Are "registry cleaners" safe to use?

On Sat, 19-Dec-09 19:55:23 GMT, reineshadow wrote:

> Hi,I just want to know if those so-called "registry cleaners"

> are safe to use.

No!

> Since they are all over the Internet, I assume a lot of

> people do use them.

Yes, unfortunately.

> They give promises of faster computer performance, getting

> rid of all the junk left by previously uninstalled programs.

> But I am thinking that to an untrained hand, isn't that

> going to cause more trouble?

Yes! Registry cleaning programs are *all* snake oil. Cleaning of the

ve the registry alone and

don't use any registry cleaner. Despite what many people think, and

what vendors of registry cleaning software try to convince you of,

having unused registry entries doesn't really hurt you.

The risk of a serious problem caused by a registry cleaner erroneously

removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit

it may have.

Read http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html

> The reason I am asking is that yes, I do see folders left

> by previously uninstalled programs and it's pretty annoying

> to find folders that have nothing in them.

That has nothing to do with registry cleaners, which don't do anything

about them at all.

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003

Ken Blake

Registry cleaners are unsafe. They can damage your system, make your computer unbootable, and stop your programs from running. They use all kinds of "algorithms" to see what items in your registry should be deleted, and then delete vital registry keys and values that are essential for your computer to run properly. There is no significant improvement in your computer performance from using them. They are the snake oil of the software market. See http://chris.pirillo.com/are-registry-cleaners-safe-to-use/

Cleaning up your empty folders is very different from cleaning up your Windows registry. Cleaning up your empty folders is safe and there are free tools to do it with (see http://download.cnet.com/Remove-Empty-Directories/3000-2248_4-10755867.html). Cleaning up your registry can break your system, and CCleaner is one of the worst offenders (see http://chris.pirillo.com/are-registry-cleaners-safe-to-use/)

I wouldn't install it on my PC.

On Sat, 19-Dec-09 22:14:25 GMT, JoelbX wrote:

> KJBlake has it down here... registry cleaners really

> don't give you a noticable speed increase. However I

> use CCleaner (ccleaner.com), which also cleans junk

> files off your system, not just clean the registry.

CCleaner *is* a good program, as long as you don't use its registry

cleaning function.

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003

Ken Blake

Yes,

Ken you're copletely right.

Those tools are completely useless since Vista. Vista/7 optimize themselves (Superfetch, ReadyBoot, automatic defragmentation during idle). And Windows doesn't completely load the registry into the RAM any longer. So those tools are useless.

Save the money and better buy more RAM to speed up your PC!

André

"A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code" CLIP- Stellvertreter http://www.winvistaside.de/