Best Registry Cleaner for vista

[Terry R.]

On 7/9/2007 8:55 AM On a whim, Ken Blake, MVP pounded out on the keyboard

My view is that if the old distributor wasn't hurting you in any way,
and unless you *knew* for sure that you could take it out without any
risk of breaking something, you should leave it in.

Well we all know that a V6 distributor just won't work in a V8 (only 6
spark plug connectors, not 8), so I can't see how Hugh's analogy had any
relevance. ;-)


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Terry R.

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[Terry R.]

On 7/9/2007 8:59 AM On a whim, Ken Blake, MVP pounded out on the keyboard

It is *often* true that the best way to help someone is not to answer
his question directly, but to explain that what he plans to do is
ill-advised.

If someone asks "which should I use to wash my car--coca-cola or
pepsi-cola?" it is *not* helpful to reply with either choice.

Regarding flaming, I agree with you entirely.

Wouldn't you tell them they shouldn't use either? ;-)

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[Terry R.]

On 7/9/2007 9:03 AM On a whim, Jupiter Jones [MVP] pounded out on the
keyboard

Replacing a car engine demonstrates a fair amount of knowledge, well
beyond the average user.

Yes, especially when one talks about using a V6 distributor in a V8.

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[Adam Albright]

It is *often* true that the best way to help someone is not to answer
his question directly, but to explain that what he plans to do is
ill-advised.

I would tend to agree IF facts were presented. I always try to do
that. I see the anti-Registry Cleaner crowd doing nothing but huffing
and puffing and when asked to demonstrate why not to use Registry
Cleaners the best they can come up is because we said so. That isn't
very useful in my book. Everybody is entitled to their opinion, but
people need to separate opinions which are often biased, from
demonstrated FACTS.

What I see is the anti-Registry Cleaner crowd pretending that
everybody that tries one will blindly push some automatic button
because they don't know any better. That's the ever present "you must
be a dummy, I'm not" mindset that is so prevalent here.

My opinion is the average user is way smarter then the fake "experts"
here like to pretend.

That's like saying people will leave their car in gear, get out and
watch in horror as it goes careening down a steep incline. People
generally aren't that dumb and in general they aren't as dumb as some
try to paint them concerning computers.

The right way to post here is simply present FACTS or if you're
sharing your opinion make it clear it is JUST your opinion. The sad
reality is many here use this newsgroup as a forum to pump up their
own egos and don't really give a rat's ass about helping anybody. Over
time people learn all by themselves who's doing that and who actually
tries to help. <wink>

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I've been working with PC's for nearly 30 years and main frames before
that.

That's awfully hard to believe, given your usual posting style is more
reminiscent of a 14-year-old using the family computer when his parents
are out. But then, given the fact that PC's as we know them haven't
existed for anywhere near 30 years yet (certainly no Windows PC with a
registry), and that anything to do with main frames is completely
irrelevant...., I'd have to conclude that your claims of experience are
spurious, at best.

Do a Google search for registry cleaner reviews or perfoemance tests.
You'll get hundreds of marketing links from people selling registry
cleaners, or those sites that advertise them, but none from any
independent laboratory that's actually tested them. Why is that?




--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Myth: All Registry Cleaners simply run wild and delete things without
asking first. Totally false!

No one has made any such claim. You're using the typical troll
technique of setting up a straw man argument. Have you nothing better?

Truth: Every Registry Cleaner I've tried and I've tired over a dozen,
ALWAYS shows you a list of what it SUGGESTS you remove. Most
allow you to view the details of each key and allow YOU to
walk down the list and uncheck what you might not want to
clean. Some even rank what they suggest you remove so you
can avoid deleting keys you're not sure about.

And the average home PC user knows exactly how to tell which of these
hundreds of suggestions are valid? This statement simply supports my
contention that if one doesn't know enough to safely edit the registry
manually, then one doesn't know enough to use a safely registry cleaner.

Myth: Since the Registry is just a text file, deleting a handful of
invalid keys has minimal effect on reducing the size of the size
of the Registry thus no value is realized.

