Registry Defragmentation

[Buddahfan]

About two months ago I purchased a Dell 570MT Windows 7 X64
4GB RAM
Athlon X240 dual processors

I decided to look for a Windows 7 x64 Registry Defragmentation program to see if I could compact the Registry and speed up the computer.

I found a free Registry Defragmentation program, installed it and ran it.

The software indicated a 9% fragmentation in my Registry and suggested a defragmentation.

I defragmented the Registry and the speed improvement is very noticeable especially in my Web Browser.

I was a bit surprised that after only 2 months the Registry would be fragmented by that much.

Note: I cleaned the Registry before defragmenting it.

 

[richc46]

Dont use those reg cleaners and defrags on the registry. Not needed by Seven and they usually cause problems

 

[rap33042]

I am not generally a great fan of Registry de-fragmenters since, in inexperienced hands, they can cause more problems than they solve.
That said, I'll dive in.

Registry Fragmentation is not the same type of fragmentation that occurs on hard drives.
Windows reads/writes to/from the registry many times per second.
It also reads the entire, bulky thing when it first starts.

If you're like me and try out a lot of different software, then the registry can become loaded with a lot of left-over kludge from ill-behaved programs that don't properly clean up after themselves.

Windows doesn't know a thing about kludge- it just reads it all in whether it's needed or not. This not only wastes memory but adds to the boot time as well.
In a worst-case scenario it can even cause some problems due to conflict within the registry itself.

On a fast machine, this won't be noticeable, unless, of course, there is a true conflict.

In any case, continual installation & uninstallation of software will leave 'holes' in the registry that take up unnecessary space and cause the registry to grow to huge proportions. Enter defragmentaion utilities.

What they're supposed to do is find the unnecessary entries and close up those 'holes' thereby creating a smaller more efficient registry.

This is great on the face of it. The caveat here is that inexperienced users don't know what is unnecessary and they'll end up allowing these utilities free rein- this can be dangerous and in some cases will result in Windows not being able to boot at all!

The bottom line here, I think, is to make Registry backups religiously before making any changes to the Registry.
It is, after all, the heart of your Windows Operating System and should be protected at all costs.

 

[Buddahfan]

I am not generally a great fan of Registry de-fragmenters since, in inexperienced hands, they can cause more problems than they solve.
That said, I'll dive in.

Registry Fragmentation is not the same type of fragmentation that occurs on hard drives.
Windows reads/writes to/from the registry many times per second.
It also reads the entire, bulky thing when it first starts.

If you're like me and try out a lot of different software, then the registry can become loaded with a lot of left-over kludge from ill-behaved programs that don't properly clean up after themselves.

Windows doesn't know a thing about kludge- it just reads it all in whether it's needed or not. This not only wastes memory but adds to the boot time as well.
In a worst-case scenario it can even cause some problems due to conflict within the registry itself.

On a fast machine, this won't be noticeable, unless, of course, there is a true conflict.

In any case, continual installation & uninstallation of software will leave 'holes' in the registry that take up unnecessary space and cause the registry to grow to huge proportions. Enter defragmentaion utilities.

What they're supposed to do is find the unnecessary entries and close up those 'holes' thereby creating a smaller more efficient registry.

This is great on the face of it. The caveat here is that inexperienced users don't know what is unnecessary and they'll end up allowing these utilities free rein- this can be dangerous and in some cases will result in Windows not being able to boot at all!

The bottom line here, I think, is to make Registry backups religiously before making any changes to the Registry.
It is, after all, the heart of your Windows Operating System and should be protected at all costs.

I backup my Registry daily and before any major software installations or if it is software that I am not that familiar with. Doing this has paid off on a number of occasions.

This particular software that I used to defragment the Registry backs it first but just to be safe I ran my daily Registry backup before running this software.

I do agree that a person has to know what they doing whenever they mess with the Registry. If they don't then they should not touch the Registry. I am comfortable using programs to clean and defragment my Registry but only after researching them and feeling comfortable that the risk of them messing up my Registry and computer are minimal.

Bottom line is as far as I can see. If you know what you are doing then cleaning your computer's registry and defragmenting it can be beneficial especially when it comes to eliminating potential conflicts and speeding up the computer.

This is especially true as mentioned above if you install and uninstall a lot of programs. It seems to me based upon my experience that updating software can fragment the Registry and leave a lot of junk behind in your Registry. A number of program updates like those for VLC media player go through and uninstall the old version before installing the update. VLC has had two updates in the last couple of weeks so I am sure that doing these updates has fragmented the Registry and left gunk in the Registry.

