Cleaning the registry

Just wondering what you think about registry cleaning software. Is it a good idea? I visited a comparison website at compareregistrycleaners.org and the test results for Max Registry cleaner shape up the best.

We’re a little wary of any registry cleaners. While the theory of deleting unnecessary registry entries is good, there’s a lot of scope for things to go horribly, horribly wrong.

In our view the risk of messing up the computer doesn’t justify the speed improvement most computers will see after running an effective registry cleaner.

If you do want to try a registry cleaner we’d suggest the venerable and free CleanReg from Armstong Systems. This will scan the registry and find redundant entries. It’s best to run it after uninstalling any unused programs as poor uninstall routines are the main cause of unnecessary registry keys.

Before running a registry cleaner, make sure you’ve created a restore point. This will save your system should the scanner delete a critical value.

Also note that we haven’t tested any registry cleaners on Windows Vista. We’d suggest not running any until there’s a better body of knowledge on how Vista behaves with these cleaners.


You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

3 Responses to “Cleaning the registry”

  1. […] remove earlier versions, it might be best to delete the Adobe program folder and then run a registry cleaner. We recommend you get a qualified tech to help you with […]

  2. […] covered registry cleaners before. There’s no need to buy any and many are snake oil. Make sure you backup anything important […]

  3. […] need to uninstall the program manually. This involves deleting the program folder and then running a registry cleaning tool. This is something we don’t recommend to inexperienced users and we’d urge you to call […]

Leave a Reply