While I wouldn't call the registry a simple text file, nor do I know
any competent technician who dows, this is essentially true. The
removal of a few orphans registry entries will have miminal impact upon
the sizer of the registry.

Truth: Just a few orphaned keys can REALLY slow down the system
because Windows will invest time trying to follow the
instructions that no longer point to any valid file. How
much impact this has on performance depends on WHAT kind of
junk is left behind. So even removing just a few invalid
keys while it has no impact on the size of the Registry
can have a major impact on how fast Windows loads and how
well the system runs.

Again, not necessarily or even usually so. The registry is database of
pointers to the locations of data and files. If there's no call for a
specific application or driver, then the pointer (the orphaned registry
key) won't be "read" and cannot therefore send the OS on a wild goose chase.

--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[MICHAEL]

* Arun:

Can any One Suggest Best Registry Cleaner And residual file Cleaner for vista
Ultimate.............

One more by Mark Russinovich;
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussin.../02/registry-junk-a-windows-fact-of-life.aspx

He doesn't really sound pro or con.
<quote>
So it seems that Registry junk is a Windows fact of life and that Registry cleaners will
continue to have a place in the anal-sysadmin’s tool chest, at least until we’re all running
..NET applications that store their per-user settings in XML files – and then of course we’ll
need XML cleaners.
</quote>

After being asked about junk being left behind in the registry
slowing down a computer;

<quote>
No, even if the registry was massively bloated there would be little impact on the performance
of anything other than exhaustive searches.

On Win2K Terminal Server systems, however, there is a limit on the total amount of Registry
data that can be loaded and so large profile hives can limit the number of users that can be
logged on simultaneously.

I haven't and never will implement a Registry cleaner since it's of little practical use on
anything other than Win2K terminal servers and developing one that's both safe and effective
requires a huge amount of application-specific knowledge.

10/7/2005 9:41:00 AM by Mark Russinovich
</quote>

Also, some of the comments are worthwhile reading through...
pro and con.


-Michael

 

[Adam Albright]

That's awfully hard to believe, given your usual posting style is more
reminiscent of a 14-year-old using the family computer when his parents
are out.

I couldn't care less what the gang of regular fakers (you included)
post here. Time after time I've proved them either flat out wrong,
supplying incomplete or inaccurate information or deliberately biased
or misleading information or trying to pass off their opinions as
facts.

But then, given the fact that PC's as we know them haven't
existed for anywhere near 30 years yet (certainly no Windows PC with a
registry), and that anything to do with main frames is completely
irrelevant...., I'd have to conclude that your claims of experience are
spurious, at best.

Obviously you don't know your history. PC's (personal computers)
arrived on the scene long before there ever a OS called Windows or a
company called Microsoft. Maybe next time taking ten seconds to do
some simple research on Google would prevent you from looking like a
fool.

http://www.old-computers.com/history/timeline.asp

http://www.intel.com/museum/archives/pctimeline.htm

Do a Google search for registry cleaner reviews or perfoemance tests.
You'll get hundreds of marketing links from people selling registry
cleaners, or those sites that advertise them, but none from any
independent laboratory that's actually tested them. Why is that?

Again you simply don't know what you're talking about, but you've
demonstrated that in the past. <wink>

 

[Adam Albright]

No one has made any such claim. You're using the typical troll
technique of setting up a straw man argument. Have you nothing better?

To guys like you anybody that is able to knock you biased opinions for
a loop automatically gets labeled a troll. I'm used to it. <snicker>

How's your research coming for those facts I asked you for?

And the average home PC user knows exactly how to tell which of these
hundreds of suggestions are valid? This statement simply supports my
contention that if one doesn't know enough to safely edit the registry
manually, then one doesn't know enough to use a safely registry cleaner.

You're so desperate to try to paint me as not knowing anything for you
to try to save face it blinds you to reality. I guess I need to
educate you a bit.

Take a typical Registry Clearer and what it finds. I just fired up
one. It lists a whole bunch of International keyboard keys. Things
like Romanian Standard and Serbian Cynllic plus hundreds of others the
typical user will never use because he'll never travel to those
countries with his computer. Removing such keys is harmless.

