registry cleaning

[systemtooslow]

I think that Ccleaner should detect/fix more registry errors.

For example, I cleaned my Windows 7 registry using Ccleaner, then using a free windows registry cleaner off of the internet, and the registry cleaner reported 2476 errors.

I think that Ccleaner should fix more of these errors.

[systemtooslow]

Thanks in advance.

[kroozer]

I think that Ccleaner should detect/fix more registry errors.

For example, I cleaned my Windows 7 registry using Ccleaner, then using a free windows registry cleaner off of the internet, and the registry cleaner reported 2476 errors.

I think that Ccleaner should fix more of these errors.

No way. CC's registry cleaner is relatively safe and we like it this way. Other reg cleaners are too aggressive.

[pwillener]

CC's registry cleaner is relatively safe and we like it this way.

And the keyword here is "relatively"; no registry cleaner is 100% safe, and what they achieve is mostly questionable. I have never heard of a case where a registry cleaner resulted in a more stable or faster Windows system.

 

In my view: leave the Windows registry alone! In the almost 9 years I have used my XP system I have never run a registry cleaner, and my system runs as good as on the first day.

[login123]

...In the almost 9 years I have used my XP system I have never run a registry cleaner, and my system runs as good as on the first day.

 

X3. CCleaner is better because it is not too aggressive, IMO.

[TheWebAtom]

I have never heard of a case where a registry cleaner resulted in a more stable or faster Windows system.

 

My PC had a recurring bug in which it becomes impossible to delete files. I found absolutely nothing on Google about the issue, so I decided that there would be no harm in doing some software testing on new programs before I did a reformat. I downloaded Registry Mechanic and ran a registry scan, it found 1200 issues or so. It must have done something useful, since my problem disappeared instantly. It has happened a few times since, but each time a run with Registry Mechanic fixes it.

 

Registry Fixers/Cleaner can actually do something!? I was (and still am) shocked.

[Aethec]

If you have problems, Registry cleaners *might* do something. But usually finding which program is the root of the problem is a better alternative.

[mr don]

If you have problems, Registry cleaners *might* do something. But usually finding which program is the root of the problem is a better alternative.

Sometimes that works. If a program is the cause.

 

But sometimes, the registry really IS the cause of the problem.

When there are tons of references to files/folders that no longer exist, for example, or extensions such as .mp3 set to open with incorrect handlers like wordpad as "default" etc.... Sometimes, yes, sometimes, a good registry clean will solve a lot of problems.

 

CCleaner is good, but I vote for 2 things to change in CCleaner registry cleaner...

 

- Remove the very dangerous "unused file extension" scan, because when it comes up that .exe is unused, so it is safe to remove because of some malware infection hijacking things, uh, no, no, no. It makes the system much safer to simply remove this dangerous threat for users to play with! In fact, this part of registry cleaning is where 99% of problems occur while "cleaning" the registry on a PC! Please, remove this, make it safer, ok? Thank you!

 

- CCleaner does need to do a more thorough search for references that point to files that no longer exist. I have used Abexo Registry cleaner a long time for XP, testing how it does. In many cases, it finds 500 to 1100 or more that are 100% safe to remove...

 

Meaning, that I have tested it day in & out with no problems. Of course, I do check a ton of software so registry entries do accumulate!

When you run Abexo Registry cleaner, I untick the --> Clean Classes Section + Invalid Files Associations. Those 2 seem a little dangerous to me, but everything else seems 100% safe!

 

Another really good registry cleaner is Clean My PC Version 2.16. I am not sure how the newer versions work, as I haven't had time to test, but I DO know that that version kicks registry cleaning butt & seems 100% safe. I am not sure that the newer versions many not be a little too aggressive, but I will try to test later on.

 

There seems to be a lot of similarity in reg keys shown in CleanMyPC & Abexo in the invalid references section, so my questions are:

 

- Why does CCleaner still have the unused file extensions scan when it is the most dangerous part of the registry cleanup it does? (See above ^)

- Why can't CCleaner do a better job of detecting invalid references to files/folders that no longer exist?

 

I do love CCleaner, & I only suggested the above because after a lot of experience using, I have found the above ^ to be true.