So if you use a lot of programs and update them like you should on a regular basis that will also fragment and gunk up your registry.

However, notice that I did not mention the software that I used to defragment the Registry because of the risks involved. Since I don't do this for a living I would personally never recommend a Registry cleaner or defragmenter software but I use them and they work great for me.

 

[sreedhav]

As Rap33042 said, the "registry" IS the heart of the windows body! Only a heart surgeon(cardio-thoracic) can deal with it! "My slogan" as far as the registry is concerned is "play safe"!

 

[Buddahfan]

As Rap33042 said, the "registry" IS the heart of the windows body! Only a heart surgeon(cardio-thoracic) can deal with it! "My slogan" as far as the registry is concerned is "play safe"!

Actually your statement is incorrect.

When a person exercises, eats properly, doesn't smoke, keeps stress to a minimum then they are taking care of their heart. All a heart surgeon does is come in after the person neglected to take care of their heart and as a result it broke down.

Same with a computer Registry. If a person doesn't take care of their computer Registry then they eventually will need a computer technician to fix it when it breaks down.

I prefer to take care of my body/heart and computer and reduce or eliminate the risk and cost of a heart surgeon and/or a computer technician to fix what I broke by not taking care of it.

 

[Bill2]

Registry files are basically protected text files that occupy hd space like any other file. I just backed up my entire registry and its 268 mb in size. Theres not much installed on this particular computer but if one has large programs, games etc., it could presumably go upto several hundred mbs.

AFAIK, reg defraggers (at least like NTREGOPT) remove blank spaces between reg files (like ordinary defrag). These spaces are created because of deletion of old keys due to software uninstalls etc.

However, its also a fact that the entire registry is loaded into memory at boot and all read/writes are to the memory and only later to the hard disk. So a registry defrag will not give you the performance enhancements of a hd defrag because the latter involves reduction of seek time in a mechanical process. It might give you a small gain.

However, most commercial defrags dont reveal their working methods- so if they are actually going around deleting keys randomly, its best to stay away from them. IMO, it makes sense to forgo a minor and somewhat questionable performance gain to avoid a bigger headache.

 

[Buddahfan]

Registry files are basically protected text files that occupy hd space like any other file. I just backed up my entire registry and its 268 mb in size. Theres not much installed on this particular computer but if one has large programs, games etc., it could presumably go upto several hundred mbs.

AFAIK, reg defraggers (at least like NTREGOPT) remove blank spaces between reg files (like ordinary defrag). These spaces are created because of deletion of old keys due to software uninstalls etc.

However, its also a fact that the entire registry is loaded into memory at boot and all read/writes are to the memory and only later to the hard disk. So a registry defrag will not give you the performance enhancements of a hd defrag because the latter involves reduction of seek time in a mechanical process. It might give you a small gain.

However, most commercial defrags dont reveal their working methods- so if they are actually going around deleting keys randomly, its best to stay away from them. IMO, it makes sense to forgo a minor and somewhat questionable performance gain to avoid a bigger headache.

The gain that I am having in performance is not questionable. It is very noticeable and in my opinion significant, at least in my case

In addition, since as you wrote the Registry is loaded into memory I have noticed a sizable increase in my available memory as a result of the defragamenting of the Registry. I would say consistently well over 200MB.

 

[rap33042]

This is turning into a metaphorical hub-bub.
It's not any help to anybody.
I'm outta here...

 

[SIW2]

I dunno why people get so emphatic about this subject.

If you are happy with what you did - that's great.

I think the others are trying to discourage the less experienced from playing around with the registry.

 

[Buddahfan]

I dunno why people get so emphatic about this subject.

If you are happy with what you did - that's great.

I think the others are trying to discourage the less experienced from playing around with the registry.

IMHO you are correct.

However, my point in starting this thread was to show that even with a relatively new computer cleaning up your Registry can be of benefit. However, I do wholeheartedly agree that messing with the Registry including cleaning it and/or defragmenting it should only be done by the more experienced Windows user.

P.S. If I had thought that starting this thread would have generated so much emotion over the subject I never would have started it. I did not mean to upset anyone. On the contrary, I was just trying to share how I was able to improve the Performance of my Windows 7 HP X64 computer by doing Registry Maintenance.

