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What is your prefered source of registry tweaks?

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dallee:
CCleaner, a free downloadable Windows program from CCleaner.com, has a great registry cleaner with an automatic back-up feature. I have used it for years and it has never caused a problem, unlike other "registry cleaner" programs. The title of the program comes from "crap cleaner," which it does very well.

You access the registry cleaner feature by clicking on the "registry" icon on the left side of the screen, click "scan" to identify problems, and then can "fix" problems one-by-one after reading a brief explanation of the likely source of the problem. You can select the type of item for a scan.

This feature may be a bit unsophisticated for many and not quite what is sought in this thread.  In my experience, it identifies left-over elements from removed programs and similar items which can slow down loading. The program has some other features, including a fast way to modify a start menu.

The website is very informative. This well-established freeware program has had over 300 million downloads.

Innuendo:
Maybe it's just me, but I don't see what the allure is with editing the registry on modern Windows systems. Vista and Windows 7 have optimized defaults...-Innuendo
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I couldn't disagree more. There are plenty of tasks that XP simply does not perform as designed.-J-Mac
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Jim, I was talking about modern operating systems like Vista and Windows 7. With all due respect, Windows XP is 9 years old now and cannot be considered to be a modern operating system. Microsoft has learned a lot in 9 years in regards to the registry and system performance. Most of the tweaks you need to add to XP are in Vista and Win7 by default.

I'm running Win7 on the same PC on which I ran Win XP and Win7 is faster in every way than XP & I had tweaked the heck out of XP and Win7 is running 'stock'.

MilesAhead:
There are some reasons to do it, although I agree not so much for system tuning as for correcting behavior.  One I just ran into is there's no way to change the default 'edit' program for a file type in the OpenWith mechanism that XP had.  You have to tweak the registry or use a utility to do it for you. You could say, just use open, which would be okay for stuff like plain text as it's most likely to come up in a text editor.  But for scripts it could very well run the script instead.  Not always desirable. Also there's still stuff you may want to adjust to preference, such as Tooltip popup delay.

Some quirks of applications are still there.  afik every time I reinstall Firefox I have to delete certain DDE keys or if I try to open a url via FF as default browser via association, I get the "Windows cannot find..." yadda yadda.  So, it ain't all fixed. :)

J-Mac:
   <  snip  >  ... With all due respect, Windows XP is 9 years old now and cannot be considered to be a modern operating system.
-Innuendo (June 30, 2009, 11:25 AM)
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Please tell me you're kidding! Currently, Windows XP is the dominant OS in the personal computer market. XP: 61.54%, Vista:  24.35%  (As of May 2009. See http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10).

So why - if you agree that XP does indeed require registry cleaning at times - does the age of the OS even come into play? If the vast majority of users are still using XP then registry cleaners are certainly a needed commodity - still. Your statement is probably a valid one in two years, but now now.

Jim

Innuendo:
Please tell me you're kidding! Currently, Windows XP is the dominant OS in the personal computer market. XP: 61.54%, Vista:  24.35%-J-Mac
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Percentage of people using a given OS does not dictate how modern it is, but rather its age.

So why - if you agree that XP does indeed require registry cleaning at times - does the age of the OS even come into play?
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Because the age dictates what kind of optimizations have been put in place at release. It's common sense that Microsoft will learn tricks as time goes on and will make improvements to their code.

If the vast majority of users are still using XP then registry cleaners are certainly a needed commodity - still.
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Now what are we talking about here? Registry cleaners or tweakers? There's a difference in functionality there. Tweakers make actual changes to existing values in the registry while cleaners remove the flotsam and jetsam no longer needed. Regardless, registry tweakers and cleaners are certainly needed for those who are still running Windows XP...but not those running more recent operating systems.

My entire viewpoint is based on not how many people are still using Windows XP, but its age. It's still a fine operating system, to be sure, but it does not have the optimizations and refinements of later, more recent OSes.

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