Registry cleaner and slow computer

July 13, 2008

I just ran a registry checker that said I have 540 errors. The

machine (A Dell Insprion 2200) has been slowing down over the last few

weeks.

Is there a free registlry cleaner that will do what needs to be done?

July 13, 2008

Re: Registry cleaner and slow computer

mholt@ohiohills.com wrote:

> I just ran a registry checker that said I have 540 errors. The

> machine (A Dell Insprion 2200) has been slowing down over the last few

> weeks.

>

OK, but what does that have to do with a registry cleaner? Have you

even attempted to address the true causes of a slowing computer, such as

malware, badly fragmented partitions, too little free hard drive space,

too little RAM for the applications/processing now in use that weren't

used when you first set up the computer, too many unnecessary background

applications running simultaneously, incorrect device drivers, etc?

> Is there a free registlry cleaner that will do what needs to be done?

"... Registry cleaner ... do what needs to be done?" There's no such

thing, free or otherwise.

A registry cleaner - even a safe one, should such ever be developed

- is an exercise in, at best, futility. There is no real need for

registry cleaners, other than to provide a profit to their

manufacturers. On rare occasions, registry cleaners can be, in the

hands of a skilled technician, useful, time-saving diagnostic tools.

Otherwise, they're nothing but snake oil.

Why do you even think you'd ever need to clean your registry? What

specific *problems* are you actually experiencing (not some program's

bogus listing of imaginary problems) that you think can be fixed by

using a registry cleaner?

If you do have a problem that is rooted in the registry, it would

be far better to simply edit (after backing up, of course) only the

specific key(s) and/or value(s) that are causing the problem. After

all, why use a chainsaw when a scalpel will do the job? Additionally,

the manually changing of one or two registry entries is far less likely

to have the dire consequences of allowing an automated product to make

multiple changes simultaneously. The only thing needed to safely clean

your registry is knowledge and Regedit.exe.

The registry contains all of the operating system's "knowledge" of

the computer's hardware devices, installed software, the location of the

device drivers, and the computer's configuration. A misstep in the

registry can have severe consequences. One should not even turning

loose a poorly understood automated "cleaner," unless he is fully

confident that he knows *exactly* what is going to happen as a result of

each and every change.

Having repeatedly seen the results of inexperienced people using

automated registry "cleaners," I can only advise all but the most

experienced computer technicians (and/or hobbyists) to avoid them all.

Experience has shown me that such tools simply are not safe in the hands

of the inexperienced user. If you lack the knowledge and experience to

maintain your registry by yourself, then you also lack the knowledge and

experience to safely configure and use any automated registry cleaner,

no matter how safe they claim to be.

More importantly, no one has ever demonstrated that the use of an

automated registry cleaner, particularly by an untrained, inexperienced

computer user, does any real good, whatsoever. There's certainly been

no empirical evidence offered to demonstrate that the use of such

products to "clean" WinXP's registry improves a computer's performance

or stability. Given the potential for harm, it's just not worth the risk.

Granted, most registry "cleaners" won't cause problems each and

every time they're used, but the potential for harm is always there.

And, since no registry "cleaner" has ever been demonstrated to do any

good (think of them like treating the flu with chicken soup - there's no

real medicinal value, but it sometimes provides a warming placebo

effect), I always tell people that the risks far out-weigh the

non-existent benefits.

I will concede that a good registry *scanning* tool, in the hands

of an experienced and knowledgeable technician or hobbyist can be a

useful time-saving diagnostic tool, as long as it's not allowed to make

any changes automatically. But I really don't think that there are any

registry cleaners that are truly safe for the general public to use.

Experience has proven just the opposite: such tools simply are not safe

in the hands of the inexperienced user.

--

Bruce Chambers

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~ Denis Diderot

July 14, 2008

Re: Registry cleaner and slow computer

On Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:42:47 -0700 (PDT), "mholt@ohiohills.com"

<mholt@ohiohills.com> wrote:

> I just ran a registry checker that said I have 540 errors. The

> machine (A Dell Insprion 2200) has been slowing down over the last few

> weeks.

>

> Is there a free registlry cleaner that will do what needs to be done?

No, free or not, there is no such thing.

Registry cleaning programs are *all* snake oil. Cleaning of the

registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone and

don't use any registry cleaner. Despite what many people think, and

what vendors of registry cleaning software try to convince you of,

having unused registry entries doesn't really hurt you.

The risk of a serious problem caused by a registry cleaner erroneously

removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit

it may have.

Whatever is causing your performance problem, it's not "errors" in the

registry. Look elsewhere for the cause of your problem.

The most common cause of slowdowns these days is malware infestation.

