Registry Cleaner

[Hopalong X]

When the person answering questions on the forum for this:
What's new - Windows Live OneCare safety scanner for Windows Vista and Windows 7
posts the below it makes you wonder about how much MS trusts their own cleaner.

Further reports of either success or failure on 64-bit systems by disabling UAC are most welcomed. Remember to re-enable UAC afterwords. I would be particularly hesitant to run the Safety Scanner Cleanup (registry cleaner) function on a 64-bit system.
It is very dangerous to run a Registry Cleaner that was never certified to run on your Operating System since removing the wrong Registry Keys can break Applications and the Operating System. [URL="http://home.comcast.net/~SupportCD/XPMyths.html"][URL]http://home.comcast.net/~SupportCD/XPMyths.html[/URL][/URL]

One of those things that make you go Hmmm!!
Mike

 

[Maxxwire]

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.

Yes, and both Revo Uninstaller x64 and CCleaner x86 which is compatible on x64 computers create a backup of the registry keys before they are removed and place them in folders that are easily accessed by the user. I have had occasion over the years to use the registry key backups from each of these regularly used programs and all of the registry keys they removed were completely restored.

One does need to be careful though because not all registry cleaners that advertise that they are x64 compatible actually are. I have been running a very effective registry cleaner called MV RegClean on my Vista x32 computer for years and they advertise that the software is now Win 7 x64 compatible. So having all of my full system backups in place on 3 inert disk drives I installed and ran MV RegClean on Win 7 x64 and it quit after only a few seconds. It still works great on Vista x32 though.

~Maxx~
.

 

[zigzag3143]

Finalizing my upgrade from vista 32 bit to Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, but I need a native 64 bit reigstry cleaner. Apparently 32bit cleaners are unable to recognise the whole registry that windows has, so it may cause more harm than good.

Could some recommened one that they are using with 64bit OS

You really should be extremely careful about using a reg cleaner in 64 bit win 7. There is no need and you can do irreparable harm.

Ken J

 

[CarlTR6]

Finalizing my upgrade from vista 32 bit to Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, but I need a native 64 bit reigstry cleaner. Apparently 32bit cleaners are unable to recognise the whole registry that windows has, so it may cause more harm than good.

Could some recommened one that they are using with 64bit OS

You really should be extremely careful about using a reg cleaner in 64 bit win 7. There is no need and you can do irreparable harm.

Ken J

+1 Spot on.

 

[Maxxwire]

If the registry in Win 7 is never to be cleaned at how many 100's of MB in size will it be considered bloated or is the Win 7 registry somehow never considered bloated no matter how large it is allowed to get?

~Maxx~
.

 

[JMH]

If the registry in Win 7 is never to be cleaned at how many 100's of MB in size will it be considered bloated or is the Win 7 registry somehow never considered bloated no matter how large it is allowed to get?

~Maxx~
.

Maxxwire,
An example of one for you....
I have used many Operating Systems over the years. Currently I am using Vista Ultimate & Windows 7 Ultimate [both 64-bit].
I have never used a Registry Cleaner yet nor do I intend to....

 

[Maxxwire]

JMH- Its good that method of just letting things go is working for your computers. Out of curiosity how much has the size of the registry as measured in MB grown for each of your computers over the years that you have been using them?

~Maxx~
.

 

[JMH]

JMH- Its good that method of just letting things go is working for your computers. Out of curiosity how much has the size of the registry as measured in MB grown for each of your computers over the years that you have been using them?

~Maxx~
.

I have no idea......
Suffice to say - if it ain't broke don't fix it.
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Modifying registry keys incorrectly can cause Windows instability, or make Windows unbootable.[/FONT]

 

[CarlTR6]

JMH- Its good that method of just letting things go is working for your computers. Out of curiosity how much has the size of the registry as measured in MB grown for each of your computers over the years that you have been using them?

~Maxx~
.

I have no idea......
Suffice to say - if it ain't broke don't fix it.
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Modifying registry keys incorrectly can cause Windows instability, or make Windows unbootable.[/FONT]

Max, I basically agree with JMH. And this depends on what you define as bloat. To me, bloat is when things start bogging the system down. Thinking of XP, that could happen when XP's registry became large with unnecessary keys. What is large? When tings started slowing down. As far as I can tell, the registry in Win 7 will not bog down. I never used Vista; so I can't speak on that.

The size of the registry will depend on what one is doing with one's computer. Is it hosting a network? Used by a heavy gamer? Used by someone who tests software? Or used for routine surfing and email reading primarily? There is no set size limit for an efficient registry. In short, the size is not important. The registry in Win7 starts out huge with a new install. It will take a whole bunch of keys to add a megabyte to the registry.

That said, I do delete keys from programs I uninstall. But I do NOT go looking for keys to delete.

 

[Capt.Jack Sparrow]

Here you go again ! Registry cleaners ... Bad idea ! Anyway your not gonna gain lot of space by running Registry cleaners. Here it's stated the size of a Key Registry Element Size Limits (Windows) Maybe a few MB which i don't care as far as Computer run smoothly. Just clean the Temp files etc. is more than enough. Over the years most of the expert from Microsoft even the Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich has told to stay away from it years ago. Did you found any Registry cleaner from Microsoft Download site ?