Unused time zones is another huge space waster that just clutters up
the Registry unless of course you really need to know what time it is
in Namibia or Samoa or hundreds of others remote places. There's much
more junk you can always safely remove I'm not going to bother to
list.

The real use is what's been said before. Cleaning up after
applications that don't uninstall fully. I've heard the lame comments
guys like you always throw out, you know what to look for and know
where in the Registry to look. To that I say bullshit. Anybody that's
used regedit knows that any application may write a dozen or more keys
all over the Registry, some crazy applications write to over a hundred
Registry locations. For ANYBODY to vainly boast they know where they
all are and exactly what each does is obviously not the guy I want to
take advice from because they're just clowns patting themselves on the
back.

That's why Registry Cleaners are useful tools. They can scan the
Registry far faster and far more completely than any human could even
if he devoted a full week to the task non stop.

The point is Registry Cleaners have their place. They are just another
tool. Use it wisely and it can be useful and make a difference. Misuse
it... like anything else and all bets off. What annoys me is every
time this topic comes up we have the anti Registry Cleaner crowd leap
to two wrong assumptions. First everybody that uses them obviously
couldn't possibly know as much as you do (sic) that's self-serving and
lame, then of course you guys always pretend everybody will mindlessly
push some auto button that could cause some damage in rare cases. Try
being more objective next time.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

On 7/9/2007 8:59 AM On a whim, Ken Blake, MVP pounded out on the keyboard


Wouldn't you tell them they shouldn't use either? ;-)

Yes I would, and that's exactly my point. The alternative of
recommending whichever one is least damaging would be responsive to
the question asked, but not helpful to the person who asked.

 

[Adam Albright]

Yes I would, and that's exactly my point. The alternative of
recommending whichever one is least damaging would be responsive to
the question asked, but not helpful to the person who asked.

I would infer if somebody is asking for a recommendation of some
Registry Clearer he already decided to try one and is only looking for
opinions on which work best. While one may add their opinion about
Registry Cleaners, doing so when that wasn't the question is in my
opinion heavy handed and attempting to influence the person unduly. Of
course that kind of thing never happens in groups like this. <snicker>

 

[Doug]

In answer to the OP I have settled on JV16 Power Tools 2007 from Macecraft
Software. It seems to be well adapted to Vista Home Premium. I use it daily
its less aggressive mode and have not found it necessary to overule its
recommendations or revert to its backups - it works fine for me - Doug

 

[keepout]

You just defeated your own argument. The whole point of using a
Registry Cleaner is to AVOID "poking around" in your Registry using
the build-in regedit. That for sure is how to get in trouble.

Yeah let some program, created by who knows. What's their experience level ? What's the disclaimer say ? "Use at your own risk'. If the one that created it feels the need to add something like that, that's not putting any plusses in the confidence column.
Anything that messes with the registry if it's worth anything, it WON'T let you do anything to the registry until you've made a backup. Why is that ?
What a registry cleaner can do, won't make enough difference to make it noticeable.

Myth: Since the Registry is just a text file, deleting a handful of
invalid keys has minimal effect on reducing the size of the size
of the Registry thus no value is realized.

Truth: Just a few orphaned keys can REALLY slow down the system
because Windows will invest time trying to follow the
instructions that no longer point to any valid file. How
much impact this has on performance depends on WHAT kind of
junk is left behind. So even removing just a few invalid
keys while it has no impact on the size of the Registry
can have a major impact on how fast Windows loads and how
well the system runs.

The registry is NOT a roadmap. If a program is removed, but leaves keys, there's no program left to look for those keys. The key's just become extra data on the hard drive that is never accessed again.

Why windows would bother to look for something it isn't asked to look formakes no sense.

 

[keepout]

Notice the original claim; all Registry Cleaners are bad, avoid at all
costs, which has now shifted to saying some are bad, but not all, or
only bad if you don't know what you're doing, but I do know kind of
posts which are so typical here. <snicker>

now who's making generalizations. I've said from the beginning, no name brands or otherwise. DON'T use a registry cleaner. The advantages aren't noticeable, if there is such a thing as an advantage to a registry cleaner.