What anti-virus and anti-spyware programs do you run, and are they up

to date?

--

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

Please Reply to the Newsgroup

July 14, 2008

Re: Registry cleaner and slow computer

mholt@ohiohills.com wrote:

> I just ran a registry checker that said I have 540 errors. The

> machine (A Dell Insprion 2200) has been slowing down over the last few

> weeks.

>

> Is there a free registlry cleaner that will do what needs to be done?

Registry cleaners have nothing to do with the slow-down of the computer.

Nothing.

The "errors" which your registry checker found are similar to the names of

people in the 'phone book who have recently died or moved away. These

alleged "errors" have NO effect on the remaining entries.

July 14, 2008

Re: Registry cleaner and slow computer

True . However even the telephone company cleans up the errors with every

new publication of their phone directory.

To add my other 1cents worth I've used my brand of registry cleaner for

about 5 yrs on my WinXP system with no ill

effects. So to say that its snake oil.....well lets leave it open for

further discussion it makes for a good laugh.

"HeyBub" <heybub@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:Obozbsa5IHA.2260@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

> mholt@ohiohills.com wrote:

>> I just ran a registry checker that said I have 540 errors. The

>> machine (A Dell Insprion 2200) has been slowing down over the last few

>> weeks.

>>

>> Is there a free registlry cleaner that will do what needs to be done?

>

> Registry cleaners have nothing to do with the slow-down of the computer.

> Nothing.

>

> The "errors" which your registry checker found are similar to the names of

> people in the 'phone book who have recently died or moved away. These

> alleged "errors" have NO effect on the remaining entries.

>

July 14, 2008

Re: Registry cleaner and slow computer

Arte Marte wrote:

> True . However even the telephone company cleans up the errors with

> every new publication of their phone directory.

> To add my other 1cents worth I've used my brand of registry cleaner

> for about 5 yrs on my WinXP system with no ill

> effects. So to say that its snake oil.....well lets leave it open for

> further discussion it makes for a good laugh.

Many times, snake oil doesn't produce any ill effects.

July 14, 2008

Re: Registry cleaner and slow computer

On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:21:40 -0500, "Arte Marte" <Arte@nospam.net>

wrote:

> To add my other 1cents worth I've used my brand of registry cleaner for

> about 5 yrs on my WinXP system with no ill

> effects.

Nobody claims that every time someone uses a registry cleaner,

something terrible will happen. The point is that using a registry

cleaner does nothing that needs to be done, and that it increases the

*risk* of problems. Driving without your seatbelt on doesn't guarantee

that you'll be killed in an automobile accident either, but it too

increases the risk.

If you've successfully used one, I'm glad to hear that you weren't

burned by it. But it did nothing useful for you, and you needlessly

subjected yourself to risk during that time.

If you continue using it, you may continue being lucky, or you may

not. It's your choice of course, but considering that it doesn't do

anything useful, it's a very bad bargain, in my view.

--

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

Please Reply to the Newsgroup

July 14, 2008

Re: Registry cleaner and slow computer

"Arte Marte" <Arte@nospam.net> wrote in message

news:eAD6xzb5IHA.784@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

> True . However even the telephone company cleans up the errors with every

> new publication of their phone directory.

> To add my other 1cents worth I've used my brand of registry cleaner for

> about 5 yrs on my WinXP system with no ill

> effects. So to say that its snake oil.....well lets leave it open for

> further discussion it makes for a good laugh.

>

> "HeyBub" <heybub@gmail.com> wrote in message

> news:Obozbsa5IHA.2260@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

>> mholt@ohiohills.com wrote:

>>> I just ran a registry checker that said I have 540 errors. The

>>> machine (A Dell Insprion 2200) has been slowing down over the last few

>>> weeks.

>>>

>>> Is there a free registlry cleaner that will do what needs to be done?

>>

>> Registry cleaners have nothing to do with the slow-down of the computer.

>> Nothing.

>>

>> The "errors" which your registry checker found are similar to the names

>> of people in the 'phone book who have recently died or moved away. These

>> alleged "errors" have NO effect on the remaining entries.

>>

>

Quit using the useless thing before it causes problems.

Jim

July 14, 2008

Re: Registry cleaner and slow computer

For those that get an adrenaline rush from computing so-called dangerously:

http://www.glaryutilities.com/

then

http://www.auslogics.com/registry-defrag

<mholt@ohiohills.com> wrote in message

news:3d9aaaf3-eea0-4fb3-ad11-8b7004977330@p25g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...

>I just ran a registry checker that said I have 540 errors. The

> machine (A Dell Insprion 2200) has been slowing down over the last few

> weeks.

