Registry Cleaner

Outlander said:

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......

Outlander- I am not brave when it comes to ridding the Registry of no longer used items, but rather my confidence is rooted in my multi-layered system of backups.

As I mentioned IObit System Care Registry Cleaner Pro (not the free version) which found these 2,500+ items is particularly interested in System Certificate information and most of the unique entries it found pertained to this kind of information. After I upgraded to the Comodo Firewall and discovered that the program was reporting back to IObit after each use I uninstalled it with Revo and removed its folders and Registry keys.

~Maxx~
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CarlTR6 said:

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 still see that as a one-sided opinion on registry cleaners.

I did say that if you have 1 GB or RAM or below, you will notice performance loss overtime and that the other tweaking things will do little to fix.

Registry cleaners did help me across the things I saw crashing because I have made mistakes with registry cleaners before and that has taught me how to use them more briefly but for others that are inexperienced, its not advisable, however useful occasionally with the help of someone more experienced.

It can also help you remove invalid startup entries that are still causing delays in the startup or remove entries left over by malware that are still causing a few things to go bad.

However, like what I always say, use a backup.

I keep reading things like Windows 7 manages the Registry in a different way than Windows XP, but in what way is that really??? I have not read of any official statement from Microsoft themselves saying that the registry of Windows 7 is designed in a different way than that of XP or other predecessors. If there is, can someone direct me there????

However, the Registry is the single most core component of Windows operating systems I want them to redesign so we don't have problems like this and that about the registry and also to make security better.

[QUOTE=Vertex;955444]

CarlTR6 said:

I keep reading things like Windows 7 manages the Registry in a different way than Windows XP, but in what way is that really??? I have not read of any official statement from Microsoft themselves saying that the registry of Windows 7 is designed in a different way than that of XP or other predecessors. If there is, can someone direct me there????

I've often wondered the same thing. One thing is for sure and that is that Win 7 does not remove entries when a program is uninstalled. When I uninstalled Norton Security which HP preinstalled on my computer it left over 1,400 registry keys behind. I don't know why it is advisable to leave these abandon registry keys in place or how WIN 7 somehow 'manages' them other than just to leave them there bloating the registry.

~Maxx~
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frzwin7- The thing is that most people are totally unaware of is the 1,000's of registry values and 10,000's of files that get left behind after uninstalling programs. The attachment below shows over 8,000 files that were left behind when uninstalling the HP Media Smart program which could not function without freezing and without a program like Revo to call the user's attention to it few people would know how to find and manually uninstall them and the same with the leftover unused registry keys which will eventually bloat the registry unless they are removed..

Thank you for your admonishment about having backups because they are very important. I keep 2 1TB drives and a 2TB Raid 0 drive stocked with both redundant Windows System Images and Macrium Reflect Images which are complete enough that I can choose between 2 completely different installations of Windows 7 and varied enough in their content that I can also freely choose between which security system version and which browser version I want to restore among the many Images that I have stored safely on inert drives. Thanks to Macrium Reflect I can re-Image my Win 7 computer in 4 minutes and 40 seconds...





~Maxx~
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I say, a lot of crap do get leave behind, not only in the registry but deep in the C: drive too. Even CCleaner and Revo can't remove all of them, knowing that registry cleaners are dangerous if used with poor knowledge, why doesn't Microsoft make a way that this can be resolved or at least utilize how the registry behaves???

Because of this, I am conservative on installing programs on Windows 7 so whenever I feel like testing a new program, I try to test it on a Linux Mint, not on Windows 7.

Vertex said:

I say, a lot of crap do get leave behind, not only in the registry but deep in the C: drive too. Even CCleaner and Revo can't remove all of them, knowing that registry cleaners are dangerous if used with poor knowledge, why doesn't Microsoft make a way that this can be resolved or at least utilize how the registry behaves???

Because of this, I am conservative on installing programs on Windows 7 so whenever I feel like testing a new program, I try to test it on a Linux Mint, not on Windows 7.

Vertex, if you are a hardcore software/application tester and want to test a new program in an isolated environment without affecting your real environment and without the hassle and effort of downloading virtualization software and operating systems, you can use a sandbox application such as Sandboxie or security software that include a sandbox feature such as Kaspersky Internet Security and Comodo Personal Firewall.

Maraming salamat!

Maxxwire said:

I've often wondered the same thing. One thing is for sure and that is that Win 7 does not remove entries when a program is uninstalled. When I uninstalled Norton Security which HP preinstalled on my computer it left over 1,400 registry keys behind. I don't know why it is advisable to leave these abandon registry keys in place or how WIN 7 somehow 'manages' them other than just to leave them there bloating the registry.

~Maxx~
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Revo is a good idea I think, as it only deletes Reg. keys the App being uninstalled leaves behind.

Also, CCleaners isn't too bad. If you only check the keys, you know for a fact no longer exist.

The main reason I (and many others) say Registry Cleaners are bad, is that many 3rd party ones delete many keys they shouldn't.
Overall its mostly guess work on the Registry Cleaners Part.
And guess work isn't a good idea when it doesn't know whats safe to delete and what isnt.


But I honestly believe, even though some keys may get left behind, it doesnt really hurt the overall performance of the system.

My thoughts on it for what its worth :)