Registry Cleaner...or Not!

[peachfuzz]

Hi folks, I have used and liked CCleaner on the last three of my computers. Wouldn't consider not having it installed.

 

That being said however, I was stunned today when a forum suggested that I should try AML Registry Cleaner. Thinking it would not find much after running CCleaner, you can imagine the reaction when the new program located 690 problems with the registry.

 

I hope you will upgrade your offering to similar performance. Everyone else is strongly encouraged to check their machines as I did. The results will be shocking.

 

Thanks for a good product. Hope this encourages you to make it better.

[pwillener]

"Registry cleaning" is a very controversial issue!

 

Some people - like me - think that it is best to leave the registry alone, especially when there are no actual problems with your computer system. "Cleaning" the registry from unused items, or even conflicting items, will not make your computer any faster.

 

Other people think that the Windows registry needs regular "cleaning", and the more "problem" items are deleted, the better.

 

In between the two opinions we can safely say that there are "soft" registry cleaners, such as CCleaner, which only clean items that are more or less safe to delete. Other cleaners are more aggressive, and there is always a danger that certain things (including Windows itself) will not work any more after such aggressive cleaning.

 

I personally do not do, nor advocate, registry cleaning. But if you must, be sure to have a registry backup in case things get broken. (ERUNT is a long established registry backup and restore tool.)

[Andavari]

Out of those 690 problems there's probably more than enough false positives, just because a registry cleaner lists hundreds of detected items it would like to remove doesn't mean they all should be.

 

Aggressive registry cleaning is a sure fire way of having to reinstall software or worst restore Windows.

[login123]

Hi, Peachfuzz.

 

...Everyone else is strongly encouraged to check their machines as I did...

 

Must differ with this suggestion. No offense meant to you.

 

Like Andavari and pwillener I must suggest a very conservative approach. One probably shouldn't tinker w/ the registry unless it is absolutely necessary, and one knows much about registry issues.

 

However, it is good to try out new software if that can be done safely, so I did. AML will install without a reboot, and everything will go away after a restart, as I am running a virtualizer app. Otherwise I would never have installed it.

 

Limited trial shows that:

AML tries to phone home immediately when installed, just an observation...probably no harm done.

AML gets mixed reviews, and most found by google included cautionary statements.

The scan results were interesting.

- edit...Found about 225 entries

- Found some very old entries which I know are obsolete (Norton )

- Found some registry items that should be left alone.

- Found some registry items I didn't recognize.

 

So since old HAL here ain't broke, I won't fix him.

[DennisD]

I may as well put my two penneth in, and not just in defence of CCleaner.

 

There are many registry cleaners out there, and I would wager that each and every one of them would come up with different results after scanning the same computer.

 

You'll find some which will literally pop up thousands of supposed "issues" to fix, and I'd also wager that there will be many many unhappy punters out there wishing they'd left well alone when Windows breaks as a result of fixing them.

 

Where do you draw the line? I draw mine on the side of common sense and safety after seeing literally hundreds of people on this forum alone with serious problems after running registry cleaners.

 

The deeper a program scans, the greater the risk of zapping something you shouldn't. I would encourage people to play safe, and not to go looking for something which will burrow deeper than CCleaner does.

 

And if you do go down the road of using an aggressive registry cleaner, make absolutely sure that you have a reliable back-up of your System Drive, as some registry issues can't be fixed. It's re-install Windows time or bring out the Recovery Software.

 

Just my opinion of course.

[Nergal]

I carry my opinion on this with me to every post I make

 

so I will say

 

please read my signature (no matter what reg cleaner you end up using it applies)

[aqua]

and what about deragmening registry with pagedefrag or ntregopt?...

[pwillener]

I would say that NTREGOPT is probably safe to use, as it comes from the same developer as ERUNT. However, I don't know if anybody every measured if there is any performance increase after using it.

[eL_PuSHeR]

I would say that NTREGOPT is probably safe to use, as it comes from the same developer as ERUNT. However, I don't know if anybody every measured if there is any performance increase after using it.

 

I think performance boost by using NTREGOPT is minimal unless you have a heavily fragmented registry (I would say gaining 10%+ after packing it)

[ident]

Hi folks, I have used and liked CCleaner on the last three of my computers. Wouldn't consider not having it installed.

 

That being said however, I was stunned today when a forum suggested that I should try AML Registry Cleaner. Thinking it would not find much after running CCleaner, you can imagine the reaction when the new program located 690 problems with the registry.

 

I hope you will upgrade your offering to similar performance. Everyone else is strongly encouraged to check their machines as I did. The results will be shocking.

 

Thanks for a good product. Hope this encourages you to make it better.

 

Stop rushing to do things you have no idea about. You got any idea what that crap application can be doing to your system? Do you just install anything and click fix? Howe do you know it isn't deleting important system files?

 

Would you just jump off a cliff with out looking below?

[login123]

I would say that NTREGOPT is probably safe to use, as it comes from the same developer as ERUNT. However, I don't know if anybody every measured if there is any performance increase after using it.

 

I actually did that a while back, w/ NTREGOPT. No harm was done. Showed a 2 percent reduction, defragged it, the performance increase was so slight that it might have been my imagination.

 

Just now ran NTREGOPT, shows a 5 percent reduction, so I will not do it. Am running virtualized, so will be no changes after restart.

 

I did notice that there doesn't seem to be a "Cancel" button, so when NTREGOPT starts it is committed. Is that right? If so, then don't start it unless you mean it. :-)

[login123]

After running NTREGOPT just now, upon restart, WXP home shut down and restarted, then gave "windows has recovered from a serious error" message. Then got a message from outpost firewall about a driver fault.

 

Not sure what happened, powershadow should have blocked all the changes so might be something else.

 

I did notice in IE7 that the google shortcut had the yahoo icon. Sort of ironic. :-) Now it has the Piriform icon.

 

Ahhh, well.

[Alan_B]

I believe Outpost is more than a Firewall.

 

Perhaps you had A.V. protection or "behaviour blocking" (Preemptive threat protection) in use,

and that may have interfered with NTREGOPT.

 

Alan

[ident]

I just installed a new app called completecrap today, told me i had 900,600,200 invalid entrys

[eL_PuSHeR]

That's probably absurd.

[hazelnut]

Let's not start getting too silly here.

 

On topic please.

[login123]

I believe Outpost is more than a Firewall.

 

Perhaps you had A.V. protection or "behaviour blocking" (Preemptive threat protection) in use,

and that may have interfered with NTREGOPT.

 

Alan

 

Yes. Avast behavior shield running. Thanks. Good catch.