Vista - Registry Cleaners: Boon or Boondoggle?

I used to use Reg Cleaners, never checked the complete list of reg keys to be removed (too many for my health). The last one I was using did fairly well, untill some functions in the OS started to .... disappear. Then I just never used them again, nor recomend them either.

I never felt the need to use them once started to use XP x64, and same with Vista.

*any* reg cleaner can do this if you don't know what you are doing, or don't pay attention.

For example, I ran CCLeaner on a brand new Vista x64 install - not a lot found in the registry (I didn't clean anything, just analyzed for posterity's sake). Then I installed SP1 and checked again - now there are several 'missing' help files, several unused file extensions, and a bevy of other stuff. I knew better than to remove those as they were not there before SP1 and only SP1 was installed, so they were created by SP1 - and far be it for me to try to remove something that SP1 'installed' or 'fixed' in my registry.

I first got familiar with registry cleaning with the Norton Registry Cleaner app that came with Norton Utilities back in the day. Back when their Disk Defragmenter app (dd) was top notch, and just after they had removed that Disk editor utility because of the way Win XP worked.

I knew many people that set it to automatically 'fix' entries, but I decided to manually look through my set of entries - all 200+ - and half of the time the default fix (which was the first of usually 2 or 3 suggested fixes) was correct, and half of the time it was completely wrong - and I only discovered this after it tried to change the location of a help file for an app I had to some other totally different apps help file.

From that day I realized something - no computer application can be smarter than me and my eyes.

Yes, as Brinks asked, which ones did you have issues uninstalling? I have not had any such issues yet, but then again, I don't install them on my machines, so...
Amen. After a while I realized that orphans in the registry are just there - like trying to clean up duplicate files - sure you'll get a bit of space back, but if you're not talking full 700 MB ISO files, what's the point?

I have never used a cleaner on Vista, I did use one on XP when I had that and found a small improvement.

What Fix It Utilities did when I tried it years ago on XP, is it deleted stuff for Roxio's cd burning program and a few other things, which as I recall included a key system entry in the registry.

There was an article besides the recent PC World article that showed most registry cleaners aren't worth it, within the past few years.

The only registry cleaner that I've come across that doesn't cause me any problems, is the registry cleaner in TuneUp Utilities.

I use CCleaner and i've never double checked the list of registry issues before deleting them!
Moreover, i delete all of the registry issues!

Never had any probs!!

Ccleaner is unreliable and dangerous as far as I am concerned.

nCleaner does the trick for me. I don't use it unless I have some problems though, they are repairtools not regular maintenance tools for me, since they very rarely give any improvement.

I do let Auslogics registry defrag compact my registry every now and then though, because it reduces the size of the registry quite significantly. Don't know if it's really necessary, but it feels better to know it's not a huge lump of wasted space.

I guess I live a charmed life I have been cleaning and defragging the registry for year. Haven't screwed things up but ? times. Sorry I don't have enough fingers and toes to count that high. However when it works it seems to speed things up. I usually use a file cleaner and spyware remover at the same time so I can't say for certain it helps but I want to believe it did as I paid good money for it. Also can't say that it does any better than CCCleaner at doing it's job.

Hi John,

Yes, doubtful if it makes any real difference, but cleaning and defragging the registry is very satisfying.

I also got Steve's mail on this subject - most people will want to clean the registry because there's so much stuff out there claiming it will cure all kind of ills and give you a massive performance boost. Also most all-in one tools come with a cleaner built in.

Interesting that Auslogics reg defrag., Quicksys reg defrag. ( which I use ), and the one built into GlaryUtilities ( which I have been playing around with recently since version 2.6 onwards is x64 compatible ) all give the same analysis and results.

Contrast that with the varied analysis you get from regcleaners - even when you run some of them twice.

I use Wise Registry Cleaner - looked at a few and this seemed consistent on repeat analysis, less aggressive than some, gives plenty of info. and and can be set to automatically create a backup. I use the default settings and have never had any problems.

Does it make my machine any quicker? Probably not, but at least I feel like I have a clean machine.

http://regdefrag.com/
http://wisecleaner.com/
http://glarysoft.com/
http://auslogics.com/en/

SIW2

Then, i guess it is a matter of subjective versus objective. I look at things purely objectively. I distrust what I feel and trust what I can measure.

Interesting, but I would appreciate if you could say which software you're talking about here?

If you're referring to nCleaner, I'd just like to point out that I don't use the registry cleaner feature of nCleaner, it doesn't really give any performance I've noticed. I have successfully used it to get rid of odd crashes and such though, but I don't trust it enough to run it regularly even if I never had any issues yet. (Likely because I don't use it so frequently )

If you're referring to Auslogics Registry Defrag, I do run it fairly regularly (about once/month or so), and never had any problems. I can't say I see any performance gain by using it, but I like to think that I avoid performance degradation... And as long as I don't get any problems I don't see a problem with using it...

... Also, these apps are *free*, so the point of them being snakeoil or not is kind of moot. The question is if they BREAK things....

There's always reason to be careful with all things claiming to boost your computer though, since things that REALLY gives a boost is likely to make the system unstable.

Lowering the delay on the start menu is NOT a way to speed up your computer, even though it easily can be interpreted as such.