>

> Is there a free registlry cleaner that will do what needs to be done?

August 14, 2008

Re: Registry cleaner and slow computer

I checked out the auslogics site and here in part is what they say concerning

the registry:

"What is Windows Registry?

The Registry is very much like hard disk drives. Programs on your computer

access the Registry thousands of times per second. That means that the

Registry, just like disk drives, gets bloated and fragmented with time.

Do You Know the Facts?

Most of you already know that a fragmented registry slows down computer

speed (same as hard disks). But few are aware that the registry is fully kept

in the memory when your PC is running. Memory on your PC is much smaller than

disk space and the more bloated the Registry becomes, the less space there is

for other programs to run. Knowing that, it should not come as a surprise to

you that Windows Vista or XP runs noticeably slower after a few months of

work.

Download FREE Auslogics Registry Defrag to defragment and compact the

Windows Registry in less than a minute. The program will scan through the

registry to remove slack spaces, reducing the registry size and ultimately

the amount of RAM the registry takes up, and improving your computer

performance. <end of quote>

This doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe it's not supposed to make sense.

I have used another registry tool called Registry Booster 2, from Uniblue. I

admit, my usage was purely experimental, on systems that, should they die an

untimely death because of tinkering with the registry, there was no loss.

Would I try them on another system, containing much valuable data and work?

I would rather not, even though the Booster takes a back up of the registry

before it cleans all the invalid entries. Reasoning that I just don't have

enough evidence to point to showing improvement in performance. Another

reason is that, without a way to accurately quantify before/after

performance, there's no certainty that what was done actually helped. On one

system, running XP home, SP3, there was what seemed to be a significant

effect on the amount of time it took to load Windows. Before, I could go

away and get a cup of coffee while I waited after log in. After the Registry

Booster was used, it was so quick I didn't have time to stand up. However,

does this mean that all is well? Hmmmm. Waiting to see on that one. I

guess what it boils down to is that we're looking for a silver bullet, and

these yo-yos peddling their registry tools know that, and they exploit it too.

When a program that is no longer needed or outdated is uninstalled, most of

the time, the installer does a poor job of removing it cleanly. If you use

the find function in regedit, you can find a lot of left over entries which

probably should have been deleted. That was the case on the drive with XP

home on it. It began life with Win98, then ME, finally upgraded to XP.

Booster found 458 invalid entries many of which were left overs from old

programs and drivers I uninstalled whilst making the drive XP ready. Do all

those old vestiges make the OS more sluggish? I think they do, to an extent,

but I also think that Defrag, and disk clean up and the like remain the more

important maintenance tools.

"iPC" wrote:

> For those that get an adrenaline rush from computing so-called dangerously:

>

> http://www.glaryutilities.com/

> then

> http://www.auslogics.com/registry-defrag

>

> <mholt@ohiohills.com> wrote in message

> news:3d9aaaf3-eea0-4fb3-ad11-8b7004977330@p25g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...

> >I just ran a registry checker that said I have 540 errors. The

> > machine (A Dell Insprion 2200) has been slowing down over the last few

> > weeks.

> >

> > Is there a free registlry cleaner that will do what needs to be done?

>

August 14, 2008

Re: Registry cleaner and slow computer

On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:32:00 -0700, CrabbyOlMan

<CrabbyOlMan@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

> I checked out the auslogics site and here in part is what they say concerning

> the registry:

> "What is Windows Registry?

> The Registry is very much like hard disk drives. Programs on your computer

> access the Registry thousands of times per second. That means that the

> Registry, just like disk drives, gets bloated and fragmented with time.

>

> Do You Know the Facts?

> Most of you already know that a fragmented registry slows down computer

> speed (same as hard disks). But few are aware that the registry is fully kept

> in the memory when your PC is running. Memory on your PC is much smaller than

> disk space and the more bloated the Registry becomes, the less space there is

> for other programs to run. Knowing that, it should not come as a surprise to

> you that Windows Vista or XP runs noticeably slower after a few months of

> work.

>

> Download FREE Auslogics Registry Defrag to defragment and compact the

> Windows Registry in less than a minute. The program will scan through the

> registry to remove slack spaces, reducing the registry size and ultimately

> the amount of RAM the registry takes up, and improving your computer

> performance. <end of quote>

>

> This doesn't make any sense to me.

That's because it doesn't make any sense. It's marketing-speak, rather

than truth.

> Maybe it's not supposed to make sense.

> I have used another registry tool called Registry Booster 2, from Uniblue. I

> admit, my usage was purely experimental, on systems that, should they die an

> untimely death because of tinkering with the registry, there was no loss.

> Would I try them on another system, containing much valuable data and work?

