I am totally new at this...

[randall550]

My registry needs cleaned. Or repaired. Or whatever. My pages are taking forever to load. My computer acts like it's half dead. It needs to happen.

So I downloaded CCleaner after reading all the reviews that say it fixed things right up and made everybody else's pc run like brand new. I thought, "Cool. I think that's what I need."

So I ran the scan, but I don't know what to keep, get rid of or ignore. Started Googling to find out more and the only thing I'm finding is "DON'T DO IT UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!!!!"

Oh, I know what I'm doing all right. I'm sitting here watching my hair turn gray while I wait for pages to load! This needs to happen! So how do I find out what to save and what to let go?

[Winapp2.ini]

The registry part really is up to you, if you see entries for programs you uninstalled ages ago it should be fine. CCleaner is a "safe" cleaner and also lets you back up, but better safe than sorry.

 

The "cleaner" part can pretty much be run with little consequence.

[randall550]

Well, ok, I'll back it up. I have 72 issues all together according to the scan results. Unused file extensions, missing mui references, open with application issues, missing typelib reference, and the ever mysterious and abundant installer reference issues.

I know it's a safe cleaner but I'm pretty sure it isn't "Randy-proof".

[Augeas]

I would stand back a moment. You don't know why your pc is half-dead but you are proposing to blitz the registry. Now a 'clean' registry is very self-satisfying but 72 issues is not a large list, the registry is loaded into ram anyway when you boot up your pc, removing those issues probably won't speed your pc up a noticable amount, and it may well reduce your pc from half-dead to being broken for spares in China.

 

There are a zillion ways to speed up your pc. I would start by reducing your startup applications to a minimum, then run Task Manager/Processes, show Memory Usage and Page Faults in View/Select Columns, and see what's eating your pc. I can't give any more tuning tips than that, use Google and choose wisely.

[DennisD]

Randy, there could be an awful lot of things slowing your computer down, and CCleaner can make a real difference if you've never ran an application like it before, but that's only part of it.

 

The next road you should go down is properly checking your computer out for malware.

 

What security software do you have installed, and have you scanned with it recently?

 

What programs do have installed which may be running at startup and don't need to?

 

How much free space do you have on your System (C:) drive, and do you defrag the drive regularly, or even lately?

 

Which Operating System are you running (XP, Vista, Win7?), and is it fully patched? (With Windows updates)

 

If you can provide as much info as possible, then we may be able to steer you in the right direction to hopefully improve things.

 

EDIT: You pipped me Augeas.

[login123]

If you have done all the other recommendations and still want to fix the registry, take baby steps. Fix one issue at a time. If everything still works, fix the next issue.

 

Make a folder somewhere you can remember. I have one on an external hard drive (could use a flash drive) called "RegBacks" w/o the qoutes. Have CCleaner save the registry backups there, so that if something goes really wrong you will have them intact outside the hard drive.

 

Each backup will by by default start with cc_ and the date & time, like this: cc_20100919_185120.reg

 

Tedious, for sure, but doesn't take more space, just more time. Well, OK, maybe beyond tedious and approaching obsessive but there ya go, the registry scares me, even though CCleaner has never crashed anything here...other registry tools have.

[norel]

The main things that will slow you down are a hard drive that's nearly full, too many automatic processes and services running in the background, and not enough (or too slow) RAM. I'd worry about RAM last though. Once you eliminate the unneeded services and processes, you may find you have plenty of RAM.

 

72 registry issues are nothing.

[nikki605]

System slowdowns are rarely caused by just one thing, like the registry, in my experience. That's why, after 6 years, I just scratch loaded an old laptop with WinXP. Boy, what a performance improvement! All the programs I had installed over the years had slowly drug it down to a crawl. The HDD was constantly being accessed.

 

Not any more!

[login123]

...All the programs I had installed over the years had slowly drug it down to a crawl...

 

Yep, X2 for that. I'm soon facing the same, a reinstall...putting it off for as long as possible.

[pwillener]

Windows 9x did indeed require periodic reinstalls or repair installs; I remember doing it some 3 or 4 times a year.

