Registry CleanUp

[Digerati]

but you dont want a novice or someone who does not know what they are doing repairing hondas.

Which is EXACLY why I said above, "I would MUCH rather an inexperienced user use one of these programs than go digging around with Regedit".

And therein lies the problem. The risks outweigh the benefit.

Ignoring the millions and millions of happy users does not make it so.

I have had many more computers come across my bench broken by Norton, AVG, ZoneAlarm, McAfee, etc. being too aggressive than by misused Registry cleaners.

[SpywareDr]

Even in the best-case scenario the impact of using a registry cleaner would 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, feature or operating system to fail?

So I'm afraid I must continue to stand by my original statement, (thanks broni): Using registry cleaning tools unnecessarily or incorrectly could lead to disastrous effects on your operating system such as preventing it from ever starting again. For routine use, the benefits to your computer are negligible while the potential risks are great.

[Digerati]

Who said anything about using them unnecessarily or incorrectly? Not me.

I am sorry you feel what was must always be.

Good day.

[SpywareDr]

Originally Posted by Digerati

Who said anything about using them unnecessarily or incorrectly? Not me.

It was in my original post

Originally Posted by Digerati

I am sorry you feel what was must always be.

Only until the benefits of using registry cleaners outweigh the risks.

Originally Posted by Digerati

Good day.

postea videbo vos

[Digerati]

It was in my original post

You use yourself to justify yourself???

Then note in my original post I said,

Originally Posted by Digerati

I am not vehemently opposed to Registry cleaners as some are. But NO DOUBT, Registry cleaners can turn a computer into a brick, if not careful. I ONLY use CCleaner, and no other Registry cleaner simply because it is NOT an aggressive cleaner. Plus, it always prompts to backup the Registry before making changes (not to mention, CCleaner has been around for over 10 years, giving Piriform lots of time to ensure CCleaner is safe and reliable - when used properly).

If you really want to make your Registry more "tidy", back it up and delete the unwanted entries and see what happens. But you need to be sure they are not needed by something else, and be ready to do a full restore. I would suggest you make a current image backup, just in case.

Or, better yet, just leave it alone and don't worry about it.

[SpywareDr]

Originally Posted by Digerati

You use yourself to justify yourself???

No, simply providing you an answer to your question.

[Digerati]

That's fine, but please don't suggest or imply that I am saying the haphazard use of Registry cleaners is safe, as your comment appeared to do.

FTR, I regularly use CCleaner on all my systems. When?

• After successfully installing Windows (after a couple days of problem-free use).
• After major OS upgrades, for example, after installing service packs (again, after a couple days of problem-free use).
• When swapping out major hardware components that rely heavily on driver support. For example, when swapping out an AMD/ATI graphics card for a NVIDIA card. Or when swapping NICs or adding a sound card to take the place of integrated audio.
• After major application upgrades and service packs - for example after installing SP3 for Office 2007, or upgrading from Office 2007 to Office 2010.
• After removing Norton, McAfee and other heavily bloated anti-malware solutions that are notorious for leaving hooks, remnants, icons and links, and startup services and applets behind.

As I noted above a bloated Registry is still likely to be just a few 100Mb in size so clearly, freeing up space is no reason to use one so I agree with you there. And while 2 or 3 seconds may not be significant to you or me, it may be to some, especially if caused by a dead link in the Registry. As George Ou (a prominent ZDNet colleague of Ed Bott) noted in your link above, dead-link lockups can last 30 seconds while Windows ponders what to do next - delays fixed by CCleaner.

Only until the benefits of using registry cleaners outweigh the risks.

And yet the risks are minimal, if users take the simple precaution of backing up the Registry. It is simple to restore from a backup file if Windows boots, and only slightly harder (or rather, inconvenient) if you have to boot into Safe Mode or from recovery mode. But again, in 10 years and dozens of computers, I have never had to do either with systems I have run CCleaner on.

If CCleaner were the evil beast you suggest it is, there would be millions and millions of broken computers and users complaining - and that is just not the case.

and as a computer technician...for many years (1984)

Well, I promise not to hold your youth and lack of experience against you!

[SpywareDr]

and only slightly harder (or rather, inconvenient) if you have to boot into Safe Mode or from recovery mode.[

Originally Posted by Digerati

And yet the risks are minimal, if users take the simple precaution of backing up the Registry.

But most don't, and that's a risk.

Originally Posted by Digerati

It is simple to restore from a backup file

For you and I, yes. For the masses, no. And that's another risk.

Originally Posted by Digerati

if Windows boots,

"if Windows boots". And that's a big risk.

Originally Posted by Digerati

But again, in 10 years and dozens of computers, I have never had to do either with systems I have run CCleaner on.

We're not only talking about experienced users, or just CCleaner. Even more risks.

Originally Posted by Digerati

If CCleaner were the evil beast you suggest it is, there would be millions and millions of broken computers and users complaining - and that is just not the case.

I never made such a statement. CCleaner is probably the safest to use. But not everyone only uses CCleaner, (with a backup). Yet another risk.


And all of these risks outweigh the benefit.

