Anybody suggest a decent registry cleaner?
- Thread starter Noel
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Mike.C
Established Member
Noel":2h2ft4o5 said:
Noel Piriform CCleaner is about the best I have found. http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
Cheers
Mike
Dibs-h
Established Member
Noel":1077s4um said:
I've used something called CCleaner in the past. Thankfully it exports all the entries to a .reg file prior to wiping them. That way if the PC starts to misbehave - you can put them back.
Be very careful with altering the registry - you can easily go from an unwell machine to a dead one!
HIH
Dibs
Steve Jones
Established Member
Another vote for CCleaner.
Steve
Steve
matt
Established Member
+1
For several years.
And I've witnessed the destruction some of the other "clearners" do when my flock of people-wanting-support persons decide to try and "maintain" their PCs themselves...
For several years.
And I've witnessed the destruction some of the other "clearners" do when my flock of people-wanting-support persons decide to try and "maintain" their PCs themselves...
Shane
Established Member
Another vote for ccleaner, very quick and easy
pren
Established Member
+1 for CCleaner. Some sites ask for payment/donations to download it. I got it free from FileHippo.com. Used it for ages - works great.
big soft moose
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wizer":rhbboe4z said:
closely followed by "bin the box and buy a new computer" - that works quite well too
misterfish
Established Member
The first question I ask is why do you want to run a registry cleaner - what are the problems/symptoms you are suffering from?
My first action is to look at the programs installed (via control panel) and then uninstall all the clag I don't want/need. Reboot and see if that has made a difference. Then I would try a registry cleaner - I've used CCleaner in the past and it has improved the system, but I have had problems subsequently with MS Office updates and ended up having to repair the Office installation.
As Tom has suggeted, the best way is to back up your data, wipe the system and then reinstall from scratch. I would then install all the drivers, software, AV etc and make sure it is all up to date. Then I would carry out a system backup so that if you need to reinstall in the future you only need to run a restore. There is free software available that will do the system backup/restore and is actually built in to later versions of Windows. Also, some manufacturers (eg Dell) actually have a hidden partition on the hard disk that contains such a backup and using their software you can simply do a factory fresh installation.
Before retiring, when I was responsible for large numbers of computers, we used imaging software for all our computers so that reinstallation was a relatively quick and painless option and made setting up new 'standard' computers very simple.
The other suggestion of buying a new machine is the 'best', it depends on your finances and how much you value your own time. As with all this you need to decide what you want to use the machine for - does it do what you want effectively and efficiently - if so then stick with what you've got, if not then upgrade.
My old desktop was running XP and it slowed down so much as to be unusable. I tried a registry cleaner and it improved but it was never as stable as I liked. I reinstalled XP and it was so much better. As it was my second machine I then installed the Release Candidate version of Windows 7 after adding more cheap memory and couldn't believe how much better it ran - fast reliable - so I bought Windows 7 when released and have no regrets.
Misterfish
My first action is to look at the programs installed (via control panel) and then uninstall all the clag I don't want/need. Reboot and see if that has made a difference. Then I would try a registry cleaner - I've used CCleaner in the past and it has improved the system, but I have had problems subsequently with MS Office updates and ended up having to repair the Office installation.
As Tom has suggeted, the best way is to back up your data, wipe the system and then reinstall from scratch. I would then install all the drivers, software, AV etc and make sure it is all up to date. Then I would carry out a system backup so that if you need to reinstall in the future you only need to run a restore. There is free software available that will do the system backup/restore and is actually built in to later versions of Windows. Also, some manufacturers (eg Dell) actually have a hidden partition on the hard disk that contains such a backup and using their software you can simply do a factory fresh installation.
Before retiring, when I was responsible for large numbers of computers, we used imaging software for all our computers so that reinstallation was a relatively quick and painless option and made setting up new 'standard' computers very simple.
The other suggestion of buying a new machine is the 'best', it depends on your finances and how much you value your own time. As with all this you need to decide what you want to use the machine for - does it do what you want effectively and efficiently - if so then stick with what you've got, if not then upgrade.
My old desktop was running XP and it slowed down so much as to be unusable. I tried a registry cleaner and it improved but it was never as stable as I liked. I reinstalled XP and it was so much better. As it was my second machine I then installed the Release Candidate version of Windows 7 after adding more cheap memory and couldn't believe how much better it ran - fast reliable - so I bought Windows 7 when released and have no regrets.
Misterfish
cambournepete
Established Member
+1 for ccleaner, which also clears rubbish off you hard drive and can wipe free space ready for a defrag with defraggler.
Also recommended is regscrubxp, which seems to find different errors to ccleaner - I've no idea why or which is right so tend to use both.
Just uninstalling programs doesn't clean them from the registry properly.
You should run ccleaner several several times until it reports no errors.
Also recommended is regscrubxp, which seems to find different errors to ccleaner - I've no idea why or which is right so tend to use both.
Just uninstalling programs doesn't clean them from the registry properly.
You should run ccleaner several several times until it reports no errors.
The other thing that really slows down Windows is the guff that runs automatically at startup. Autoruns from Microsoft is great for finding this stuff and disabling / removing it. The number of programs that add something is huge. Particularly bad are Adobe (Acrobat reader update) and Sun (Java update).
It can be downloaded from here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
If you don't know for sure what each thing is, right click and select 'Search Online'.
Untick the items you want to disable rather than delete them - that way if you break something its easy enough to reinstate it.
It can be downloaded from here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
If you don't know for sure what each thing is, right click and select 'Search Online'.
Untick the items you want to disable rather than delete them - that way if you break something its easy enough to reinstate it.
