RegSeeker Question: How SAFE is it???

I've read some good reviews about RegSeeker and finally decided to give it a spin last night. For my regular registry cleaning tools, I use RegHealer and CCleaner....followed by Norton Win Doctor.

Well after trying RegSeeker, it found 817 "invalid" entries. All but 98 of them were marked in RED.

After backing up my system, I decided to delete ALL of the 817 entries (red and green). I quickly discovered that Norton Systemworks wasn't properly working thereafter, so I tried restoring the backup made by RS to the registry (which failed).

I restored the backup system image and ran RS again. The same 817 entries were found but this time I only decided to delete the RED entries only. I haven't noticed any issues yet.

Most of the GREEN entries consisted of files in the following locations: %windir%\tracing, %SystemRoot%\system32\ various DLL and EXE files. How would I know which of these entries are safe to delete and which ones should be kept?

I was just wondering how SAFE RegSeeker is? It's kind of odd to me that this program finds 800+ invalid registry items that were not picked up by RegHealer and CCleaner.

Also what do the GREEN and RED marked entries mean? Is one color safer to delete than the other?

Any help/info/suggestions/recommendations from RegSeeker users would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

iirc, the green entries are safer to remove.

i used regseeker for a few days and at one time i think it deleted msconfig. so for now, i just use ccleaner. it hasnt caused me any problems thus far.

lastly, each registry cleaner is different. they wont all find the same things.

 

I use it sometimes aswell but i leave the red entries alone, i only delete the the green entries and even those i choose with care.
Registry cleaners are tricky things, not every cleaner will produce the same results after a scan.
You might even consider not using one because the effect of it is not significant enough to make a difference.

Lamehand

 

Personally I'd want to have a good understanding of the registry before using any cleaner no matter how safe it's claimed to be. Since I don't have the knowledge I don't use one.

 

There is nothing to understand in registry. It is like the file system. Lets say, that you remove a software, but its shortcut will stay on desktop. CCleaner will remove shortcut, since the source file for the shortcut no longer exists. Registry cleaners remove old traces left in registry.

 

I had a similar experience to Birdman, in that it found loads and loads of entries. I deleted the reds and the greens and experienced no problems at all. I didn't notice any difference in the performance of the computer though and thought using it was a waste of time.

 

First at all i think if you don't know what you are going to do, don't do it.

The Regsitry is a little more complicatet than that. The Registry is a database of nearly all the settings for Windows and your installed applications and often not easy to understand if you have a closer look at Legacy or CLSID and there references to other Dword or SZ.

So if you don't have a full understanding for example don't touch HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE; this branch contains information about all of the hardware and software installed on your computer. Since you can specify multiple hardware configurations, the current hardware configuration is specified in HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG; this branch points to the part of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE appropriate for the current hardware configuration. One has references to an other and so on.

So, what ever software you use to 'clean' your registry, it is always advisable to back up your registry before making any changes to it. Note that the Registry is intended to be a little intimidating, because it is possible to screw up your entire system if you don't know what you're doing. If you back up the Registry before continuing, you eliminate this possibility.

For backung up automaticly once a day my Registry i use Erunt. You can back it up also manualy at each moment.
For 'cleaning' I personal use 'sometimes' Tuneup Utilities', and hard stuff i delete manualy by using the search funcion of a Registry Editor.

 

RegSeeker is the most aggressive registry cleaner of all popular registry cleaners and I've tested 13 of them.
After installing winXPproSP2 off-line (and nothing else), RegSeeker reported more than 200 registries of winXPproSP2 for removal.
All 13 registry cleaners had different results, except two, because they had the same author.

Registry cleaners should allow users :
1. to remove registries, which has usually all the necessary selection functions.
2. to exclude registries and to undo exclude, which has usually not all the necessary selection functions or doesn't exist at all.
The bottom line is that remove and exclude are not programmed in the same way, the exclude is always neglected and that is wrong.

I still have to find a registry cleaner that meets my wishes.

 

Have you tried Jv16 Registry Tools? I think they have this feature you are seeking for. I could be wrong.

 

All the features ? I doubt that very much, because JV16 was included in the test. If I have the time I will try it again without much hope

 

With all such products users must be careful. Having said that. RegSeeker is 1 of my favorite registry cleaners. Been using RS since v1.35b. No problems.

I think a true & tested backup option should be in place.

Example: About to install Opera 9.01 final. But I'm cloning my HDD first.

