 

Hi newbino

There is one ".tun" file per installed program. There's no mix between different programs installed over the time. Also: it's possible to install more than one program in one shot: if this option is used the uninstallation is done for all these programs...

If you installed many programs in sequence: A today, B tomorrow, C in three days, etc you may later choose to uninstall B only, or B then A... as you wish.

There's no relation between the installation/uninstallation of these different programs and the installation sequence.

 

For me its quite clear now that ever more people adapt to the view as exposed by Climinole [read his post],in perusing the different respectable forums around the web such as Castle Cobs,Ars Technica and the like there always was and is a strong warning against the use of reg.cleaners "You can break more then you can benefit from if there is any "And it amazed me that the register can take quite some cluthering without any effect on performance and stability as explained by Climinole,so i am on my way to Lars Hederer !

 

I think 99% are dangerous.

And that 99% of people who use them will hose their OS.

But I'm in the 1% of both.

 

As posted above, cleaning registry improves PC's performance a bit, but it is not worth problems, that could follow.
I tried many cleaners and so far I allways had various problems afterwards (removed extensions, unable to uninstall, ect).
The best way to clean registry is to do use a reg cleaner, but check all entries before deletion, but that is quite impossible.
So far I use CCleaner only, because it is a weak reg cleaner, but on the other hand, it is safe, though it can be nasty as well.
Only cleaning registry is not enough, defragmenting registry has to follow, because the free space has to be released from registry.
It quite the same like with a HDD, after you remove files, you have to defragment HDD and there is no doubt, that it helps, is not it?!
But I guess, that Windows cleans and defragments registry itself, but MS never share this info with common users, so not sure about it.

 

I can't remember where i read some tests about before/after cleaning the registry, performance wise,but the outcome and conclusion was, its useless to use a registry cleaner.

 

A PC with 20 MB registry is faster than a PC with 30 MB registry, nLite and vLite are good examples.
Anyone, who tried cleaning registry, knows, that it does help, of course much more on low-end PC.
If someone has a high-end PC, he does not really need to improve his PC's performance by 1%.

Simply put as someone said, if everything works, why to fix it? Only if needed to fix some problems, but not to speed up PC.

 

I think most people are concerned about integrity of the register more than speed so the use of Totall Uninstal becomes all the more important to get rid of these uninstall leftovers. http://www.freeware-guide.com/dir/util/uninst.html

 

I personally feel registry cleaners are handy tools. Many of them are dangerous to a system but i've found some over the years that work well for me. I like to keep my registry free of junk which helps to keep my system running good..

 

Thanks, Climenole, it was a longstanding doubt.

 

Same here, although you do have to make sure to backup your registry prior to removing anything.
Never encountered problems with the ones I'm using.

 

Bonjour: Let me put my comments in red to stay OT! 1st let me say how impressed I was with the detail in your posts on registries!

 

Hi Escalader

Wow ! In red ! That's a very Nice colour for comments

This is an example only.

No it's not possible to know in advance. Actually almost every programs let some keys in the registry.
One funny things to try is to install a program with TUN an remove it with Add and remove program then launch TUN to uninstall the remaining keys...

Norton is only an example of this bad practice. It's seems that the developper are unable to understand how it's important to do a clean job with their uninstaller. They don't care.
Same problem with MS Office for example...

For Norton you have to download this program:

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/removal_tools/

Why they dont give this uninstaller with the installation of their product instead?

They only way to remove almost any entries of a specific program is to make a search in the registry with the right keyword...

With the windows registry editor it's too much job.

This time you can use a registry cleaner, not to "clean", but to search:
with RegSeeker and his search function...

But the best solution is always an installation / uninstallation program like TotalUninstall.

The most recent version are shareware but it's possible to find the old one
(v 2.34 or 2.35) (just click on the link for a direct download):

http://www.gratilog.net/xoops/modules/mydownloads/visit.php?cid=224&lid=381


Good programs for Registry:

Page Defrag of Mark Russinovich :
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...ageDefrag.mspx

Registry Backup with ERUNT from Lars Hederer:
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

MS User Profile Hive Cleanup Service
A service to help with slow log off and unreconciled profile problems.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

 

I find using a registry cleaner useful.
Never had a problem when using them either.
But as a rule I check every item before cleaning.
I make sure that the tool I use has a backup or restore feature as a safe guard.

 

Exactly, the app i use automatically backs up the registry so i've no worries tinkering around with it. Worst comes to worst i can easily restore a clean image .