On 9/8/2010 8:02 PM, Monica wrote:
I used to, as a computer novice in the mid 90s and let other people that had
no idea what they were doing talk me into them.
I'm not having any problems but I'm sure there are errant files in there
that need removed/moved/fixed. Are Reg Cleaners EVER
a good idea? Maybe by now they're improved?? If so, are there any "free"
reg cleaners you guys would suggest?
Thanks,
Monica



I can wholeheartedly recommend CCleaner, after using it for several
years, and installing it on many clients' computers. The Windows
registry does grow and grow and grow, and it has no built-in mechanisms
to remove obsolete entries, yet another idiocy of software design from
good old Micro$oft. I can say neither I nor my clients have ever, ever
had a problem with CCleaner's massaging of the registry. (You do need
to be very careful, however, with CCleaner's cleanup of junk files, as
there can be unintended consequences from asking it to remove files.
CCleaner is far more thorough than Windows' own Disk Cleanup.)

I have seen CCleaner remove over 1000 registry entries from old systems
that have had the "benefit" of many software installs and reinstalls
over the years.

When to use a registry cleaner? Use once, if you never have before.
Use after every significant Windows update. Use after uninstalling one
or more software packages, especially large complicated ones, e.g. an
older version of Microsoft Office or an Adobe suite.

What are the benefits? Faster system startup is the primary one.
Slightly reduced memory usage also occurs, because Windows decodes and
loads a working version of the entire registry into memory. Well, not
the entire registry. If the system has more than one userid, only the
part of the registry applicable to a single user gets loaded.

So, if you have a system with multiple userids, run CCleaner for each user.

The Windows registry can also become highly fragmented over time. This,
too, slows down system startup. Windows defrag does not defrag the
registry. Mark Russinovich, once of SysInternals, wrote PageDefrag to
defrag the registry, paging file and hibernation file. Microsoft liked
Mark's work so much (he has written other good tools, too), that they
bought his company, and hired him. Now all the SysInternals software is
available on the Microsoft web site. PageDefrag does not work with
Vista or Windows 7 though... Ben Myers