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Registry cleaners


Corinthian

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We used to have a thread here which had links to all sorts of recommended utilities and such, but apparently it got pruned (or I dunno where to look). That said, what's a nice free registry cleaner that is recommended?

 

Thanks.

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I once tried Rose City Software's Registry Cleaner on an old Win95 machine, and couldn't detect any difference in performance afterward. At least it didn't screw anything up. ;)

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I've been running a program for 2 months called Advanced Windows Care. It's free and performs a myriad of tasks, including registry cleaning. Prior to finding this, I used CCleaner. .

 

http://www.download.com/Advanced-WindowsCa...cdlPid=10833219

 

Downloaded, installed, and now running. :)

 

 

Over at the download page, I saw this listing:

 

People who downloaded Advanced WindowsCare Personal also downloaded:

1) Advanced WindowsCare Professional - Automatically remove spyware and fix your registry.

2) Advanced Disk Cleaner - Find and wipe away all the garbage and temporary files on your computer.

3) Vunet Find - Search files without resweeping your drives.

4) Auslogics Disk Defrag - Defragment your disks and improve computer performance and stability.

5) TweakNow RegCleaner Standard - Remove obsolete entries from your Windows Registry.

 

Anyone here has any idea if they are ok (other than AWCP)?

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  • 1 year later...

Hmmmm ... I just downloaded that "Error Fix" and ran it, my computer is FULL of CRAP!!!! ... but the program wanted me to register, which I started to and got to basically "we want money before we will remove the crap" ... I think ??? it removed some things but there is still a whole lot of crap left. I wish these sites wouldn't offer you a free thing, let you go through the scans, THEN say OOPS ... SORRY ... we won't finish the job until you cough up lady! :blink: :rolleyes: Sneaky buggars! So much for that hey?

 

Well, if it got rid of anything at all then I'm happy with that much and appreciate that part though ;)

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Well ... I guess the scan IS free ... but the removal/fixing only done AFTER you register and you must pay when registering (understandable but I misunderstood what exactly was free I guess :D )

 

I checked the lists of what that scanner found and here is some of it, just in case someone is into telling me how to get rid of the bad guys, if thats possible to do on my own here.

 

602 harmful ActiveX objects are NOT blocked.

 

629 residual junk files

 

14 performance features NOT optimized

 

something about 25 registry items ???

 

Here's hoping ;)

 

Thanks!

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Programs like that are a scam. They create the problem after tricking a person into using them, then ask a person to pay to have the problem fixed.

 

Download the free version of Malwarebytes and let it do its thing. http://malwarebytes.org/mbam.php Don't ever do anything to your registry unless you're absolutely, positively, there-is-no-doubt-sure that you have a problem and that you know how to fix it.

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  • 1 month later...

Yuck. I got one too - "Total Security". Keeps telling me how corrupt my computer is. Wish I had the creators of this crap here, so we could "discuss" their excellent program. :P

 

I am trying "Windows Defender" and "Windows Live OneCare", since Spybot can't run on my machine any more (or at least not now).

Will check out Malwarebytes too.

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Yuck. I got one too - "Total Security". Keeps telling me how corrupt my computer is. Wish I had the creators of this crap here, so we could "discuss" their excellent program. :P

 

I am trying "Windows Defender" and "Windows Live OneCare", since Spybot can't run on my machine any more (or at least not now).

Will check out Malwarebytes too.

Stefan, many of those new fake security malware products won't let Spybot or Malwarebytes run. It is easily overcome by changing the name of the program executable file.

 

I recently spent 12 hours removing all the crap from my neighbors computer, which included a fake anti-virus program that seemed to activate some nasty defenses once I tried to remove it.

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I am trying "Windows Defender" and "Windows Live OneCare", since Spybot can't run on my machine any more (or at least not now).

Will check out Malwarebytes too.

In the past I've picked up similar problems and have had success eliminating them by finding information and download fixes from PC Magazine, and I've never had to pay for a 'fix'.

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  • 4 months later...
I've been running a program for 2 months called Advanced Windows Care. It's free and performs a myriad of tasks, including registry cleaning. Prior to finding this, I used CCleaner. .

 

http://www.download.com/Advanced-WindowsCa...cdlPid=10833219

 

 

Wow, I just downloaded the above and this time it worked great, or at least I hope it did and I won't have computer problems if I shut it down now. My computer has been freezing and crashing when I've tried to run the MS security thing. Am hoping this Advanced Windows Care has got at the problems so no more crashing. I haven't been able to scan my computer fully through for a very long time.

