Best Registry Cleaner for vista

[Terry R.]

On 7/10/2007 3:42 AM On a whim, cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user) pounded
out on the keyboard

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


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.

COA, I've got that on my system. Used to use it way back when the
utilities were free on ZD Net (I think I used to dial up to a bulletin
board to download utils). I remember it did have nice features for
moving programs. Regscan seems like a nice simple tool. Thanks for the
reference.

I've used JV16 Powertools forever (the older free version). It performs
a search, I can check what I want removed, it creates a backup of the
keys I'm going to modify and then cleans. I've used quite a few
cleaners in the past to see how they work, but never allowed automatic
cleaning.

--
Terry R.

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[Bruce Chambers]

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>

So, if you were asked which handgun would be the most effective means
of homicide/suicide, you'd blithely offer the pros & cons of the 9mm v.
the .38 caliber, rather trying to dissuade the individual from
contemplated action? An extreme analogy, I know, but it accurately
describes your position, does it not.


--

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]

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.

I may be that the technician used CCleaner as nothing more than a
scanning tool, and then manually repaired something.

CCleaner's registry scanner seems relatively benign, as long as you
step through each detected "issue" one at a time, to determine if it
really is an "issue" or not, and then decide whether or not to let the
application "fix" it. In my testing, though, most of the reported
"issues" won't be issues, at all. I tried the latest version on a
brand-new OS installation with no additional applications installed, and
certainly none installed and then uninstalled, and CCleaner still
managed to "find" over a hundred allegedly orphaned registry entries and
dozens of purportedly "suspicious" files.

CCleaner's main strength, and the only reason I use it, lies in its
usefulness for cleaning up unused temporary files from the hard drive;
as a registry "cleaner," it's not significantly better or worse than any
other snake oil product of the same type.


--

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

 

[Alias]

I may be that the technician used CCleaner as nothing more than a
scanning tool, and then manually repaired something.

CCleaner's registry scanner seems relatively benign, as long as you
step through each detected "issue" one at a time, to determine if it
really is an "issue" or not, and then decide whether or not to let the
application "fix" it. In my testing, though, most of the reported
"issues" won't be issues, at all. I tried the latest version on a
brand-new OS installation with no additional applications installed, and
certainly none installed and then uninstalled, and CCleaner still
managed to "find" over a hundred allegedly orphaned registry entries and
dozens of purportedly "suspicious" files.

CCleaner's main strength, and the only reason I use it, lies in its
usefulness for cleaning up unused temporary files from the hard drive;
as a registry "cleaner," it's not significantly better or worse than any
other snake oil product of the same type.

You're so full of sh¡t, I can smell it all the way over here in Spain. I
have used Crap Cleaner's Issues feature on all three of my computers
with only positive results. A friend, who repairs computers for a
living, has used it on hundreds of computers with only positive results.
The same is true for SystemSuite, which you have admitted you've never
used yet call it "snake oil" in your usual sneering and supercilious way.

Alias

 

[Adam Albright]

So, if you were asked which handgun would be the most effective means
of homicide/suicide, you'd blithely offer the pros & cons of the 9mm v.
the .38 caliber, rather trying to dissuade the individual from
contemplated action? An extreme analogy, I know, but it accurately
describes your position, does it not.

I accurately expose the naysayers for what they are... phonies. Deal
with it.

 

[keepout]

CCleaner's main strength, and the only reason I use it, lies in its
usefulness for cleaning up unused temporary files from the hard drive;
as a registry "cleaner," it's not significantly better or worse than any
other snake oil product of the same type.

And you could do that yourself from the command line with '%temp% [enter]select all [delete]
Ccleaner is just as bad as every other registry cleaner. It's addition outside the registry cleaner, are either automatic [can be configured as such], or a simple thing you could schedule into task manager. Nothing you'd need a program for.
It's registry cleaner is actually worse than others. From what I saw, it's a tedious process beyond non-informative to clean the registry.

 

[keepout]

You're so full of sh¡t, I can smell it all the way over here in Spain.I
have used Crap Cleaner's Issues feature on all three of my computers
with only positive results. A friend, who repairs computers for a
living, has used it on hundreds of computers with only positive results.
The same is true for SystemSuite, which you have admitted you've never
used yet call it "snake oil" in your usual sneering and supercilious way.

You take a look at what it cleans out in the issues section.. unused extensions.. After the 1st 100, I saw no need to go on. and extension =3 bytes . * 100 *3 = 300 bytes of disk space . I know that recovered 300 bytes is NOT going to be a noticeable difference.