[jenae]

Hi, it is quite rare to see an argument being made for the use of registry cleaners or one in particular ccleaner, to site that millions of people are using these products and are not having issues is a pertinent statement, could you produce empirical data to back this up? Otherwise you are merely stating your opinion.

If you could site for us any evidenced based documentation that supports the use of registry cleaners, then as a scientist I would be interested, though I know no such support exists, what most amateurs miss is the complex nature of the registry, for example why do the makers of registry cleaners not explain that the hive HKCU will be cleaned for the user you are logged onto at the time of running the cleaner, no access to the other users HCKU hive is possible.. so what happens to their registry.. full of muck

Snake oil no matter how you dress it is still snake oil, the original registry was written to allow a multi user OS replacing Inf files it is a database and is as such on a modern computer scanned so fast that no difference will be noticed. My true registry on this well used test machine is 21mg with windows allowing expansion to 648 mb.

Now, so people are not confused there are times when a registry needs to have data removed this apply's to Anti Virus\Spyware utils these are so embedded that they can and do conflict with other AV installs, specific developers make utils for the proper removal of these products, specific removal tools such as the popular revo also target specifics relevant to programs and are safe.

The onus should be on the developers of these products to show empirical evidence of there usefulness, MS developed a regscan and released it only to quicky realise that some fool had made a mistake, it quickly disappeared, the sooner the rest do the better.

There is one other hugely important issue here, Forums are full of people who blame MS for the failure of an update or the problems they have accessing files or folders access being denied, when in effect the magic fix all (this includes ccleaner which has in our database hundreds of Reg cleaner related problems) reg cleaner run last month removed a vital reg component, MS having written the fix (update) to accommodate a stable registry gets the blame, this is also well recorded in our database (thousands of them).

Please, the advice from Spyware doctor that the risk outways the benefit is the view held by my contemporary's in computer science, almost universally.

[Digerati]

As a man of science myself, I agree with you and I too would like to see some real empirical data on this. But it does not exist. Why? Not sure, but I do know any data would involve artificial scenarios and that's part of the problem.

Can you cite a white paper that says Registry cleaners break properly running computers? I bet not. What you are most likely to find is forum users who say something like, "my computer was, or was not doing [fill in the blank] so I tried System Restore, ran chkdsk, updated my drivers, ran CCleaner (or PCTools, or CSC, etc.) and now my computer does not work." And by the way, there are nearly (or more, depending on your source) 1 billion Windows computers out there. 100s, or even 10s of 1000s of (typically vague) reports of problems does not represent the norm.

for example why do the makers of registry cleaners not explain that the hive HKCU will be cleaned for the user you are logged onto at the time of running the cleaner, no access to the other users HCKU hive is possible.. so what happens to their registry.. full of muck

Full of muck? Huh? From where? That is simply not true. CU = "current" user - as it should. But you can clean all on domain controlled computers but that's another issue.

I am reminded of something I used to hear in the military a lot, "one aw sh!t wipes out a 1000 attaboys". I fear that stigma applies to CCleaner as well.

[SpywareDr]

As I mentioned before, registry cleaners/optimizers are not recommended:

• Registry cleaners are extremely powerful applications that can damage the registry by using aggressive cleaning routines and cause your computer to become unbootable.
  
• Not all registry cleaners are created equal.
  
• Not all registry cleaners create a backup of the registry before making changes.
  
• Improperly removing registry entries can hamper malware disinfection and make the removal process more difficult if your computer becomes infected.
  
• The usefulness of cleaning the registry is highly overrated and can be dangerous.

[Digerati]

And to be clear, I did not, and have not "recommended" anybody use them.

I don't immediately jump on every thread with constant and immediate condemnation EVERY TIME someone mentions "Registry cleaner" either. That is unwarranted as the real-world numbers don't match your exaggerated scare tactic claims.

Also not fair is to automatically dump every application that has a registry cleaning function into the same pot. That is biased and prejudicial - as is your attempt to discredit all by noting that some don't prompt for a backup.

As you correctly noted, not all cleaners are created equal.

[SpywareDr]

Originally Posted by Digerati

And to be clear, I did not, and have not "recommended" anybody use them.

Excellent.

Originally Posted by Digerati

I don't immediately jump on every thread with constant and immediate condemnation EVERY TIME someone mentions "Registry cleaner" either.

Ditto.

Originally Posted by Digerati

That is unwarranted as the real-world numbers don't match your exaggerated scare tactic claims.

The five points I made above are not scare tactics.

Originally Posted by Digerati

Also not fair is to automatically dump every application that has a registry cleaning function into the same pot. That is biased and prejudicial - as is your attempt to discredit all by noting that some don't prompt for a backup.

As you correctly noted, not all cleaners are created equal.

Actually, a backup should probably be done automatically when making system changes. (Like Windows' Restore points).



For the majority of those "1 billion Windows computers out there", the risks of using a registry cleaner outweigh the risks.

[renegade600]

there is no need to continue with the argument. everyone had their say about registry cleaners and nobody is going to change their mind. the argument has nothing to do with the original question. there are plenty of others who needs help.

[SpywareDr]

You're right Dan. I'm out.