 

I downloaded then ran the above mentioned AWCP program, it came up with the following problems:

 

Spyware 19

Registry fix 924

Privacy Sweep 775

Junk File 4.96 GB files found

 

and repaired/fixed them all (or so it said)

 

The download and repairing/cleaning was free. No asking for upgrading by paying before it would clean the computer!

 

:)

 

edited in later:

 

I also spotted this that I think I'll try out rather than using the computers defragment function. Anyone else tried this Smart Defrag? Did you like it?

Smart Defrag™ Freeware

http://www.iobit.com/

Edited by VenerableDamePW
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I used some registry cleaners in the past (serious ones, not the kind of "cleaners" which are promoted in Web ad's...). They never caused any problems, but I simply saw no benefit whatsoever. After several cleanings by couple of different programs, my machine was just as fast (slow) as before, despite impressive list of useless registry entries "cleaned". So I judged that the potential risk was just not worth of miniscule gain.

 

Many experts don't recommend them.

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VDPW, don't be. As with most things in the computer world, there are differing opinons. All of Yama's links point to "experts" on one side of the discussion. True, Windows does a much better job of managing the Registry than it did in the past. I can tell you that the programs I recommended do a minimum of registry work, but primarily clean out the garbage from your system. I do agree with one of the points in the links though. You will find a much greater advantage running a good defragmenting program on your machine. Especially if AWC found 4 GB of crap.

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VDPW, don't be. As with most things in the computer world, there are differing opinons. All of Yama's links point to "experts" on one side of the discussion. True, Windows does a much better job of managing the Registry than it did in the past. I can tell you that the programs I recommended do a minimum of registry work, but primarily clean out the garbage from your system. I do agree with one of the points in the links though. You will find a much greater advantage running a good defragmenting program on your machine. Especially if AWC found 4 GB of crap.

 

Thanks you ;) I'm hoping this registry cleaner got rid of things that were stalling/crashing the virus scans and defrags. The only defrag function I have is the one that came with the windows XP tools. I want to run the defrag and i usually notice things run faster and better, just more tickety boo after a good defrag (but don't we all? :D :D Defrag has been crashing too but past experience when I've been able to scan first and that completes nicely, is that THEN the defrag will run and complete without crashing midsteam.

 

Speaking about crashing midstream, I need to eat as I'm fading fast because I skipped eating enough so far today and am growly .. rumble rumble feed me feed me :D

 

I appreciate the advice!

Edited by VenerableDamePW
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For the record, I turned off the computer and it rebooted nicely with no problems at all so I'm a happy camper here knowing a lot of crap was cleaned out and nothing that shouldn't have happened seems to have happened. Works good :)

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As a matter of fact, Advanced Systemcare Free was one of the programs I used. It's a legit program as far as I can tell, but at least in the free version its anti-spyware functions were really pretty shallow compared to proper programs like Anti-Malware or Spybot. It also had an annoying habit of putting up spurious ad's after scanning "your machine has xxxx uncorrected problems, update to full version!" Since I didn't notice any actual benefit from using its registry cleaning functions, I eventually uninstalled it.

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I took Advanced Registry Optimizer from Zoombli.com had no trouble using it in several computers not just the one licensed and have been somewhat impressed and believe I am seeing some improvement in speed from older machines. In the end, I will still use System Recovery and reset to factory state and reinstall everything in these machines [c.2005]. It's a bore but PC Mag had an article some years back stating that most data dinks prefer to reinstall every few months to keep their machines running at top form. It's not called Microsloth for nothing [sorry, neighbor Bill]!

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If I ever finally get a workable idea and business plan worked out that passes tests and acceptance then I'm hoping that sometime next year I'll be earning again and can actually spring for a couple of good programs that can do fuller and better jobs. Meanwhile the freeware things are my options. I wish there was one that could search out old programs files that belong to old programs I removed from my computer. I wouldn't know what to look for unless the old program name is obvious attached to the file so I know that and can safely delete them. But I noticed lots of what looked like leftover garbage and have to go through things file by file to delete each one that looks redundant cuz program no longer on my computer.

 

Anyways, have not tried to defrag or scan since I used this program the other day so don't yet know if my computer will crash again or run through as yet. ;) My fingers are crossed for that it works.

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