What it does do with it's cleaner is delete stuff you've worked months tocreate. ie: handles/passwords remembered on common pages. cookies that remember settings on common pages. And once again another registry cleaner proves to be one more chain saw used to fine tune a machine.

Either that or a time waster to single step thru all the things it identifies as useless, worthless, redundant, not necessary, etc..

Everything except the registry cleaner section is stuff that comes with the OS that can be configured to clean on it's own..

One more program created just to empty the pockets of the deluded. Thoughin this case, other than the beg ware on the page I saw, CCleaner is a FREE util.

FWIW: If you use this, it should come with more than a [backup registry] warning. It should warn that it really does nothing but screw up settings.

 

[Adam Albright]

You're so full of sh¡t, I can smell it all the way over here in Spain. I
have used Crap Cleaner's Issues feature on all three of my computers
with only positive results. A friend, who repairs computers for a
living, has used it on hundreds of computers with only positive results.
The same is true for SystemSuite, which you have admitted you've never
used yet call it "snake oil" in your usual sneering and supercilious way.

You take a look at what it cleans out in the issues section.. unused extensions.. After the 1st 100, I saw no need to go on. and extension = 3 bytes . * 100 *3 = 300 bytes of disk space . I know that recovered 300 bytes is NOT going to be a noticeable difference.

What it does do with it's cleaner is delete stuff you've worked months to create. ie: handles/passwords remembered on common pages. cookies that remember settings on common pages. And once again another registry cleaner proves to be one more chain saw used to fine tune a machine.

Either that or a time waster to single step thru all the things it identifies as useless, worthless, redundant, not necessary, etc..

Everything except the registry cleaner section is stuff that comes with the OS that can be configured to clean on it's own..

One more program created just to empty the pockets of the deluded. Though in this case, other than the beg ware on the page I saw, CCleaner is a FREE util.

FWIW: If you use this, it should come with more than a [backup registry] warning. It should warn that it really does nothing but screw up settings.

Again you demonstrate why many that post here do so only to give their
egos a vigorous massage and have little if any knowledge of what
they're critical of often admitting the don't even use the products
they are knocking.

I find it amusing how the tone has changed from never use a Registry
Cleaner they are all bad, bad, to oh there are alright if you know
what you're doing.

My guess some of those whining about Registry Cleaners are the ones
that did push the auto button, messed up their systems and think
everybody will be as dumb as they were.

You comment that Registry Cleaners are a time waster if you use them
properly by stepping through what it finds speaks volumes.

LOL!

 

[John Green]

I can only recommend Ccleaner,i have tried the so called top 5 Registry cleaners and had to do a system restore each time as they caused more problems than they fixed.

EggHeadCafe.com - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com

 

[Julian]

in message

I can only recommend Ccleaner,i have tried the so called top 5 Registry
cleaners and had to do a system restore each time as they caused more
problems than they fixed.

I'd have given up after 3 max.

 

[zachd [MSFT]]

It does some dangerous stuff, which is why I had to get them to fix where
they were deleting WMP files before. (They were using a dangerous string
comparison that caught files that shouldn't have been deleted.)

It's interesting, but stuff like removing your back-up/uninstall files can
be short-sighted. It's a question of how much risk you're willing to take.
=\

-Zach

 

[keepout]

You take a look at what it cleans out in the issues section.. unused extensions.. After the 1st 100, I saw no need to go on. and extension =3 bytes . * 100 *3 = 300 bytes of disk space . I know that recovered 300 bytes is NOT going to be a noticeable difference.

What it does do with it's cleaner is delete stuff you've worked months to create. ie: handles/passwords remembered on common pages. cookies thatremember settings on common pages. And once again another registry cleaner proves to be one more chain saw used to fine tune a machine.

Either that or a time waster to single step thru all the things it identifies as useless, worthless, redundant, not necessary, etc..

Everything except the registry cleaner section is stuff that comes withthe OS that can be configured to clean on it's own..

One more program created just to empty the pockets of the deluded. Though in this case, other than the beg ware on the page I saw, CCleaner is a FREE util.

FWIW: If you use this, it should come with more than a [backup registry] warning. It should warn that it really does nothing but screw up settings.

Again you demonstrate why many that post here do so only to give their
egos a vigorous massage and have little if any knowledge of what
they're critical of often admitting the don't even use the products
they are knocking.

what I said came from USING it. Obviously you have never used this program you're defending, or you'd have noticed I knew what I was talkingabout with the references to the individual sections of the program.

