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Registry cleaning software debunked...

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Shades:
ERUNT for registry backup is an excellent suggestion. More people should take that to heart. If you really want to speed up your XP/2003 PC, check for partition alignment. Chances are that the partitions on your hard disk aren't. I did do this alignment on my XP PC and it does make a noticeable difference.

Reading and (mainly) writing to an aligned partition can increase the speed of your PC 5-10%. When checking numbers in Process Explorer you do notice that I/O drops (duh!) but also that you lose a lot less of resources on interrupts. Because of the drop in I/O you will also expand the longevity of your (SATA) hard disk as a bonus.

Best of all, with a free tool like 'Minitool partition wizard' you can do the alignment. There are a lot more Partition managers who offer the similar functionality. 'Minitool partition wizard' is just the software that I used for this.

Of course, when compared with an SSD it hardly makes a difference, but for the ones without the funds, alignment does make working just a bit longer with the 'old clunker' more bearable...and will leave more time to save for the real speed upgrade  ;)

tslim:
ERUNT for registry backup is an excellent suggestion. More people should take that to heart. If you really want to speed up your XP/2003 PC, check for partition alignment. Chances are that the partitions on your hard disk aren't. I did do this alignment on my XP PC and it does make a noticeable difference.

Reading and (mainly) writing to an aligned partition can increase the speed of your PC 5-10%. When checking numbers in Process Explorer you do notice that I/O drops (duh!) but also that you lose a lot less of resources on interrupts. Because of the drop in I/O you will also expand the longevity of your (SATA) hard disk as a bonus.

Best of all, with a free tool like 'Minitool partition wizard' you can do the alignment. There are a lot more Partition managers who offer the similar functionality. 'Minitool partition wizard' is just the software that I used for this.

Of course, when compared with an SSD it hardly makes a difference, but for the ones without the funds, alignment does make working just a bit longer with the 'old clunker' more bearable...and will leave more time to save for the real speed upgrade  ;)
-Shades (April 01, 2013, 05:27 PM)
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As far as I know, the alignment matter is as important in the case of SSD. Misalignment can happen when one does not prepare the SSD with Windows itself during setup. That was exactly my case in the past when I transfer my Windows (originally install on a HDD) via Ghost image to SSD.

Btw, I use MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition to help me align my SSD (after transfer) and AS SSD Benchmark to verify whether my SSD is aligned correctly.

f0dder:
As far as I know, the alignment matter is as important in the case of SSD. Misalignment can happen when one does not prepare the SSD with Windows itself during setup. That was exactly my case in the past when I transfer my Windows (originally install on a HDD) via Ghost image to SSD.-tslim (April 01, 2013, 07:56 PM)
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Indeed - you'll want your SSD partitions to be aligned to the SSDs erase-block size - otherwise you'll both lose performance as well as decrease drive lifetime. XP didn't align partitions properly, Vista and upwards should be doing this automatically. For HDDs, I believe alignment only matters if you've got a relatively new drive with 4096-byte sectors?

tslim:
As far as I know, the alignment matter is as important in the case of SSD. Misalignment can happen when one does not prepare the SSD with Windows itself during setup. That was exactly my case in the past when I transfer my Windows (originally install on a HDD) via Ghost image to SSD.-tslim (April 01, 2013, 07:56 PM)
--- End quote ---
Indeed - you'll want your SSD partitions to be aligned to the SSDs erase-block size - otherwise you'll both lose performance as well as decrease drive lifetime. XP didn't align partitions properly, Vista and upwards should be doing this automatically. For HDDs, I believe alignment only matters if you've got a relatively new drive with 4096-byte sectors?
-f0dder (April 01, 2013, 08:22 PM)
--- End quote ---
Alignment of HDD matters regardless of the sector size, the bigger the HDD capacity the worse (in term of performance) if a partition is misaligned. I remember I read an article discussing this issue.

However, so far, I have not experienced any HDD misalignment, whether I use a disk utility (e.g. a disk imaging program) or Windows itself to prepare a HDD partition.

I wonder how can HDD misalignment happen?

pilgrim:
Someone made the comment earlier that "IMHO registry cleaners are a waste of time and money".
While I would disagree with the first I have never come up against the second.
With free software, giveaways and trials it is a long time since I bought any software.

I have long thought that with many people there are two main reasons why they disagree with the use of registry cleaners, 1) they have used rubbish programs and had a bad experience, 2) regardless of which program(s) they used they had not taken the time to test what exactly it is doing and had an equally bad experience.
That does not include people who have a negative attitude towards them without ever having used one.

Like most arguments discussions there are two sides to it and those who support both of them.
Few types of software produce the same level of passion(?) in opposing sides but if you look around you will find that a lot of software produces opposite views in different people no matter what its purpose.
Much of it is based on personal experience and I am sure that no-one on DC needs me to point out that you can install the same program on what appear to be two identical computers and have two totally different experiences.

Alignment:

I exchanged emails for several months with one of Paragon's tech people when they first brought out their Alignment Tool, at the time I only used XP.
In some respects it had things in common with a registry cleaner in as far as if it did not work it could totally screw up a system and make it unbootable.
The later versions that were openly available had safeguards built-in but I had access to a number that didn't (thank God for True Image).
Also like registry cleaners I found that aligning previously non-aligned partitions on XP made a noticeable difference.
By default it is rare for XP to install in an aligned position, 7 on the other hand invariably does. (I have no knowledge of Vista or 8, both of which I view in the same light.)

When I built my newest PC besides partitioning my SSD I also partitioned and aligned my 2 HDD's before installing anything, I knew the OS would align the SSD.

I now have all the partitions on all internal and external drives aligned and consider it to have been worth the effort which in all except for one partition (the C partition on my old PC) was actually very little.
The exception was the cause of my long correspondence with Paragon and only got resolved (aligned) months later when I just decided to try again one day, the actual problem remains a mystery.

With regard to alignment when recovering images.
Older versions of both Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image worked the same way, if the partition was aligned when you made the image it usually restored that way, if it was not it didn't.
I have no knowledge of recent/current versions of NG or TI but EaseUS ToDO Backup Workstation at least from version 4 has a recovery option to 'Optimise for SSD' which I have always taken to mean alignment.
Although I have no need to try it I can see no reason why the same option should not align an HDD but I am not certain.

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