 

In conclusion, I have found roughly equal amounts of cases where programs are the cause of problems, but so also are invalid registry keys, corrupted/missing/replaced system files, malware etc. I do not believe it is accurate to just say that it is always the fault of programs, since the registry can definitely cause problems if invalid settings are retained!

 

Comments?

 

Thanks!

[Alan_B]

In Windows Explorer my Right Click access to the context menu was severely and randomly damaged.

 

I have a very long and painful story about what Dropbox did these last 3 weeks,

but relevant to a damaged registry :-

 

Autoruns showed me that Dropbox had added ELEVEN context menu items,

and when I renamed the relevant DLL so the registry entries could no longer find the target,

The Context Menu was as elusive as ever.

 

Only when I had Autoruns replace the registry entries with its AutoBlock did I regain Context Menus.

 

I am convinced that when DropBox is uninstalled, if it leaves its Context Menu keys behind the Context Menu will remain damaged.

 

Alan

[Andavari]

I have used Abexo Registry cleaner a long time for XP, testing how it does. In many cases, it finds 500 to 1100 or more that are 100% safe to remove...

 

Another really good registry cleaner is Clean My PC Version 2.16. I am not sure how the newer versions work, as I haven't had time to test, but I DO know that that version kicks registry cleaning butt & seems 100% safe. I am not sure that the newer versions many not be a little too aggressive, but I will try to test later on.

No registry cleaner is 100% safe, and with all systems being different aggressive registry cleaners can cause more harm than they're supposed to "fix." I've tried more than enough of them over the years from big software commercial brands to virtual recluses, and most aren't worth the disk space they consume.

 

I surely wouldn't trust any registry cleaner showing me 500 to 1100 invalid entries, and it's rather unfeasible for someone to be expected to go through that many entries since most people wouldn't be bothered and would just click the "Fix" button possibly inheriting a load of new issues.

[mr don]

No registry cleaner is 100% safe, and with all systems being different aggressive registry cleaners can cause more harm than they're supposed to "fix." I've tried more than enough of them over the years from big software commercial brands to virtual recluses, and most aren't worth the disk space they consume.

 

I surely wouldn't trust any registry cleaner showing me 500 to 1100 invalid entries, and it's rather unfeasible for someone to be expected to go through that many entries since most people wouldn't be bothered and would just click the "Fix" button possibly inheriting a load of new issues.

 

I tend to agree with you, Andavari. I am not sure what OS you are on now, but I encourage you to download the Abexo Registry cleaner for XP & test it out.

I turn off the classes checkmark, & the unused extensions, but everything else I leave checked.

 

I believe you will find it to be pretty safe. Just try it a few times & report here what you found. I too have tested a LOT of cleaners that can/will/DO damage your registry, but after using Abexo for a number of years, it seems pretty safe in what it suggests.

 

If you have time sometime, just try it & let me know what you think. I have never had a problem with the ones it suggests for removal that point to files that no longer exist. I verified they did not exist a number of times (before actually removing them) by navigating directly to the folder (& checking, even with the ability to view hidden files/hidden system files enabled just to be certain) that these files did not exist.

 

Additionally, I ran Locate32 update, then tried finding the exact titles to some of the missing files. It seems to do a pretty thorough job. It certainly can't do worse than CCleaner (in my opinion). Additionally, I tend to test thousands of programs (resulting in thousands of left-over registry entries that slow up the system over time). Abexo is one of the safe, free, registry cleaners that does improve performance by suggesting safe entries that do not exist. References to old files.

 

The one for Vista or 7 may not be free, but they do have a free version for XP that works great from what I have tested. I do encourage you to test it out, rather than to blindly label it as just another utility. I do agree that there are untold numbers that are dangerous for your PC. If you will try it sometime, however, I believe you will be pleasantly surprised.

 

There is also 1 more that I can think of off the top of my head at the moment that is pretty safe. I have, but have not tested yet, the newer version of Clean My PC registry cleaner. I know the older version, 2.16 or so, was a champ in registry cleaning. It was really great & did not seem to suggest entries that would harm your PC to remove. If you can find that somewhere, that one also is great. I don't know if you know any friends with that version, but I know when I got that one years back, it is good as well.

 

P.S. Allan? This may help you. --> http://www.bartdart.com/ Context Menu Editor is free & works great for me. Try it & see if you like it.

[hazelnut]

MrDon this area of the forum is about suggestions to add to ccleaner.

