Windows 7 - Registry Cleaners?

Is a registry cleaner necessary? On almost all of them I've used, it detects tens or hundreds of "problems" that need to be fixed, on freshly installed systems too. And after fixing them, if I run another scan, it finds even more!

Does it make my system "faster" in any noticeable way? It seems to cause more problems than it fixes.

No, it is not needed.

No, it will not improve performance.


Registry Cleaners in general, cause more problems than they fix the large majority of the time.
This is largely due to the fact they tend to "guess" at whats a bad key and are often wrong.


There are however, some that are not as aggresive and tend to be a bit safer. Such as the one in CCleaner.
Still, I would be cautious about using it. And if you do, always review its findings and back up before you delete anything.

For example, a reference to a program you know for a fact you have un-installed would likely be safe to delete.
And anything you are not sure of, is best left alone.



Bottom line, there really isn't anything to be gained by cleaning the registiry, but always a chance of causing a problem or breaking something.

My recommendation: Stay, far, far away from them. What's a few extra lines in a registry with hundreds of thousands of lines and keys.

You'll find mixed opinions on this matter, but CCleaner goes on every system I touch. It isn't at all about performance, but more about solving strange issues. When a drive install goes bad, or isn't uninstalled properly and completely (ATI...looking at you!), CCleaner has helped me on numerous occasions to clean up what was left behind and allow the new drive to be installed properly. Anytime I remove my Nvidia drivers, I run CCleaner to make sure the keys are gone before installing the newest version.

CCleaner has also helped me remove leftover traces of malware or previous AV apps that were preventing newer, better security software from installing. It also asks you if you want to backup the changes each time you run the reg clean part.

I'm sure there are less-than-reputable cleaners out there that should be avoided, but CCleaner is great and highly recommend on just about any forum you'll find. Just don't expect it to have any affect on performance. I don't clean my registry to be faster. I clean it to remove old junk left behind and solve strange issues and behaviors.

Note - 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.
If you do not have knowledge of the registry, then you would probably be better off leaving it alone, and definitely not placing blind trust in a program to do the job for you.

To advise anyone that a "Registry Cleaner" works, and that it will fix or speed up their machine {or all the other nonsense that is often propagated about these things} can mislead people.

True. A 'one size fits all' () does not always work.


But CCleaner is the only one I would use. I exercise caution when using it and advise others to do the same.

Regcleaner +click+click+okay= Quick trip to Buggeredsville.

Well, Microsoft themselves don't recommend registry cleaners. Of course, removing hundreds of registry errors doesn't increase performance, but what does it defragmenting the registry.

Try looking for registry defraggers/cleaners. I use Clean My PC for such. I have a few instances of it running on a few machines for almost two years and haven't caused any issues. And after defragging, Windows runs like new, granted that you have to defrag the hard drive too...

And I'm the other side of the opinion and I rarely ever install or use CCleaner on any system. I generally just find that this stuff is not needed. While I think that CCleaner is a pretty safe application, I turn to it as a last resort when other methods for resolving the issue hasn't worked. I would turn to it if I had a strange situation that I couldn't resolve...but I don't expect to have strange situations on every machine I touch, so I wouldn't load CCleaner as part of my standard system install.

My experience with video drivers has been pretty straight forward. I've been on Nvidia cards for years. I don't usually uninstall a previous driver I just update to a new driver. And I don't usually keep up with the driver updates either...I just get them once every 6 months or so. I'm not a hardcore gaming..so I don't need to be on the bleeding edge.

One of the reasons I switched back to Nvidia was because the drivers were less troublesome...far less troublesome.

This question is sort of like asking, "Who is better, Democrats or Republicans?"
However it is a good question as I have always wonder the same thing.