So you have these issues with a registry cleaner:

• If an application is installed and used only by one user, a registry cleaner run by another user will remove “invalid” entries in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and disable the application from working by the other user(s);
• If an application is installed by User #1, and used as well by User#2, the registry cleaner operation run by User#1 cannot remove the instances of the application created by User#2.
• On top of these technical issues that should scare you away, there is the central argument made by Mr. Russinovich: only if the registry cleaner has a sophisticated database of all application software installation registry changes would it have a chance of being safe to use. There is to my knowledge no such animal out there.

- Mark Russinovich

Do not bother with this. It it unlikely to help, it can cause harm.
There are no end-user benefits from running registry cleaners. Unecessary entries in the registry do no harm. This should not be a regular maintenance chore. It most certainly if done should not be automated. I hold to the singular distinction I made in the beginning: there are times that a fast registry editor with search is needed to fix a single issue under Expert hands. There is no justification for the regular use of automated registry cleaning tools; and as the results above show, they are of dubious merit as the “fix” for even one-off problems that need solving.

Bill Castner
MS-MVP, AumHa VSOP, DTS-L

Hope this helps,
Captain

 

[Maxxwire]

That said, I do delete keys from programs I uninstall.

And that is all that a reputable registry cleaner like the one in CCleaner does.

~Maxx~
.

 

[JMH]

That said, I do delete keys from programs I uninstall.

And that is all that a reputable registry cleaner like the one in CCleaner does.

~Maxx~
.

Correction to the above quote that I supposedly said.....if you go & check those comments were indeed made by CarlTR6..... certainly not by me.

 

[Maxxwire]

JMH- I apologize for my editing mistake and I have already edited my post to show that the quote was indeed from CarlTR6 and not yourself.

~Maxx~
.

 

[JMH]

JMH- I apologize for my editing mistake and I have already edited my post to show that the quote was indeed from CarlTR6 and not yourself.

~Maxx~
.

Noted.
Thanks.

 

[Capt.Jack Sparrow]

To be honest CCleaner is good just to clean the junk file not the Registry cleaner feature. It advisable not to do so. But someone is reluctant to use then its best to create a System Restore point and ensure you have made a backup of Registry.

 

[CarlTR6]

That said, I do delete keys from programs I uninstall.

And that is all that a reputable registry cleaner like the one in CCleaner does.

~Maxx~
.

Ccleaner will also list other "unused" keys. And these are truly unused - at present.

 

[Vertex]

I think Maxwire had a point in his curiosity to think how far is the registry allowed to "bloat" with all the dead keys piling up. I know you guys often have system RAMs of about 4GB and above and that is why you guys won't notice performance loss because of the "bloating" that happens in the registry overtime and assuming you would do re-installs every few months, you don't bother yourself with registry cleaners.

But if the system RAM is below 1GB, there is performance loss.

I do believe that the registry will get "bloated" after some time especially if you tend to install a lot of programs and I also believe there ARE and there will be problems with a "bloated" registry.

But Microsoft just don't make too much details on the structure of the registry and for me that adds up to the problem here. I believe, we users must know what is going on in there so we can understand more things.

I honestly think they should design a self-healing and self sufficient registry.

I made a search on Google about "how does windows 7 manage the registry differently from XP", but I have got unrelated results. And the guys here (no offense) keep saying, Windows 7 manages the registry differently from Windows XP.

CarlTR6 said he found info about this on reading several really good books (manuals) on Windows 7 but sadly for me, I have not found any leads about that myself and that made me even more curious.


The performance loss issues is for me a big weakness in Microsoft's operating systems compared to Macs and Linux. Though Macs and Linux don't have registries that I know of, they require less maintenance tasks in my knowledge.

 

[lordpuffer]

Finalizing my upgrade from vista 32 bit to Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, but I need a native 64 bit reigstry cleaner. Apparently 32bit cleaners are unable to recognise the whole registry that windows has, so it may cause more harm than good.

Could some recommened one that they are using with 64bit OS

I am currently using Ace Utilities, which got 5 stars from Cnet. I use the x64 version which has a Registry Cleaner that I use. Have had no problems to this point. I have everything backed up, so if I do have a problem, I'll re-format. That is my opinion, and I am not recommending it. I'm taking a chance with it, and totally respect the posts that say that none is needed, and that they can hurt your system. Oh, I've also been using CCleaner for years.

 

[Edward 066]

On windows XP I had 5 registry cleaners and never had any problems using them but I always ruined the OS when manually deleted registry keys, now on WIN 7 I have 3 cleaners , Winaso, Windows 7 manager and Auslogics bootspeed and no problems yet

 

[Capt.Jack Sparrow]

On windows XP I had 5 registry cleaners and never had any problems using them but I always ruined the OS when manually deleted registry keys, now on WIN 7 I have 3 cleaners , Winaso, Windows 7 manager and Auslogics bootspeed and no problems yet

Well make sure you have a backup and restore point before you do it. I have mentioned in this thread as well as other threads. You System performace won't imporve by use these junks. Please stay away from it. Just clean the temp files, History etc. is more that enough. Most of the experts from Microsoft who build the OS says the same. Then it's up to you.

Hope this helps,
Captain