Clean up my registry

Anybody know of a free reg cleaners. By free I mean free download, free to use and not a trial or time limited version.

ucb9999

 

This is just me but I used RegCleaner once and it majorly screwed up my computer. I had to format and start over.

 

I used something called EasyCleaner and that worked pretty good. I didn't have any problems with it messing up my registry. I have also used ccleaner and that seemed to do the job as well.
Tim

 

You also might want to try CCleaner - google it and you'll find it.

 

CCleaner is the best i think..

 

Same here, I used reg cleaner once (just a normal scan no deep scanning). It found a lot more registry errors than the typical CCleaner scans. So i let it clean/fix it all and then on my next reboot windows suddenly asked me to enter a username and password which I never had set before. Basicly I was screwed since I can't login so I had to do a reformat (the good thing was that I had weekly back ups of all my files on my external HD so it lessened the pain).

CCleaner is my recommendations.

 

Yea currently I have CCleaner. But I read in one of those something something for dummies that it is not good to have a registry cleaner because it might delete something important from your computer.

 

As many have said, registry cleaners can really screw up your system. Also, they don't really help at all. Your system will not see a big speed increase. The better way to go is to backup all your data and reformat your system about once a year. That will give you better performance than any registry cleaner and will also give you a backup. Something most people don't have.

 

CCleaner works for me

 

Thanks, I'll get easyclean. I've used it on another computer,I just didn't know it was free. I sort of took it from a clumsy bestbuy technician who for got to empty the recyle bin of all there computer maintanence software that they charge customers to used to "fix" there computers.

ucb9999

 

RegScrubXP works really well too. It doesn't just randomly delete keys, so you don't have to worry about it ruining the registry. It actually fixes the issues in question. It will help you make a registry backup as well.

Registry cleaners are used for removing traces of programs, files or settings that aren't used any more. They just take up space and muck things up. You won't see a speed increase either way, but you may run into Windows issues with a severely fragmented, screwed up registry.

Just be careful when you run them, and back up FIRST. I've never had an issue with corrupt registry on MY computer, but I have had to repair others' problems, and it's no fun.

 

Thanks, I'll probably get it later today.

ucb9999

 

ccleaner is the current best.

 

I'll look into it.

ucb9999

 

Yeah just be careful. I used CCleaner to clean my registry and just left it on the default settings. It must have deleted some setting (some *ini file) b/c my computer wouldn't recognize my mp3 player anymore. I had to reformat my computer to get it to work again.

I'm sure if I wasn't so lazy and actually went through all the errors, it would've been fine, but I figure that I'd rather be safe.

I do use CCleaner to clean up the rest of my computer and it works great. Just not the registry cleaner.

 

I use RegScrubXP, works very well.

If you want really good cleaning, try RegVac, although it is not freeware:
http://www.regvac.com/

 

I use both Toni Arts' EasyCleaner and JV16 PowerTools to keep the registry in shape. Both work very well, give you repair options, and create backups before fixing. I like both and have never had any problems with them.

As far as improving speed/stability on XP, you might notice a big difference if you've added/removed a lot of programs. When I initially used JV16, it found nearly 3,000 invalid keys. My startup went from nearly 2 minutes down to around 30 seconds.

 

I'll get regScrubXP soon,
keep the tips coming

ucb9999

 

Another vote for CCleaner here. It lets you do more thing than just delete registrys to keep your computer in good shape.

 

My vote is winASO, been using it over a year ... no problems. In fact I really like it.

NOTE: The FREE version has no time limit, but will only correct 10 errors at a time. But when I run it every 3 to 4 weeks, it usually only finds 30 to 40 errors.

30 to 40 errors means you have to run it 3 or 4 times, no big deal.

The catch is when you remove software, (ie NERO, NERO was the worst case senario) it will find 200 to 250 errors!

In that case, you need to run it 25 times, again, not really a big deal. I do it while I'm watching TV.

 

never heard of winASO, could you post a link?

ucb9999

 

http://www.download.com/WinASO-Registry-Optimizer/3000-2094_4-10260558.html

All I have ever used is the free older trial version for over a year.

-Limited to 10 corrections- Tip: If you know you have many errors, just check 5 0r 6 boxes at a time, you will see what I mean.

 

I'll check into that.

ucb9999

 

RegCleaner and CrapCleaner are the two I use. I don't use them to speed things up, rather I use them to remove registry vestiges of malicious programs such as iTunes or Real Video after uninstalling them.

 

I use my reg cleaners for both slight speedboost and removing of malware.

ucb9999

 

Another vote for CCleaner. It does several things, such as registry cleaning, but also has a few other options, such as allowing you to remove startup programs.

Pretty nice tool.

I first used it a few years ago when I had some spyware junk and CCleaner was recommended to me in another forum. It worked great and I have been using it ever since.

 

I just downloaded and ran WinAso.

...


The friggin thing came back and told me I have 792 errors.

I ran CCleaner and I have 4 invalid registry keys.


792 compared to 4.

Tell me something I don't know here...


Should I just stick with Ccleaner or should I run both WinAso and Ccleaner?


792? C'mon now...

 

Registry Mechanic is pretty rubbish and I don't like it very much AND it's not free, and CCleaner works great for me!!!

 

Advanced Windows Care v2 Personal (which does alot of other things) and CCcleaner is the winning combination for me. Sometimes each program catches something the other program misses but I remember after doing it the first time on my comp, huge leap in performance.

 

I second Advanced Windows Care V2, nifty program.

 

I hope I'm not overdoing with Adva. Windows. Care + CCleaner +WinAso.

Jeesus I even have registry mechanic...

Each program brings different results and quite frankly, I really don't know which to trust.

I'm scared to do anything to my registry as of the moment.

 

CCleaner is good, but is intended mainly for cleaning useless files, not necessarily the registry. Products that are specialized for registry cleaning will generally be more effective. I've used a program called Eusing Free Registry Cleaner which i've found to be a highly powerful free products. The main danger with registry cleaning is that entries that shouldn't be deleted are accidentally marked and their deletion causes unwanted problems. JV16 was one such registry cleaner that I found to be too powerful for its own good and found many legitimate entries to be 'useless.' As long as you have good backups, use whatever free registry cleaners you want .

 

http://www.tweaknow.com/RegCleaner.html

Check out TweakNow's RegCleaner Standard. It has a "not fully safe to delete" section so that you can deep scan if it is a valid entry.

 

I use CCleaner with no problems, but AWC 2 has started to create a problem with one of my programs if I allow it to "fix" the registry. Twice I've had to do a system restore to get my program (Nota Bene) working. For the time being, I'm using only CCleaner.

Bill

 

CCleaner is good but it will also delete some entries and have to re-install the program such as certain activeX controls. You can bypass some files when analyzing though.

 

CCleaner and NTRegOPT should be plenty to keep your registry in shape. Removing 'invalid' registry keys is not going to have any noticeable effect on your system speed, other than the placebo effect that is.

http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/