 

[yowanvista]

Most members here won't advice to use Reg cleaners

Windows is a closed source system. Developers of registry cleaners do not have the core code of Win 7 and are not working on definitive information, but rather they are going on past knowledge and experience, most of which is not applicable to Win 7. Automatic cleaners will usually have to do some guesswork.

There is almost no tweaking that can be done to Win 7 to speed it up. The system is designed to diagnose itself and take care of itself which it does remarkably well. Win 7 maintains itself and that includes the registry.

Registry cleaners are pure snake oil. At best they do nothing except use resources. At worst, they can mess your system up, slowing it down, and even crash it. There is no utility out there anywhere that can speed Win 7 up and improve its performance, at least not at this time.

This isn't to say that the system does not need to be maintained. Uninstall programs that you don't use, delete unneeded and unnecessary files. Defrag your hard drive. But don't screw with the registry unless you are an in depth expert in the Win 7 registry.

We have seen the adverse effects of registry cleaners and registry defraggers in the Crashes and Debugging Section. Most of the time, the cure is a clean install. Using a program such as Ccleaner is fine to get rid of old and unnecessary files. A tuneup utility is not only unneeded, it can actually harm your system. Don't use them.

 

[Bill2]

Chill, nobodys upset. On a forum, one should be prepared for all kinds of opinions of varying emphasis. If one cant speak out and vent a bit, whats the point? Personally, I'm glad you reported your experience, just shows different things work for different people.

 

[Ponmayilal]

Defragmenting the registry per se, IMO, should not cause any problems, since one is in noway meddling with the registry entries. Good or bad, improves speed or not, I have been habitually doing it for a long time now and haven't experienced any problems thus far directly attributable to compacting the registry.

Eusing Free Registry cleaner and optimizer is one that had an excellent review and I was using only that. Now I use Glary Utilities (Registry Cleaner and also optimiser) since I believe it uses the same software bottled into it.

OT: At this point I remember this. Immediately after I purchased Perfect Disk Defragmenter, I received a query from Raxco requesting a feedback and in particular about any increase in speed after using it. I replied that since I was using the defragmenter from day one the OS was installed, and never allow my disk to get defragmented with almost a weekly defragment, I am in no position to say whether their defragmenter has increased the speed of my PC or not.

 

[Buddahfan]

yowanvista

We have seen the adverse effects of registry cleaners and registry defraggers in the Crashes and Debugging Section

My own personal experience is that over the years I have experienced more grief from using "Privacy Cleaners" than I have with Registry cleaners and defragmenters.

I refuse to use "Privacy Cleaners" anymore except those within the Browser.

Though I do run disk cleaners to clean temp files, cache etc.

 

[JMH]

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

Should you decide to go ahead -
Make sure you have
1.a current System Restore point created.
2.a recent "Back up" of your computer- preferably to an external HD.

 

[gregrocker]

Have used CCleaner Disk and Registry tabs at defaults followed by Auslogics Disk and Registry defraggers for ten years without issue.

These are considered state-of-the-art freeware and nothing to be afraid of.

Recently I've been testing Defraggler and Puran defraggers on my own machines and am impressed by their advancements. Puran fills spaces the others leave behind.

 

[pparks1]

Generally speaking, the biggest concerns that I have with software like this and such is that I don't think that in most cases it amounts to really any performance increase.

I see cases all of the time where somebody does something and they say, "wow, this really made a difference. My computer is just so snappy now". Unfortunately, they have in no way quantified in any measurable way the performance increase. They don't have evidence before of how it was just prior to the change, and the results after the change. It's just a gut feel that they have that things have improved. I'm usually very wary of these types of claims.

On the other hand, moving from a standard HD to an SSD is easy to quantify. Take the standard HD, then take an image backup. Restore the image on the SSD. Boot the standard hard drive 5 times and average your startup times. You might get 33 seconds. Now, boot the SSD 5 times and average the startup time, it might take 16 seconds. So, it's 2x as fast booting. You can do the same running a virus span, decompressing a huge zip file, moving a 4GB ISO file from Folder A to Folder B, etc.

 

[A Guy]

You have to remember that there is discussion of 2 different types of programs in this thread. The OP asked about Registry Defragmenting, this is not the same as a Registry Cleaner. The defragmenter does not delete anything, it mearly defragments the registry files, just as a defragmenter program does for other files. A Guy

 

[Nighteyez]

I have used CCleaner for years for registry/defragmentation. I always save the registry file so IF my computer doesn't run to MY satisfaction I can restore the registry