Windows 7: Registry Cleaner

You're right it does do a spectacular job. The first time I used the program it found over 2500 results that both CCleaner and MV RegClean had missed.

~Maxx~

winkerbie,

I agree with those who say a registry cleaner is not necessary in Win 7.

IMO - there is no reliable way for a third party program to know whether any particular key is invalid, redundant or neither. Some registry cleaners may not know for sure whether a key is still being used by Windows or what detrimental effects removing it may have. This has led to examples of registry cleaners causing loss of functionality and/or system instability.

Jan.

I use, Uniblue Registry Cleaner...

Uniblue RegistryBooster 2010 - Download Software, Registry Cleaner

Tbh, it doesn't look amazing and all but it fixes some of my problems for me as well. Ultimately, CCleaner is as sexy too.

Whether or not one should use a registry cleaner is kinda like the other age old question: What is the best AV. After all is said and done, and all the pros and cons are aired, it comes down to personal preference.

The only words of wisdom I would offer is to make a backup of your current registry before using any registry cleaner. And I would further suggest backing up the registry by creating a System Restore point ... not by using the built-in backup feature many registry cleaners offer. My logic goes like this: if the registry cleaner doesn't work properly what makes you think its backup feature would work?

Just my 2¢.

If you are looking for a registry cleaner you are looking for trouble. For Windows 7 (as for Vista) that is an absolutely useless function that buys you nothing (but trouble).

I don't use registry cleaners. Instead of cleaning, they do the trashing.

Use registry cleaners if you know what you are doing. I disagree with the guys who are one sided and say you don't absolutely need to use a registry cleaner on Windows 7. I say you do need them but stay away if you don't know where the keys found lead to. They can help you remove remnants or malware and remove applications.

If you have a system with 1 GB or below amount of RAM, the performance does degrade noticeably after some time and using a registry cleaner will improve that a but but destroy a few things if you remove something really needed.

Those dead keys that lead to entries of uninstalled programs are relatively safe to delete but those that you don't know, better leave them be and always reserve a backup such as a restore point or use a program called Erunt to backup the whole registry before any cleaning.

If you have any questions about registry cleaners, always use the search function so that you can see the dozens of threads that talk about it and from there, maybe you can weigh the pros and cons and decide for yourself if you need a registry cleaner.

Iobit System Care is a fair program, but if I was an inexperienced user, I would not use its registry cleaner and system optimization tools but the tools besides those are safe.

CCleaner is a light registry cleaner. Its relatively safer than many other registry cleaning tools out there but even that has caused problems.

Absolutely correct.

Spot on, whs.

I pretty much agree with Vertex and his approach is on the money. The point with which I partially disagree is this:

"I say you do need them but stay away if you don't know where the keys found lead to."

Except in very rare instances, registry cleaners are not needed for Win 7. Removing dead keys will not make one millisecond's difference in Win 7's operating speed. It does not hurt anything to remove dead keys; but there are no gains. Win 7 manages the registry much differently than did XP. Those who are applying XP knowledge to Win 7's registry will come to grief sooner or later.

Win 7 includes some keys, notably the unused extension keys, that make installation of new programs easier and file associations more accurate. It has other keys that may not be used now; but down the road will be needed. You can easily shoot yourself in the foot by blindly following a registry cleaner - and you will end up posting in the Crashes and Debugging section where the recommendation will be a clean install. It has happened and still happens. If you limit yourself to deleting keys that are associated with software you know you have uninstalled, you will be safe. If you never touch the registry, Win 7 will run just fine.

I know you die-hard registry cleaners advocates will not heed this and you will learn the hard way - like I did. I then did the research I should have done before hand and learned.

I've used several different flavors of Registry Cleaners for many years now in both Vista x86 and Win 7 x64 which accounts for over 1,000 Registry cleaning sessions and I have never on any of those occasions ever noticed a 'thrashing' of the Registry nor ever noticed any negative impact whatsoever on computer performance. Are we also not to use the Revo Uninstaller also because it removes the unused Registry keys of programs that have been uninstalled?

I'm not recommending that anyone maintain the size of their computer's Registry by using Revo or a Registry cleaner if they believe it might harm their computer's Registry all I'm saying is that in my own personal experience I have used these tools to rid the Registry of no longer used keys on an ongoing basis for many years and that I have never had to use the backups I've made to repair any kind of damage to the Registry or negative effect on the functioning of my Vista x86 or Win 7 x64 computers as a result of ridding it of unused keys and some uninstalled programs leave 100's and 100's of no longer used Registry Keys...



~Maxx~
.

[QUOTE=Maxxwire;953614]You're right it does do a spectacular job. The first time I used the program it found over 2500 results that both CCleaner and MV RegClean had missed.

Wow! You zapped 2500 entries and got away with it? Your confidence is to be admired. I enjoy poking around in the reg but I've never been able to bring myself to action when those big numbers come up. CC is about my limit and even then I backup. Guess I.m too old for this game......