> I would rather not, even though the Booster takes a back up of the registry

> before it cleans all the invalid entries. Reasoning that I just don't have

> enough evidence to point to showing improvement in performance. Another

> reason is that, without a way to accurately quantify before/after

> performance, there's no certainty that what was done actually helped. On one

> system, running XP home, SP3, there was what seemed to be a significant

> effect on the amount of time it took to load Windows. Before, I could go

> away and get a cup of coffee while I waited after log in. After the Registry

> Booster was used, it was so quick I didn't have time to stand up. However,

> does this mean that all is well? Hmmmm. Waiting to see on that one. I

> guess what it boils down to is that we're looking for a silver bullet, and

> these yo-yos peddling their registry tools know that, and they exploit it too.

> When a program that is no longer needed or outdated is uninstalled, most of

> the time, the installer does a poor job of removing it cleanly. If you use

> the find function in regedit, you can find a lot of left over entries which

> probably should have been deleted. That was the case on the drive with XP

> home on it. It began life with Win98, then ME, finally upgraded to XP.

> Booster found 458 invalid entries many of which were left overs from old

> programs and drivers I uninstalled whilst making the drive XP ready. Do all

> those old vestiges make the OS more sluggish?

No. These "old vestiges" represent a tiny percentage of the total size

of the registry. Moreover, access to the registry is random anyway, so

having it slightly bigger because of the "old vestiges" does not do

nothing but waste a very small, insignificant amount of disk space.

Registry cleaning programs are *all* snake oil. Cleaning of the

registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone and

don't use any registry cleaner. Despite what many people think, and

what vendors of registry cleaning software try to convince you of,

having unused registry entries doesn't really hurt you.

The risk of a serious problem caused by a registry cleaner erroneously

removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit

it may have.

> I think they do, to an extent,

> but I also think that Defrag, and disk clean up and the like remain the more

> important maintenance tools.

>

> "iPC" wrote:

>

> > For those that get an adrenaline rush from computing so-called dangerously:

> >

> > http://www.glaryutilities.com/

> > then

> > http://www.auslogics.com/registry-defrag

> >

> > <mholt@ohiohills.com> wrote in message

> > news:3d9aaaf3-eea0-4fb3-ad11-8b7004977330@p25g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...

> > >I just ran a registry checker that said I have 540 errors. The

> > > machine (A Dell Insprion 2200) has been slowing down over the last few

> > > weeks.

> > >

> > > Is there a free registlry cleaner that will do what needs to be done?

> >

--

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

Please Reply to the Newsgroup

August 15, 2008

Re: Registry cleaner and slow computer

CrabbyOlMan wrote:

> I checked out the auslogics site and here in part is what they say concerning

> the registry:

> "What is Windows Registry?

> The Registry is very much like hard disk drives.

That's patently absurd. An indexed database file is "very much like" a

physical device? Whoever wrote that knows little or nothing (beyond a

limited vocabulary) about computers.

> Programs on your computer

> access the Registry thousands of times per second.

Well, many times per second, almost certainly. "Thousands of times?"

Maybe while installing a new application, or during massive OS

configuration changes.

> That means that the

> Registry, just like disk drives, gets bloated and fragmented with time.

>

Untrue and irrelevant. And since when did "access" mean that something

had to have been moved, added, changed? Most of the time, it's simply

being read. How could that possible lead to fragmentation or bloat?

> Do You Know the Facts?

What an ironic turn of phrase. It's clear the author isn't interested

in (and is unacquainted with) facts.

> Most of you already know that a fragmented registry slows down computer

> speed (same as hard disks).

Completely untrue. Only people who have no understanding, whatsoever,

of the registry could possibly think - or be tricked into thinking - that.

> But few are aware that the registry is fully kept

> in the memory when your PC is running.

*Parts* of the registry are stored in memory during use, but the whole

thing? Not so.

> Memory on your PC is much smaller than

> disk space ...

True, but irrelevant.

>.... and the more bloated the Registry becomes, the less space there is

> for other programs to run.

Now the writer is displaying his/her complete ignorance of WinXP's

memory management process. WinXP uses as much memory for itself as it

can at any given time, sure, but then it frees and "hands over" any

memory that applications need to run, dynamically.

> Knowing that, it should not come as a surprise to

> you that Windows Vista or XP runs noticeably slower after a few months of

> work.

>

Ah. but we don't know that, because it's all a lie.

>

> This doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe it's not supposed to make sense.

You're right. It doesn't make sense, not is it intended to do so.

It's just a typical scam, preying upon the typical consumer's technical

ignorance and fears, using either out-right lies or deliberately false

analogies to sell a snake-oil product.