Why Clean Registry?

After reading a blog on reg cleaners, I wonder how many of you in the know agree with the following: "Most people I know use registry cleaners as part of their magic cleanup routine, and I see very little upside and a lot of potential downside in this sort of routine use. Specifically, as I write below, I have never seen any evidence that routine “cleaning” of the registry has any positive effect....I’d go a step further: Don’t run registry cleaner programs, period. I won’t go so far as to call them snake oil, but what possible performance benefits can you get from “cleaning up” unneeded registry entries and eliminating a few stray DLL files? Even in the best-case scenario the impact should be trivial at best. Maybe a second or two here and there, maybe a few kilobytes of freed-up RAM, and I’m being generous. How can you balance those against the risk that the utility will “clean” (in other words, delete) something you really need, causing a program or feature to fail?" (http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html)

 

There are safe cleaning registyr utilities that make a back up before they commence such as CCleaner. If you install and frequently update your "Drivers" it becomes quite important to clean the Registry otherwise conflict issues can and will arise with the fresh install of a latest driver causing impaired or inoperable functionality of the Device the drvier was intended for. Many gamers like to keep there Video Card and Audio drivers upto date because of slight to major improvements in the devices functionaility, especially with the advent of Direct10 and or 64Bit becoming more frequently adopted by some of the later software. The registry is basically a recording of all activity that occurs on your PC and if you leave traces of previous Video Drivers in your registry the Card can sometimes get "mixed" messages, have had it happen personally so "not snake oil".

 

I used to format and reinstall my OS about every 6 months or so because the system seemed to be slowing down and no amount of defragging ever helped. It was always a nice feeling to have that fresh installed speed back again.

Since then I discovered Bcwipe and Tuneup Utilities. and using Bcwipe to actually get rid of files I wanted to delete rather than chuck them into the recycle bin (which doesn't really delete anything), and using Tuneup Utilities registry cleaner after uninstalls and on occasion just to cleanup, I haven't had to reformat for many years now.

Tuneup Utilities has never deleted anything of importance and there is a free version of Bcwipe on page 14 of the 321download site (google "last free version").

Considering the time I save not having to reformat to get my speeds back I would say that registry cleaners are an important part of keeping a system running smooth as long as you get a reliable one. Bcwipe on its own can not be responsible for my lack of need to reformat. If you try the wiper, on your first wipe open the "Options" and uncheck "wipe of swap file" or your wipes will take alot longer. You can wipe the swap file every few months if you want to really keep it clean.

Along with Ccleaner and defagmenting the drive occasionally I have had systems run smoothly for up to five years. It could have been more, but I slipstreamed SP3 and formated and reinstalled all my PC's with it, so I'm back to square one.

Five years from now when Windows Ca Ca Poo Poo Pee Pee comes out I'll format and reinstall again.

 

Thank you all for your insightful feedback. Since I'm mostly researching on the web & updating basic programs, I gather I don't need to "clean" the registry all that often.
Eagle: Good luck with that monkey. (caffein or caffeine) []

 

Well, there is one party who knows which Microsoft registry keys one can safely remove: Microsoft. Windows knows best!

And Microsoft do have a registry cleaner available for all - it is a part of their free online scanner Windows Live OneCare. This free online service should be better known among users. It is excellent.

Check the language settings before use. Microsoft have around 20 different English versions on this site - and a lot of other languages. This is a serious machine:

http://onecare.live.com/standard/en-us/default.htm

If you've never done it before it will be able to find as many as thousands of surplus registry keys that have become obsolete. They belonged to older versions of Microsoft programs and can safely be deleted.

Just go ahead and let Windows clean Windows...

 

Sorry, wrong link - here it is: http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm?mkt=en-us

Note: there is a special Beta for Vista users.

 

Cordialis: Thank you for the link.

 

Yep! :-D It is said, that there are a few things, that Windows OneCare can't do. That might be so but it can safely clean your registry. Note the word safely! :cool

 

Weird I did the scan and it said I had one nasty object (top category) that it couldn't remove it, but that was it!! I couldn't get any detailed info on whatever it was and just hope their not into the "false positive" marketing! Ran all my other analysis software with nothing (apps as per this site!). Found it a bit vague and not very informative.....my 2c.

