System Mechanic (and registry fixers)

[dantheman]

Hi,

There are previous threads, but seeing that those who talk about registry cleaners date back a while, i thought i'd drop a line or two about one specific shareware that i've personally purchased and used; namely and mostly about SYSTEM MECHANIC 9 (NOT PRO).

First of all, it seems to fix and tweak all kinds of things but doesn't really improve speed anywhere (browser or OS).
Secondly, with regards to Malwarebytes which was suggested on previous post, I've run it a few times on newly installed OS and it always finds two .txt files to remove. My OS backup disk was made from freshly installed system so i can't see where the culprits came from.

Running on Windows 7 (not Pro) with no AV or Firewall except for Micro$oft defaults and system is running just smoothly for the last three weeks.

[sajman99]

Hello,

(1) In the past I have used jv16 PowerTools, TuneUp Utilities, and Ace Utilities, and I still believe these are among the best (and safest) registry cleaners. However, I no longer use registry cleaners because the risk is too high. Sooner or later you'll get brave and delete some reg keys which shouldn't be deleted and perhaps introduce instability to your system.

Having said that, as long as you have some "safety net" (ie. imaging software, rollback software, virtualization software, or whatever reliably works for you), tweak away with System Mechanic with the confidence any mistakes will be reversible.

(2) Common sense might indicate MBAM's detection of .txt files is not a concern, but common sense is sometimes completely wrong. I haven't run across this issue with MBAM. Can you identify these text files without breaching your privacy? Perhaps somebody has experienced the same results.

(3) Why no AV? Do you run online scanners?

Regards.

[dantheman]

Sajman,

You are probably 100% right about fidling around with the registry.
Problem is, if something you've modified goes unnoticed until you finally need it and don't remember when you modified it... how can you restore registry properly unless you're really sure you last "hacked" it? So much for backing up registry.
Never had problems with TuneUp Utilities either.

Why no AV?
Well, i find that my system was generally less responsive and scrolling through Windows Explorer or xplorer2 became definitely slower after installing it.
But just to prove me wrong! 
I just did a fresh install of my OS and neither of these things happened.

[MerleOne]

SM has a terrible flaw in that area, I have tried to talk to their support but they didn't really listen : all modifications to the registry are backuped and accessible in the undo area *BUT* this undo data will be purged automatically my SM, after a while (a short one).  Sometimes it takes days or weeks before in registry operation exibits an issue, by then it's too late.  I won't renew my license this year !

[dantheman]

Thanks MerleOne for elucidating what i've been thinking too.

Guess the ol' principle "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is more than applicable in this area.

[daddydave]

In my opinion, registry cleaners should be called registry breakers. I've found them pretty useless since at least Windows 95 (don't know if they were around before then).