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Best Registry Cleaner?

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superticker:
FWIW, Registry First Aid (RFA) identifies the most problems and also searches for "fixes" to them which are turned on by default. This is pointless as many of those fixes are completely incorrect, so if you simply run RFA and hit the clean button, you're just adding more useless junk to your registry and possibly mucking it up to boot.-Darwin (March 28, 2006, 09:32 AM)
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I agree 100% with that!  Even automatically fixing the green-safety-level flagged entries with their default suggested fixes would be undesirable.  RFA's suggestions are put in a pull-down menu, and what you need to do is look through that menu for the correct suggestion of 3-7 possible suggestions.  The first suggestion in the menu is not to be trusted.

What you can do automatically is apply the green-safety-level fixes which have no suggestions except to delete them.  But this is not clearly stated in the instructions.

With RFA returning over 2500 and Registry Medic over 650 problems on my system, who has time to check each key! ...the only way around the amazing number of problems reported is to install the cleaner over a fresh Windows install and check the errors reported (there will probably be around 80 or so) and then run it after every software installation/uninstallation.-Darwin (March 28, 2006, 09:32 AM)
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Hmmm.  I think you're absolutely right!  This is the best strategy.

In medicine (especially pharmacology), we have a saying "Above all, do no harm."  This also applies for registry fixing.  If you just had RFA automatically fix those 2500 entries, you would be doing harm somewhere for sure.  I would have RFA sort the flagged list by safety-level color, then just fix those green-flagged entries which have no suggestions, and therefore can be deleted.  That should knock your list of 2500 to 1000.  The rest you'll have to look at.  For the remaining green ones, go through their pull-down menu of suggestions and select the right one.  Some should be deleted.  You can work on that over a couple days.

You shouldn't get more than 50 yellow or red ones.  I would leave the red ones alone.  Fix the yellow ones you're sure about, and leave the rest alone because they are probably correct already.  For example, RFA flags a path name with %USERNAME% in it for the Default User because it's not found.  Well--of course--it's not found because the username for the Default User is undefined.  So path names for the Default User should have symbolic references in them such as %USERNAME%.  Just leave that good entry alone and ignore RFA's stupid list of suggestions.  Gee, if you selected one of those stupid suggestions, you could create real problems because the Default User is used as a template for creating new user accounts (where %USERNAME% will then be appropriately defined).  Remember, "Above all, do no harm".

Regisry Medic returns fewer problems, also suggests corrections, but leaves doesn't enable those suggestions by default, leaving it up to the user to check them, so if you run a sweep and then hit clean its default setting is to either delete or leave alone the problem keys found.-Darwin (March 28, 2006, 09:32 AM)
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I like that behavior better, especially for new users of a registry cleaner.  Maybe we should suggest that RFA work the same way.  RoseCity Software (for RFA) is good about listening to its users' suggestions.

I like RFA the best for power users.  It does find the most problems, but not all it flags at the yellow or red safety level is a problem to begin with (these entries may be correct), and suggestions at the green level need to be inspected and judged before they are applied.

If fixing the registry was a turn-key operation, then we wouldn't need a registry in the first place.   :P

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