 

It is not a place for making your suggestions for alternatives to use instead.

[mr don]

MrDon this area of the forum is about suggestions to add to ccleaner.

 

It is not a place for making your suggestions for alternatives to use instead.

 

Thanks, Hazel.

 

I am aware of that. I only wanted Adavari to try Abexo so he can see what I mean. He can't see what I mean if he doesn't try it. I wanted someone to take a look at WHY it can find more entries that are safe to remove (Yes, ccleaner is a gentle cleaner, I am aware... But yes, I also tested it a lot & it does work really good. Several years no problems, + manually checking to see that it really was only "removed" entries it was suggesting to be sure it was safe...)

 

The issue here, was NOT trying to get people to use something instead of CCleaner, but merely to use it to see what I mean, so that CCleaner can be updated with a better cleaner for the registry. I am not sure, I think you may have misunderstood my intent here. I am not sure, though.

 

The Context Menu cleaner, I merely suggested Allan try that as he mentioned above having context menu problems. Currently, CCleaner does not support editing or removing context menus, so how am I supposed to recommend ccleaner for context menu's when it just doesn't do context menu's?

 

I was only trying to help... Hopefully, you can see what I mean now. I do hope I cleared up any misconceptions.

 

Peace! I am out to help someone with something. Take care!

 

P.S. In addition to improving the registry check for references to files that no longer exist, I do highly recommend the removal of the highly dangerous "check for unused extensions". I have no idea why this was implemented at all. Even experienced users may be tricked into believing that yes, CCleaner knows what it is talking about, so yes, it IS safe to remove .exe, .mp3, etc, etc...

 

How will it find .mp3 or other extensions as "safe to remove"? Easy!

 

Example:

 

- You install KM player. It takes over as default player for .MP3.

- You uninstall KM player. File associations do NOT get returned back to WMP.

- CCleaner registry cleaner sees this .MP3 extension as having nothing associated with it, therefore = as "safe" to remove.

 

Out of all the registry cleanup sections, this one alone accounts for about 90% or more of problems with computers that I have seen so far. I believe it will increase system stability & reduce registry problems a lot if this section is removed.

 

Hopefully, it will be added to CCleaner 3, but that's a different story for later...

Thanks again, & do have a good day!

[Alan_B]

P.S. Allan? This may help you. --> http://www.bartdart.com/ Context Menu Editor is free & works great for me. Try it & see if you like it.

 

Thanks, but I only mentioned this to illustrate that 11 off context menu registry keys are enough to totally destroy functionality of context menus.

 

The keys were NOT suitable for cleaning because Dropbox used them.

I believe that every time a right click happened then it launched the DLL

C:\Documents and Settings\Dad\Application Data\Dropbox\bin\DropboxExt.14.dll

and immediately looked at what was clicked and decided it was not interested in that folder.

 

There were a few folders for which it had a relevant action, which would have been killed if the keys were cleaned.

 

Before risking a problem when fiddling with the context menu,

I compared C:\ with a golden shot image in R:\ to detect and remove residual garbage,

so I could create a junk free and fresh "golden shot" image of C:\ to fall back on.

 

What really annoyed me was that I found almost 400 new meaningless files with hexadecimal names in

C:\Documents and Settings\Dad\Application Data\Dropbox\shellext\l\

They accumulated at about 20 items per day, even for two weeks when Dropbox's Autostart had been disabled and it should have been dormant.

When I noticed that every time that the system event log showed "The Event log service was started"

there were two more meaningless files with exactly the same time stamp.

I guess the context menu keys caused this meaningless activity immediately after the O.S. was launched.

 

It was the ...\Dropbox\shellext\ that alerted me to Dropbox involvement in context menus and at that stage I launched Autoruns and it showed me 11 off Dropbox context menu keys.

 

I instinctively think of double extension files as things which obscure from the naive their purpose,

e.g. ReadMe.txt.exe will do anything but open Notepad.

DropboxExt.14.dll creates unexpected files immediately after (or during) BIOS and before the O.S., ouch ! !

 

It looks like a malware file and has unexpected and unwanted behavior, but I believe it is purely unintentional defective software without malicious intent.

Others are happy with Dropbox, but I am not. I may try it again in another year.

