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What's the best registry cleaner? Ask Leo says: none

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Carol Haynes:
Two previous threads have covered this at length:

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=1188.0
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=2964.0

I still say the best cleaner in no cleaner.

I am using CrapCleaner on my system and have jv16 PowerTools 2006 installed.

jv16 is one of the highest rated registry cleaners out there (and has been for years) garnering the support of people like Fred Langa but ....

I have run both to see what 'problems' they come up with and both come up with a lot that on closer inspection would delete many vital keys if just run automatically. Both also delete all placeholders used by MS in their Office products (keys that don't point anywhere or to a non-existent file that will be added only if you you need it - either from the installation media or the web) and quite a few empty references for other installed apps.

You could argue that empty keys are a waste of space but I presume they are there for a purpose - just because registry cleaners (and me) don't know why it isn't a good excuse to simply delete them.

People who recommend reg cleaners rarely suggest running them in automatic mode (in fact anyone who does that is totally mad). The trouble is what do you do manually when you are confronted by about 1500 anomalies - many of which don't have any obvious function, or are so obfuscated as to be unfixable manually ?

SKA:
>People who recommend reg cleaners rarely suggest running them in automatic mode (in fact anyone who does that is totally mad). <

I do run the two I recommend above in "strictly" manual mode - deleting only green items in Regseeker,  rechecking each key manually in Regvac, so .....I must be partially sane <grin>

SKA

f0dder:
I am still using a old and safe cleaner program call RegCleaner which is a freeware but no longer supported,-Terry (July 19, 2006, 10:18 PM)
--- End quote ---

If you're referring to the MS tool that has an icon of a cyan box with a red ribbon on it, that tool is not safe.

I haven't really noticed any cases where a registry cleaner caused any noticeable speed effect; the registry is stored in a binary and pretty efficient format. Looking up keys/values uses a binary search, which means that to find a key out of 4.294.967.296 takes a maximum of log(2**32)/log(2) compares - that's 32 compares. Of course most registries have a lot less entries than that, so it's even faster.

One thing that DOES help, though, is to keep your registry defragmented..

Lashiec:
Since the best registry cleaners have a backup option, there's no problems if you delete a critical setting in the registry, restore the backup and it's done. I'll endorse PowerTools since I've been using software developed by Jouni Vuorio, the head of Macecraft since 2000, when I got my computer. No problems so far in all those 6 years, not even with MS Office 2000 installed.

Please don't use RegCleaner of Microsoft's RegClean. They're both old, and they could give serious problems with newer computers and software. I tried the last version of RegCleaner months ago, and the program showed some entries in the registry which were dangerous to delete according to my own experience.

Don't use RegSeeker as well. It's very very aggressive and it shows a great deal of entries that could give some problems if deleted. Not to mention the algorithms used to detect useless entries need some rewriting, as it can't detect real paths properly.

EasyCleaner seems like a good option for those using freeware, now if the GUI wasn't so awful... I also use the registry cleaner included in TuneUp Utilities, which complements PowerTools perfectly, and it's also very good, especially for the CLSID entries.

And finally, Mr. Langa could update its comparison to include some other recent registry cleaners like TweakNow's offer (it's not that good, but anyway) and the AMUST Registry Cleaner, which I really don't know if it works or not, since it's only for Win2K and up, but seems like a decent choice.

jdd:
I have used Fix It Utilities registry fixer for several years on different laptops and never had any problems, provided that you remove only those recommended by default (and I never tried to delete any others). :up:

I have recently been using the trial version of jv16 Power Tools.  When it finishes scanning, I have been choosing "Select all" and then "Fix".  I find that jv16 PT comes up with a much longer list of items to delete.  SO far have not had any problems. :up:

I have always run them in the manual mode.

The bigger and more important question that I cannot answer is how much better or worse things would be if I had not flushed them to begin with. :-\

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