Registry "cleaners"....

Are they just BS or a good tool? i've read/heard most registry cleaners don't scrub deep enough to do any harm and therefore are basically rendered useless albeit somewhat safe, a placebo if you will (makes you 'think' you feel good) and others scrub deeper and can cause unnecessary harm (sometimes fatal) any opinions?

My personal philosophy is to leave well enough alone, what's not broke does not need "fixed" but i'm open to any and all opinions, personally i feel registry "cleaners" are just another gimmick that are completely unnecessary but i'm open to opinion......

 

Exceot for Ccleaner, I would not use any other registry cleaner.
With CC, I've never had issues.

The cleaning of registry does nothing to the system in terms of speed... rather, it keeps the registry itself neat and tidy.

Although it can be useful in removing lingering remains of previous drivers and whatnot that might in some cases interfere with new ones (but this is rare).

Generally speaking, it's up to you.
It does nothing in terms of speed or performance in general, but keeps the OS core tidy.

 

sometimes you need registry cleaner when you feel your hard work for any minor action...
also cleaners is essential for history,........

 

You will get little from cleaning a registry. The Registry is essentially a database loaded at start up. Cleaning it will reduce its size therefore load time and memory footprint. Since it is a sequential load and once in memory has a super fast access time there is little bennefit to cleaning it.

Now older OS's with minimal free ram available without a doubt did highly bennefit from cleaning the registry up. With more modern systems that have faster storage devices, CPU's and RAM the advantage is almost nonexistant.

 

Use Registry Mechanic with very good results. Is it essential? No. But it's nice at times. For me it's been well behaved and has never broken anything. And it has fixed a few things from time to time that have been handy, but again, it is not essential stuff, just good at it's job.

 

Unless you need a cleaner for a specific job (like removing registry info so that you can reinstall a trial program) there is literally no benefit to "cleaning" the registry.

There is however a huge danger... whereas leaving the registry alone won't give ANY performance hit running a cleaner can completely destroy your computer. Is risking your computer for 0 performance gain worth it to you?

If so, I suggest CCleaner since it has various other options that I find useful.

This is partly true. The registry that we used to use years ago is not the same as it is now. Cleaning/ defragging it will not benefit you in any noticeable way.

 

Thanks for the replies, i think i'll err on the side of caution and just let sleeping dogs lie as far as the registry is concerned.

 

Everything Deks said is true!

Other than CCleaner I would not trust any other registry cleaner. On top of that a lot of "registry cleaners" are scams or contain spyware/adware.

 

I have used both Ccleaner and RegAce ( http://www.regace.com), they both do some good things and I rely on them both.

 

"doing something" is NOT the same thing as "doing something of importance"

 

And what "good things" might those be? Except for cleaning up some install/uninstall issue in the registry the whole category of registry cleaners are a waste of time.

Gary

 

Could someone point me to site where M$ says that we must clean our registry? (W7) I'm not asking about registry editors.

I have never noticed the differences of using a registry cleaner but i sure heard some cursing from XP users when something got too clean?

 

What he said.

Gary

 

Well if you are under the delusion that everything you "should" do to a machine is in the Microsoft instruction manual, more power to you

 

well if you are under the delusion that it doesnt work, less power to you.

hint: i only use knowledge that is actual documented instead of craplies from the web (like the stuff about cleaning the registry).

there's NOTHING magic in a pc, it's all perfectly understandable and documentable. and if microsoft explains me in detail how the registry of win7 works, and why it can't technically change the performance to "clean it", as it's specifically designed to work in the "dirty" state, then i can trust them, as they have technical details.
if some noob on the web says "u have to run ccleaner, it makes the pc fast, stoopid m$ and their crap registry", then no, i can't trust him.

it's documented and explained why registry cleaners are as useful as the tv-guru that you can call after midnight to tell you your future. i prefer to follow those documents, and not that magical guru.

oh, and, i do use registry cleaners. in those cases, where it makes sense. performance is not one.

 

Sounds like typical forum drive by statements

So let's move on, you have absolute knowledge that cleaners do work and that i should take software companies like Registry Mechanic seriously?

I find "reviews" like Registry Repair Software Review 2011 - TopTenREVIEWS somewhat delusional as well.