 

On the other hand I have never seen a need to install Windows NT, 2K, or XP. Both my 2K and XP systems perform as well as on the first day; in fact I think XP performs much better, due to the years of fine-tuning.

 

If you keep an eye on your startup programs, Windows performance will rarely deteriorate. (Of course, some defraggling once or twice a year will also help.)

[login123]

Hi, pwilliner. Don't want to derail this topic, but this is related, I guess.

 

I have noticed some slowdown in WXP sp3. Startups have not changed. Permanent installations have not changed, although many have been tried under Powershadow...those all gone at restart.

 

An interesting glitch: I updated Spybot S&D, and all of a sudden Sandboxie wouldn't start, the driver wouldn't load. Posted a question on the SBIE forum, and here. The short version is that tzuk said: "Simply put, a particular kind of resource is (arbitrarily) limited in Windows. And you just have too many security software competing for this limited resource." No further elaboration was forthcoming. I wouldn't doubt tzuk if he said the Earth is flat, but I have had the same security setup for at least 2 years. Except for the Spybot update, nothing changed.

 

Not quarreling with you either, you know far more than I, but something is slowing old HAL here down and it is not new software, not spyware, and not overloaded hardware. So there is more to this issue that I don't understand. But it is true that XP sp3 will slow down, and something seems to "fill up".

 

As to the original question, probably randall550 has installed something that is stalling the OS, and it is not the same issue as mine. But...

 

The bottom line for me is either a reinstall or a manual cleanup. I choose the first one, it seems quicker and more dependable for a not-too-tekkie like me. Maybe same for randall550. Just my opinion.

 

If you know better, please say it, I will rend windows asunder with no regrets...if it will work...but not recommend it for randall550.

[Alan_B]

I have noticed some slowdown in WXP sp3. Startups have not changed. Permanent installations have not changed, although many have been tried under Powershadow...those all gone at restart.

I understand that Windows is trying to improve itself by periodically tweaking itself,

and I believe something like Wimprove process is involved.

What I do not like is that without any change to installed programs,

or any memorable change to my usage of the computer,

an "improvement tweak" may randomly improve or degrade the start-up duration by a random amount,

and a few days later it tries again with random results.

Its improvements are like a Bull wondering around the china shop and re-arranging the crockery.

 

The only good thing I can say is that it sort of averages out for me, the gains and losses tend to balance out eventually. Perhaps I am luckier than you.

 

Alan

[Alan_B]

I have improved my system by changing SOME Services from Automatic to either Manual or Disabled.

There are now only 33 Services set for Automatic.

Right now there are 7 Manual services that have been automatically started by whatever needed them.

 

Right now Windows Task Manager shows 21 processes are running and consuming memory and the odd CPU cycle.

Two of those processes belong to Firefox, including plugin-container.

When I close Firefox and Task Manager there will be only 18 processes running,

which I believe is quite good for a laptop.

 

Start-up took twice as long before I cut out the flab.

 

Various sites provide information on what each service does and give recommendations.

One that springs to mind is

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm,

but other people may suggest something more suitable for you.

Whatever you do, be careful.

 

There are many useful and powerful tools available at

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/default.aspx

As with all tools, they can be a power for good or for evil.

Whatever you do, be careful.

I find most useful their Process Explorer.

This will show what processes are running, as does Windows Task Manager.

 

Process explorer does MANY other things.

You can double click a process and it presents a properties window,

and that allows you to see a graph that plots its use of resources with time.

I found it interesting to have it running in the background when performance was "patchy",

and when a Glitch occurred I could bring it to foreground and see if the A.V. process had just been fighting something or downloading a signature base etc.

 

Regards

Alan

[login123]

...Perhaps I am luckier than you.

 

Alan

 

Thanks for that information.

 

Autoruns and procmon from Sysinternals are great too ...they might help Randall550 find out where his slowdowns are.

 

I install, try, then dump a bunch of stuff. Nowadays it is all temporary or not at all, but a while back I didn't bother with that, just used the supplied uninstaller. That has probably resulted in a gummed up registry because of incomplete removals.

 

Didn't know any better, and I bet many casual users don't either.

 

Should have followed Andavari and the other moderators lead and used some high power uninstallers, or a virtual machine. That will happen after the next reinstall.