It's like surgery with a chainsaw.

If you're having trouble with one program, you don't delete 100 other programs to fix that one. A registry cleaner goes at hundreds of links onit's 1st run. Me I'm not interested in poring thru hundreds of keys thatI have no idea what their used for and decide to keep it or not. Which is why the reference to regedit. It can tell you as much as a registry cleaner what each key is for.

If you make a mistake, what do you do ? restore the backup registry and break out the pad & pencil on what's what and look thru each key on the web for info on what it is ? You won't find 99% of them. Now what flip a coin ? The program says you can delete it. If you check the 'last used' column of the programs on your drive, you might be able to dump 50% of them based on age.

You probably can delete 10% of the registry keys. And have no bad effects. Or you can delete just 1, and need a professional to restore your system.

People have driven cars on 3 wheels, but that doesn't make it safe for everyone to do it.

What it boils down to is that registry cleaners serve the same purpose asVista. Put money in someone's pocket. There wasn't anything wrong with XP, it didn't need fixing. 100% of my hardware was working just fine. Didn't need a new OS. M$ released Vista, and made 50% of my software, andthe entire 2 year old machine obsolete.

A registry cleaner is more placebo, than useful.

Well isn't that true for ANY application?

Have I said buy a Registry Cleaner, put it on automatic mode and let
it do it's thing? No! Neither has anybody else. I'm simply countering
the empty headed all Registry Cleaners are bad, they don't work noise
some keep making which is obviously based on their own bad experiences
or just "what they've heard".

I like FACTS. Anybody got some?

You just aren't listening. I just gave you plenty of facts. Lots agree with those facts. Maybe you need to define what a fact means to you.

 

[Terry R.]

On 7/9/2007 4:31 PM On a whim, (e-mail address removed) pounded out on
the keyboard

Yeah let some program, created by who knows. What's their experience level ? What's the disclaimer say ? "Use at your own risk'. If the one that created it feels the need to add something like that, that's not putting any plusses in the confidence column.
Anything that messes with the registry if it's worth anything, it WON'T let you do anything to the registry until you've made a backup. Why is that ?
What a registry cleaner can do, won't make enough difference to make it noticeable.


The registry is NOT a roadmap. If a program is removed, but leaves keys, there's no program left to look for those keys. The key's just become extra data on the hard drive that is never accessed again.

. Why windows would bother to look for something it isn't asked to look for makes no sense

Did you ever open a file on a floppy drive, remove the floppy and
Windows curiously asks why it can't locate the file afterwards? Oops,
just a shortcut in "Recent Documents". Why is Windows bothering "to
look for something it isn't asked to look for makes no sense". But it
happens.

I just installed a clean temp batch file into a client machine last
week. When the batch file was executed, an error appeared about a
"sym... cannot be located" (it was a Symantec reference). I looked and
NAV wasn't installed, nor could I find any other Symantec program. I
searched the registry and found dozens (maybe hundreds) of references to
old Symantec programs installed. I removed them all, ran the batch file
and it executed fine. "Why windows would bother to look for something it
isn't asked to look for makes no sense"

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[Terry R.]

On 7/9/2007 4:31 PM On a whim, (e-mail address removed) pounded out on
the keyboard

now who's making generalizations. I've said from the beginning, no name brands or otherwise. DON'T use a registry cleaner. The advantages aren't noticeable, if there is such a thing as an advantage to a registry cleaner.

It's like surgery with a chainsaw.

ONLY if you don't know how to use a scalpel. In the wrong hands, both
are deadly.

If you're having trouble with one program, you don't delete 100 other programs to fix that one. A registry cleaner goes at hundreds of links on it's 1st run. Me I'm not interested in poring thru hundreds of keys that I have no idea what their used for and decide to keep it or not. Which is why the reference to regedit. It can tell you as much as a registry cleaner what each key is for.

