3rd party reg cleaners

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kevin
  • Start date Start date
K

Kevin

Are there any reputable 3rd party registry
cleaners/compactors that the group recommends or have
tried? I've seen "Registry Mechanic" and "Registry First
Aid". I had to rebuild my machine recently and I'm not
sure if these apps help or hurt. Now I'm freaked out about
even touching my registry anymore.
 
Unless you have some compelling reason it's best to leave the registry
intact. If you run Programs|Accessories|System Tools|Backup, then choose
ERD, then if you check the box for "Also backup....", then the reg will also
be backed up to
%windir%\repair\RegBack
leaving the
%windir%\repair\
directory files intact as original installation.

Repair, Recovery, and Restore
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/samplechapters/fndc/fndc_rec_uctu.asp

You can replace registry hives from within the recovery console by copying
the files from
%windir%\repair\regback
to
%windir%\system32\config

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Are there any reputable 3rd party registry
| cleaners/compactors that the group recommends or have
| tried? I've seen "Registry Mechanic" and "Registry First
| Aid". I had to rebuild my machine recently and I'm not
| sure if these apps help or hurt. Now I'm freaked out about
| even touching my registry anymore.
 
Hi Kevin - In my experience all of these Reg cleaners, even the best, are
fraught with danger. I advise against using them except in one specific
instance, that is when you have one that is capable of doing specific Reg
searches, and you NEED (not just WANT) to remove the remaining traces of
something that didn't get uninstalled correctly. (and you didn't have
foresight enough to install it using Total Uninstall,
http://www.geocities.com/ggmartau/tu.html or direct dwnld here:
http://files.webattack.com/localdl834/tun234.zip, in the first place.)

Lastly, if you must screw around with your Registry, then at least get
Erunt/Erdnt, and run it before you do the Reg clean. You'll then have a
true restore available to you. Read below to see why you might not just
using the Reg cleaner's restore:

Get Erunt here for all NT-based computers including XP:
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/index.htm I've set it up to
take a scheduled backup each night at 12:01AM on a weekly round-robin basis,
and a Monthly on the 1st of each month. See here for how to set that up:
http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/erunt.txt, and for some
useful information about this subject.

This program is one of the best things around - saved my butt on many
occasions, and will also run very nicely from a DOS prompt (in case you've
done something that won't let you boot any more and need to revert to a
previous Registry) IF you're FAT32 OR have a DOS startup disk with NTFS
write drivers in an NTFS system. (There is also a way using the Recovery
Console to get back to being "bootable" even without separate DOS write NTFS
drivers, after which you can do a "normal" Erdnt restore.) (BTW, it also
includes a Registry defragger program). Free, and very, very highly
recommended.

FYI, quoting from the above document:

"Note: The "Export registry" function in Regedit is USELESS (!) to make a
complete backup of the registry. Neither does it export the whole registry
(for example, no information from the "SECURITY" hive is saved), nor can the
exported file be used later to replace the current registry with the old
one. Instead, if you re-import the file, it is merged with the current
registry, leaving you with an absolute mess of old and new registry keys.

--
Please respond in the same thread.
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP



In
 
Thanx Jim & Dave for your input. I'll grab a cup 'o joe
and read thru the URL's you supplied. Like I thought, the
registry 'aint for the faint of heart...
 
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