 

Alan

[Andavari]

I only wanted Adavari to try Abexo so he can see what I mean. He can't see what I mean if he doesn't try it.

Thing is I've tried it before, and well I wasn't impressed with all the stuff it lists and some of it wasn't safe to remove.

[mr don]

Thing is I've tried it before, and well I wasn't impressed with all the stuff it lists and some of it wasn't safe to remove.

 

Did you try unchecking the classes section first, along with the unused extensions?

 

IF you run it with those checked, yes, it will produce a lot of entries that are not safe to remove. But then, so will CCleaner if you leave unused extensions checked.

 

Please let me know if you tried it WITH or without those checkmarks earlier.

 

Thanks!

 

Edit: Also, the section I was MOST interested in, was the section that lists references to files that no longer exist. I don't believe I found any that were "unsafe" to remove under that section... It may be possible you did find some under that section, however.

 

I'd love to know what happens when you try it without those checkmarks I described earlier. Because I already know it does list entries that are unsafe to remove, as will ANY registry cleaner that tries to show "unused extensions" to remove. Which is why I was asking if you had tried it with or without those checkmarked.

 

Most people probably leave everything checked, so I was wondering if that was what you did too?

 

Let me know sometime! Thanks!

[Alan_B]

 

Edit: Also, the section I was MOST interested in, was the section that lists references to files that no longer exist. I don't believe I found any that were "unsafe" to remove under that section... It may be possible you did find some under that section, however.

 

 

My daughter and I have separate and private profiles on XP Home edition

An "All Users" desktop short cut takes us to a script that looks at %USERNAME% and runs CC with a suitable *.ini

My *.ini cleans as vigorously as I dare, whilst hers leaves the system alone and clears her temporary/caches etc.

 

When I set this up she logged in for me to check that I had done a good job.

I found I did a good job, but M.$ had done a diabolical job.

 

I enabled all the registry boxes to see what would happen if she changed the defaults,

and a whole host of registry keys were due for the chop.

I recognized them as referring to an application that was installed by default in my private %APPDATA%,

and was therefore invisible from her profile.

I then unchecked the boxes (as I originally intended) and explained to my daughter that she should never clean the registry.

 

When I first had XP I was given a "Teach Yourself XP" book with a CD to install practice exercises etc.

M.$. were responsible for this fiasco that to teach me how to use XP they installed in my private %APPDATA%,

BUT they accessed via the HKLM registry hive, hence chaos because it was not confined to my specific HKCU.

The creators of that idiocy really ought to have read "XP for Dummies"

 

Alan

[Andavari]

Did you try unchecking the classes section first, along with the unused extensions?

 

IF you run it with those checked, yes, it will produce a lot of entries that are not safe to remove. But then, so will CCleaner if you leave unused extensions checked.

 

It really doesn't matter because I'm not going to download/install it again, that was sometime last year I tried it.

 

Now can we go back on topic about CCleaner, that's what this topic is about - not Abexo.

[mr don]

It really doesn't matter because I'm not going to download/install it again, that was sometime last year I tried it.

 

Now can we go back on topic about CCleaner, that's what this topic is about - not Abexo.

 

This is definitely about CCleaner. http://sourceforge.net/projects/littlecleaner/ I also tried that & it seems impressive. I will have to do further testing to be sure.

 

I am not of course, posting these as the "alternative" to CCleaner. I am merely posting because some people feel that CCleaner registry cleaner should not be changed at all. But I have seen registry cleaners who do safely recommend entries to remove, & one of them is references to items that no longer exist.

 

I do not see what CCleaner cannot be stronger in that area, which is the reason I posted info, so that people can see what I mean. I didn't want to just say it can do this or that with no way to verify the fact that is is possible. I am not demeaning CCleaner in any way, I just feel that it can be stronger in the search for orphaned/no longer existing entries.

 

If I use 5,000 pieces of software in a week, then it really adds up if CCleaner doesn't show these entries.

 

By the same token, I fail to see why CCleaner doesn't remove the scan for "unused extensions" as that is the most dangerous scan in the registry cleaning section. All it takes is for someone to remove the .exe/.mp3 or some other important extension to ruin a windows installation .

 

It is all too easy for malware or other programs to alter the default programs that are associated with extensions so that CCleaner can "helpfully" suggest they are safe to remove...

 

Well, I am out for today, but peace man! Have fun!