If you make a mistake, what do you do ? restore the backup registry and break out the pad & pencil on what's what and look thru each key on the web for info on what it is ? You won't find 99% of them. Now what flip a coin ? The program says you can delete it. If you check the 'last used' column of the programs on your drive, you might be able to dump 50% of them based on age.

You probably can delete 10% of the registry keys. And have no bad effects. Or you can delete just 1, and need a professional to restore your system.

People have driven cars on 3 wheels, but that doesn't make it safe for everyone to do it.

What it boils down to is that registry cleaners serve the same purpose as Vista. Put money in someone's pocket. There wasn't anything wrong with XP, it didn't need fixing. 100% of my hardware was working just fine. Didn't need a new OS. M$ released Vista, and made 50% of my software, and the entire 2 year old machine obsolete.

A registry cleaner is more placebo, than useful.

You just aren't listening. I just gave you plenty of facts. Lots agree with those facts. Maybe you need to define what a fact means to you.

Fact is, some people just like to have things clean. Call it anal. And
people like that want to have ONLY whats supposed to be in the registry,
not program remnants that have long been removed. And if those people
want to use a registry cleaner, it's up to them. Could they screw up
their system by ALLOWING a cleaner to do what it wants? Absolutely. Do
I trust any of my clients to use a registry cleaner? Hardly. Do I use
them? All the time. I have them search references that would take
hours doing it in regedit by Ctrl-F, enter data, delete key, F3, repeat,
etc.

So, to the general user I would not recommend using a registry cleaner.
But to those who t-shoot and have experience, I say if they're
comfortable using them, they can be a great tool. But if they don't use
the tool properly, it could be a chainsaw...


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[Ken Blake, MVP]

I posted earlier that Microsoft installed CCLeaner on my computer
running Vista after it crashed just a few days ago - they used CCLeaner
to do something (clearly they think it's good/safe or they would not
have installed it.) It's on my desktop right now. After reading this
do you think I should "unintall" this from my system?? Actually, I'm
afraid of even LOOKING at it after reading stuff here. What do you
think??? Because I don't want another mess like Trend Micro
Anti-spyware left me with.

CCleaner does more things than clean the registry. And it does some of
them well. I'm not against using CCleaner, but I am against using its
registry cleaning capability.

 

[Adam Albright]

now who's making generalizations. I've said from the beginning, no name brands or otherwise. DON'T use a registry cleaner. The advantages aren't noticeable, if there is such a thing as an advantage to a registry cleaner.

You don't even know how to set the line length for your news reader
and you want to lecture on a technical topic? That's funny!

 

[Guest]

I just installed Vista Home premium but this should work for any version.
After my install it ran very slow and reboot took a long time, so I purchased
System Mechanic Professional 7. This program does it all. It fixed my Start
up defraged drives, removed all junk files, Cleaned Registry and many others.
I am now very happy with Vista with very few minor problems. You shold also
get a USB Flash drive for ReadyBoost. This will help speed things up too.
Fred

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

Fact is, some people just like to have things clean. Call it anal.

Hi! I'm a member, too ;-)

But to those who t-shoot and have experience, I say if they're
comfortable using them, they can be a great tool.

Oh, I clean up the registry, I just don't use registry cleaners to do
it. Instead, I use two tools (aside from Regedit):

Nirsoft RegScan

This basically does a string search, then collects all the hits into a
list. From there, you can select and save as a report, or you can
drill down into edit these via Regedit.

The advantage over F3 (find next) in Regedit is that you can see how
many hits you have. So if, for example, you see you have 3000 manual
edits to do, you can back out and re-think your strategy ;-)

ZD Change of Address

This dates from Win95, but still works! It is intended for use when
relocating installed software after the fact, e.g. changing
"C:\Program Files\Maxis\The Sims 2" to E:\GAMES\SIMS2 in order to free
up space on C:, etc. and that is how I have used it.

It covers registry. .ini files and shortcuts, and is fairly
conservative; stops and asks if it can continue, etc. unlike (say)
"Kill, Bury, Deny" AutoChk.


The point about registry cleaners is that I do not want to
automatically scratch where I couldn't manually troubleshoot.