 

I tried JV16 again.
I could exclude registries, the way I wanted. So that's OK.
But I couldn't find a way to undo exclusions.
There must be a database somewhere, where all these exclusions are stored and where you can undo these exclusions, using one-by-one selections or multiple selections.
Question to all JV16-users :
How do I undo exclusions of registries in JV16

 

WSFuser

It didn't, you did. Whatever shows up after scanning is over only gets deleted with user permission through the action of a click

Green are all usually very safe to delete and have not ever caused a problem for me. Red should be deleted with caution. In both cases, and with any registry etc cleaner, any and all entries found should always be checked one by one to ensure they are not required. If you scan weekly then in most cases these will still be fresh in your mind, and you should be able to recognise many entries from things you have been doing recently. In particular this applies to the green entries. I seldom delete the red ones

If you click the exclusion button you can choose what you want to exclude or include

# RegSeeker Exclusion List (Registry Cleaner)

# RegSeeker copyright 2002-2003 - Hover Inc.
# All rights reserved
# Hover Inc. website : http://www.hoverdesk.net
# RegSeeker website : http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm

# To add an element, please follow the rules below :
# 0 = HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
# 1 = HKEY_CURRENT_USER
# 2 = HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
# 3 = HKEY_USERS
# Examples :
# To exclude the key : HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/MyApp
# simply add the line : 1|Software\MyApp
# to remove an exclusion, simply put a # in front of it or delete the line

 

yes it was my fault for deleting the red entries too, tho its teh first time i had a problem like that.

 

Thanks to everyone for their input.

I unchecked/excluded a few "green" entries and decided to delete ALL 800+ entries found by RegSeeker.

Thus far (fingers crossed) I found no issues with any of my programs or with how Windows XP is behaving.

I'm still a bit stunned that this app found several HUNDRED more invalid entries than any other registry cleaner program out there.

 

Always check the backup option in the main page lover left corner.

Gerard

 

It depends on what you call invalid.
My experience is that almost every software installs registries that aren't used yet and therefore reported by registry cleaners.
There is nothing wrong with these registries and I need a better reason to remove these registries, than just for pure cleaning.

Do you have the knowledge of thousands registries to be sure that it's safe to remove these registries ? Has the author of the registry cleaner the required knowledge ? All these authors have certainly a different opinion about keeping or not keeping registries. Which author will you trust ?

RegSeeker reports more than 200 registries of winXPproSP2. Is it safe to remove these registries ?
They might be needed after installing other third party softwares and could even cause problems when they are missing.

My policy is to keep these valid but unused registries and to exclude them, because I don't want to see them again in the next report mixed with other registries, that need to be removed because I uninstalled a software.
My problem is that most authors didn't pay much attention at excluding registries and that's why I can't exclude 200+ registries in one hit, but I can remove 200+ registries in one hit.
If the registry cleaner allows me to exclude, I usually can exclude one-by-one, which is quite a job for 200+ registries.
Why is there such a difference in selection methods between removal AND (undo) exclusion ?
There is no reason at all, the author had just only one thing in mind : remove as many registries as possible, because that's what users seem to like.

If the selection methods were equal for removal and (undo) exclusion, I would be able to use any registry cleaner in a safe way and I would be more in control, but registry cleaners make it difficult for me to do this.

 

I use it regularly and have been safe by deleting only the findings that are in green fonts. In addition to those, I read EVERY one of the findings that are shown in yellow and red before deleting them.

It finds a lot of entires that are not found by other registry cleaners.

First time I used it, I deleted everything it found assuming that it was safe to do this. My computer crashed and I did not use it for a while after that but with care in use, it is one of the best available including those that you have to pay for (I have some of those too).

Another good one is not free but excellent. It is SystemSuite's registry fixer. I have deleted all they list with no problems but still read all those in yellow or red before deleting.

 

You have a point here for if you run 3 different registry cleaners, you might
come up with three different results that differ a lot from one another.
For my part, I use them scarcely. I have CCleaner and JV Power tools and Reg Seeker and would use them only when necessary or for a specific purpose. I do a backup before and delete the entries that the registery cleaner indicates are safe to delete or that I am really sure should be deleted especially before running JV Power tools and Reg Seeker. I remember finding them quite helpful 2 times when my antivirus was not able to delete a trojan found in the profile shared folder. Once, there was an annoying window constantly popping out of nowhere while I was working on my pc. So I tried to delete it manually but it did not work, it seemed to be write-protected. I opened Reg Seeker, searched for the specific folder where the nasty was, I located the threat with RS and was able to delete it successfully. The popup window never reappeared after!

BUT, I remember another time when I started using a computer I deleted files that were supposed to be safe to remove with Registry Cleaner (I had RC in the past!) and could not run Windows Media Player properly anymore. I had to wait for the next update to have it work again. Maybe a system restore could have solved my problem but I was a beginner at that time and did not have the right reflex or response to that kind of situation.

And....whether it results in any transparent performance gains compared to the time one must spend running, maintaining, and updating the program is a totally separate question....To gain speed & increase my pc performance, I eliminate programs I almost never use, move a great deal of images and photographs on cd's, I deactivate many menu effects, desktop animated screensavers and try to keep the machine as clean as possible.

To conclude I would say that editing, deleting registry entries (even with a automatic tool) is NOT something for everyone, especially beginners - it’s tools for geeks and hardcore computer literates who know what they’re doing. You need a pretty good understanding about PCs and Windows internals or at least, you should be able to create your own backups- otherwise you will create more problems. I would not recommend those tools if you’re rather inexperienced and expect wonders and magic solutions for software problems.