Are registry cleaners necessary?
Read interesting articles they do not speed up your puter.and can mess up your hard drive big time..Thanks
Answer:
Rose B
In my line of work even the most harden of System Administrators go out of their way to avoid working with the registry, and i don’t blame them. The registry is one of those aspects of windows you are constantly being warned not to mess with.
With the frequent threats of virtual nuclear destruction combined with the lack of documentation, the registry is a dark and scary place.
Basicly the registry is a hierarchal, relational database that holds system information, OLE (object Link Embedding) and Automation information, application settings, operating system configuration data and more. The information stored includes everyting form the display settings to the hardware configuration. To speed access time, the registry is stored in binary format and is composed of multiple files. – So now you can see why if a poorly composed program runs a rye then it could lead to a system melt down…
Some programs like Norton keep a track of registry changes making cleaning easier. But in truth the problem with automated programs is that they really don’t know your system well enough.
My advice either leave well alone or only use the add/remove programs MMC snap-in to uninstall software. If thats not possible use the vendors own uninstall utility. but bear in mind these don’t always remove everything from the registry. For example Norton loves to invade and retain certain keys within the registry, just in case you come back or re-install some Norton Software it can track it – sneeky.
But if you are tempted then here are some helpful editing tips:
1. Back up the entire registry or key you intend to modify. if your system starts acting up, you’ll be glad you did.
2. Update your emergency repair disk (ERD) before you make any changes. This proves to be a valuable asset if the systesm refuses to boot up properly.
3. Do not blindly make changes. Know what change will do before making the change – i.e. Research it.
4. Make 1 change at a time. This allows for easier fault diagnosis after the fact.
So are they really necessary? well in short – like any database that is dynamic and changes it will become fragmented, leading to longer and longer seek times to find and retrive the information. Which in turn could have an impact on system performance, but try not to worry just yet. Unless you are continously making changes (installing/uninstalling etc) it would take a very long time before the registry becomes so fragmented that it will have any real impact.
The real impact on the system would be from unknow error messages, unlinkable DLLs, the dreaded blue screen of deaths.
So in my view YES it is necessary to keep the registry clean, but not necessarly with automated programs.
I manually clean the registry by using scripts that i have developed to do the job.
Hope this helps
DM
MCP MCSA MCSE+S BIT
Tags: administrators, articles, aspects, avoid, blame, cleaners, constantly, drive, hard, harden, interesting, line, mess, necessary, puterand, read, registry, rose, speed, system, timethanks, warned, windows, work, working
no real use, the old remaining entries in your registry do no harm and registry cleaners can easily mess up your system just by deleting 1 wrong entry.
Sometimes it is necessary to remove certain entries but these programs are not really suitable for routine general pc maintenance.
Everyone has their own perception. I would not go with registry cleaners though
They are a safe way of removing unwanted entries remaining after you have removed software from your PC.
A bettter suggestion would be to removed files using control panel, as this will also remove registry entries,
I agree with the articles, im not here to defame software programs. But i have the mention the all mighty IOLO system mechanic. Its a grat program for cleaning out clutter off your hard drive and speeding up your computer.But its registry cleaner is dangerous if your not careful it will delete registry entries that could be important and could render problems later. So i agree with you registry cleaners might be good maybe for small things but the whole windows registry is a recipe for diasasters. So its better for people to stay away.
No, they are not, don’t use anything that could mess up your whole computer. I have never used a registry cleaner, in the six years I have had this computer, and it has windows 98se on it. I have a new one, but this works so good, I use it most of the time..good luck..
THEY ARE NOT.. one must be very careful of them as they screed up mine and have gotten it back to working again.. have heard horror stories of others who messed around with the registry cleaner.. IT IS BEST to leave it alone
1) they remove operating parts of the whole system
2) hopefully not needed parts….
what else? Shoot a toe off or the entire leg? That’s the choice that you get when you use one.
I use ccleaner and I think it does speed up the start-up time of my computer. It doesn’t touch important parts of the registry so I think it’s ok.
I think a registry cleaner is a useful part of a system maintenance package of tools. I.e. Remove un-needed files from the hard drive, use a registry cleaner, defragment your hard drive and run spy-ware/virus protection software.
they can speed up ur pc abit
Rose B
In my line of work even the most harden of System Administrators go out of their way to avoid working with the registry, and i don’t blame them. The registry is one of those aspects of windows you are constantly being warned not to mess with.
With the frequent threats of virtual nuclear destruction combined with the lack of documentation, the registry is a dark and scary place.
Basicly the registry is a hierarchal, relational database that holds system information, OLE (object Link Embedding) and Automation information, application settings, operating system configuration data and more. The information stored includes everyting form the display settings to the hardware configuration. To speed access time, the registry is stored in binary format and is composed of multiple files. – So now you can see why if a poorly composed program runs a rye then it could lead to a system melt down…
Some programs like Norton keep a track of registry changes making cleaning easier. But in truth the problem with automated programs is that they really don’t know your system well enough.
My advice either leave well alone or only use the add/remove programs MMC snap-in to uninstall software. If thats not possible use the vendors own uninstall utility. but bear in mind these don’t always remove everything from the registry. For example Norton loves to invade and retain certain keys within the registry, just in case you come back or re-install some Norton Software it can track it – sneeky.
But if you are tempted then here are some helpful editing tips:
1. Back up the entire registry or key you intend to modify. if your system starts acting up, you’ll be glad you did.
2. Update your emergency repair disk (ERD) before you make any changes. This proves to be a valuable asset if the systesm refuses to boot up properly.
3. Do not blindly make changes. Know what change will do before making the change – i.e. Research it.
4. Make 1 change at a time. This allows for easier fault diagnosis after the fact.
So are they really necessary? well in short – like any database that is dynamic and changes it will become fragmented, leading to longer and longer seek times to find and retrive the information. Which in turn could have an impact on system performance, but try not to worry just yet. Unless you are continously making changes (installing/uninstalling etc) it would take a very long time before the registry becomes so fragmented that it will have any real impact.
The real impact on the system would be from unknow error messages, unlinkable DLLs, the dreaded blue screen of deaths.
So in my view YES it is necessary to keep the registry clean, but not necessarly with automated programs.
I manually clean the registry by using scripts that i have developed to do the job.
Hope this helps
DM
MCP MCSA MCSE+S BIT
Window XP has all the Computer cleaning programs needed to keep it running properly.
I fell for all the hype about other progams cleaning your computer better than he built-in programs. I have used them and have learned the hard way.
i use pc on point
system machanic 5.5
and regseeker
all clean my registry and my xp system is running fine