 

No, this online scanner is known for not having false positives. It is an official Microsoft homepage and Microsoft developed this scanner themselves. But this has also happened to me on 2 separate occations. The first time around F-Secures online scanner was able to find the malware and remove it. The second time around I was not able to find any help. But then I returned to the Windows Live OneCare online scanner the following week and this time it nailed the bug bastard.

I use Windows Live OneCare online scanner once a month. It is very useful. I have followed the scanner's progress since Microsoft opened this online site and it is growing on me.

 

Still it would be nice to know "what" they found, it just raises "valid" questions imho!

 

It is true that we can't get any log information from it. Typical Microsoft. Their product Windows Defender follow the same logic, - this goes for their firewall also. It must be about not scaring the users?

This issue about being able to find malware but not able to remove it is something that all scanners have from time to time. But then the companies develop the technology that is needed for removal so sooner or later your anti-malware software will clean it up.

It think it is fair that Windows Live OneCare is telling the truth. It gives you a chance - you can go hunting for a solution elsewhere.

Not all companies will do that. If they can't cure it - they won't tell you, that your PC is infected.

 

Bold Eagle - try F-Secures online scanner. It is equally good. Slow but very thorough. I clearly remember when it took a stubborn Hotbar out of my system once. It had been bugging my PC for weeks and no other product was able to do anything about it. Go for a full scan: http://support.f-secure.com/ols/start.html

 

This is my first time, be gentle? I don't even know how to post yet. I went to the hyperlink, but it said my computer didn't support, didn't have IE 5 or later-in other words I need more help to get Adware.Hotbar out. I cannot re-enable my IE add-ons either, tools manage add-ons is grey. I bought this computer from someone else and didn't get their password for Content Advisor.

 

Hi Lindcast and welcome! :wave

I'll leave it to Cordialis to respond to you - you might need to follow the "stickies" in the Malware forum (stickies are threads "stuck" to the top so we can quickly find them) and start your own thread to keep it separate to other topics and making helping you easier, but since it's very specific to something that Cordialis posted here, he/she will be in a better position to answer you.

My 2c worth on the original subject:

Admittedly the computer malfunction on a friend's computer was caused by user malfunction; the person who gave her his old computer got it ready for her use by simply deleting all the games that he was keeping. Friend didn't know much about computers but she was fairly sure that what he was doing wasn't right and did ask him about it but was told, "No, it's fine" and he kept deleting instead of uninstalling. Well, further down the track, she ran into trouble. The computer would boot up and at first the monitor showed what was going on but then it went into standby and couldn't be convinced to show anything else. It seemed to think that the computer had been turned off. We knew it was getting into Windows because I knew the keyboard controls to tell it to shutdown and it did just that.

Anyway, she took it into college with her and handed it to one of her teachers who knew a fair bit about computers. He cleaned the registry and as far as friend knows, that was all he did. After that, the computer was fine.

I'd often wondered why the computer stopped communicating with the monitor partway through booting but Halo's post suggests to me that some kind of conflict had arisen after friend and family had installed one of the games that they bought for themselves.

So considering that quite a few people install and uninstall programs or, install and delete programs, a safe registry cleaner would be an asset, surely??

 

:drool Many thanks to everyone who gave the Private 2 advise, esp. to LAURA R, CORDELIA, and CHOOKERS

 

I add my gratitude to all of you who helped my ongoing computer education & understanding.

 

I was rejected :confused. This didn't work on my MozillaFirefox so I guess it's fore IE only?
I know, I don't know-damnable un-geek-dumb.

 

Hello Lindcast, welcome to MajorGeeks, please do the READ & RUN ME FIRST here: http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407

The above link will give you directions on how to clean your pc of malware, if you still need help after following procedures you can post the requested logs in the Malware Forum as attachments and they will help you.

 

Dear Lindcast - you can just download IE7 if you want. You will probably like having 2 browsers to chose between, my guess is. If a homepage won't open in one browser it usually will in the other. It's convenient to have an extra option installed with easy access from a desktop icon. They won't conflict. This is the download link.

 

Bold Eagle and Lindcast: there is also the possibility of asking MajorGeeks malware removal forum for help. These are the steps to follow.

 

I am yours to command and thanks. :yum