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.
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November 12th, 2007 at 3:59 am
[...] 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 [...]
November 15th, 2007 at 9:40 am
[...] covered registry cleaners before. There’s no need to buy any and many are snake oil. Make sure you backup anything important [...]
January 31st, 2008 at 4:20 am
[...] 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 [...]
June 9th, 2008 at 9:33 am
[...] The problem appears to be that you have some old programs that were installed to the wrong location that have been subsequently deleted. It might be best to run the Windows Installer Repair Tool and then run a registry cleaner. [...]
August 27th, 2008 at 3:43 am
Thanks for the opinion on cleaning the registry. Although you may be correct in questioning the need for a registry cleaner, many inexperienced users might feel safer using one (and preferably one that isn’t too aggressive) as these automatically find the key entries to remove or alter, whereas most users wouldn’t know the first place to look for such things.
Thom