It's a time waster based on the interface. mouse to the next item, lookupwhat it is, move mouse to the delete button, or next button. That's a week long job for 3000 items.
And you have to get past the 1st scan to get to when it DOESN'T find several hundred items on each scan.

I find it amusing how the tone has changed from never use a Registry
Cleaner they are all bad, bad, to oh there are alright if you know
what you're doing.

You didn't hear that from me. I doubt anyone but the author of the software knows what's safe to remove in the registry.

My guess some of those whining about Registry Cleaners are the ones
that did push the auto button, messed up their systems and think
everybody will be as dumb as they were.

Why would something that can do so much damage even come with an auto button ? And yet CCleaner does come with just that. They come with auto buttons, because NO ONE is going to waste a week single stepping thru several thousand entries and TRY to figure out if they really know anything about what they're fixing to delete.

You comment that Registry Cleaners are a time waster if you use them
properly by stepping through what it finds speaks volumes.

I have no idea what that means. To keep from killing your machine, you should never use a registry cleaner.

And they are just time wasters. If it's working there's no need to fix it. If it isn't working, a registry cleaner won't fix it. Like with Virusor Trojans. You remove BY HAND those specific keys identified by your virus software.

Or as with some virus software makers [Trend] they provide you with a program that auto cleans to AVOID having the machine screwed up by an under educated user attempting to remove stuff from the machine.

 

[keepout]

It does some dangerous stuff, which is why I had to get them to fix where
they were deleting WMP files before. (They were using a dangerous string
comparison that caught files that shouldn't have been deleted.)

It's interesting, but stuff like removing your back-up/uninstall files can
be short-sighted. It's a question of how much risk you're willing to take.

No sense telling this crowd. They'll be fixing what their automated steamshovels destroy long after this thread dies.
And there's no way to know exactly how much damage one of those things will do until after it's done the damage.

Safer to let people know they're all going to delete something they shouldn't or that you wouldn't want deleted. And in most cases with no warning, or way to recover from the damage.

 

[Adam Albright]

Why would something that can do so much damage even come with an auto button ? And yet CCleaner does come with just that. They come with auto buttons, because NO ONE is going to waste a week single stepping thru several thousand entries and TRY to figure out if they really know anything about what they're fixing to delete.

I have no idea what that means. To keep from killing your machine, you should never use a registry cleaner.

More proof the anti Registry Cleaner crowd while they pretend
otherwise... often don't have a clue what they're talking about.

Like anything else, if you don't know what you're doing or why you're
doing it or jump in head first blind and start pushing buttons you can
of course get in trouble. However to pretend everybody that uses a
Registry Cleaner is going to blindly push some "auto remove" button,
which is the false claim most of your guys are pretending is
disingenuous at best.

 

[Adam Albright]

No sense telling this crowd. They'll be fixing what their automated steam shovels destroy long after this thread dies.
And there's no way to know exactly how much damage one of those things will do until after it's done the damage.

More of the same endless I know more than you do crap.

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Bruce;
That is typical of Adam.
He regularly attributes a quote to someone who has a differing view
and as usual, he ignores the request for the source as you see here.
It seems often refutes by creating his own misinformation when the
facts do not go where he wants.

His demand for facts fall flat in light of his own inability to give
facts to support his claims.

 

[Adam Albright]

Bruce;
That is typical of Adam.
He regularly attributes a quote to someone who has a differing view
and as usual, he ignores the request for the source as you see here.
It seems often refutes by creating his own misinformation when the
facts do not go where he wants.

Just once, you think you can stop being the blowhard you always come
across as?

I'm sorry if it bugs guys when I expose them as the phonies their are.

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

In other words you CAN NOT support your claim yet again.

Your need to insult others when you have no facts displays more of you
own character than those you need to insult.
Typical of your behavior.

You call others "blowhard" while it is you making statements you can
not prove.
Post your source or let your own words mark you as you so falsely call
others.

 

[Adam Albright]

In other words you CAN NOT support your claim yet again.\

Your need to insult others when you have no facts displays more of you
own character than those you need to insult.
Typical of your behavior.

Your typical behavior is to trumpet like a bull elephant every time
anybody dares to be critical of Microsoft. Why is that?

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

"Your typical behavior is to trumpet..."
That fits you as you continue your stalking.

However that is not the issue.
The issue is the statement you made that at least two do not believe.

Can you prove your statement or not?
Simple question you continue to avoid.
If you can, do so.
If not, your FALSE statements speak of your character.