need tool for cleaning junk & bad registries

Hi Guys,

My PC's performance slowing down continuously...need to clean junk files & corrupt registries..anyone can tell me which tool can solve my prob.. i 'll be really glad..!! Its hard to work on it ..!

waiting for the reply..!!

Thanks.

 

You can use CCleaner - Optimization and Cleaning - Free Download for registry issues as well as other all-around things when it comes to cleaning your PC.

Also from the free software thread, you can find more utilities that might work for your needs:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...-ever-growing-free-windows-software-list.html

System Cleaners:
Warning: Like the tweaking section above, system-cleaners might inadvertantly delete files you really need. Proceed with caution, and always backup critical documents before running any of these tools.
Windows Installer CleanUp Utility A tool from Microsoft that cleans up partially installed applications, or resolving issues with un-installers that fail mid-way through.
CCleaner [TESTED:KarenA] Windows/browser temporary file cleaner
ATF Cleaner Like CCleaner, very fast Windows/Browser temporary file cleaner.
Comodo System Cleaner Another cleaning program that is available. Says it's compatible with XP and Vista.
Revo Uninstaller [TESTED:fonduekid;Schmi Daniel the Man]
RegSoft's Free Windows Registry Repair [TESTED:Jayayess1190] Another utility for cleaning your registry. Compatible with XP and Vista.
Guru 3D Drive Sweeper A fast tool to remove driver leftovers from your system.
Auslogics Registry Cleaner Another registry cleaner from Auslogics.
Disk Max Like CCleaner, but does more! Compatible with XP/Vista/Windows Server 2003 & 2008/Windows 7.
Xinorbis Monitors your hard-drive space usage, by figuring out how much space is used for system files, how much for applications, music, videos, etc. Useful for the hard-drive clean-freaks .

 

You should also clean up and defragment your disc.I don't know which OS you are using but Windows does that for you.You should see substantial performance increases.

 

"slowing down constantly" could have any number of causes. blindly running 'cleaners' without having at least a clue as to what might be wrong and without knowing how cleaners work and what they are doing is worse.....

you haven't told us what kind of machine you have, what OS level, what patches or service pack might be loaded, software you have loaded, what you've done lately, if you've run any kind of anti-virus or malware scan, etc, etc.

 

Can I get an AMEN, brothers and sisters? I just love it when someone posts an issue about slow downs and then all these folks chime in with their favorite registry cleaner, tweak, defragger or whatever without a single clue as to what the problem actually is. It's like someone mentioning a toothache and getting a recommendation for calamine lotion. It's just ridiculous.

What the OP needs to do is step back and try to figure out the root cause and THEN AND ONLY THEN determine the best course of action. Is the OP having CPU issues or I/O issues? My first suggestion is to get Sysinternals Process Explorer and find out what is actually consuming CPU cycles if anything. If the OP is using Windows 7 the performance monitor in Task Manager can tell you a lot about what process or processes are doing a lot of disk I/O.

But the bottom line here is to determine the cause before you pick a solution.

Backup critical documents? Are you kidding me? Back up the whole freaking hard drive first! If one of these "magic bullets" renders the whole machine unbootable, having the documents saved off is of little use.

Wow, you can tell that without seeing any sort of diagnostics? I am not trying to pick on you, but without knowing if the hard drive is fragmentend or if such fragmentation is playing a role in the OP's issue, there is no way to make such claim. "You MIGHT see substantial performance increases." would be a better statement, but even then it is a blind shot in the dark.

Gary

 

It is wise to be cautious when using cleaners, but not overly cautions. Programs such as ccleaner have a reputation that you just can't throw out the window. In my experience, using ccleaner and similar programs, they have never once harmed the many computer I have run them on in any way. I'm not saying they can't do any damage but it's pretty safe to run. I think you should start by scanning you computer for viruses and malware/adware. I would recommend AVG Free for viruses scanning and Super Anti Spyware for malware and adware. I notice that AVG can slow down you computers performance, because it loads many dll's & applications during startup. Once you have purged your system parasites, if there are any, I would defragment your computer's hard drive using disk defragmenter that comes with windows. If it is windows you are using. You could also install defraggler instead, but the basic one works fine. Once you have done that, I recommend you follow the steps of one of the above posts, and for good measure defragment again after cleaning. If nothing is improved you may want to search for another option besides ".need to clean junk files & corrupt registries" Ex: Reinstall OS, Overheating, Hard drive on last leg

-xps400mediacenter

 

So we should use your experience and just ignore all the other notes of folks who have had horrific issues after running such applications?

Sorry, but prudent information management practices dictate that if you are going to run any sort of tool that in any way changes the underlying OS (and the registry must be considered part of the OS), then you damn well better have a good functional backup of said operating system. Any suggestion that anything less is ok is just plain irresponsible.

Gary

 

Considering the OP asked for something that "need to clean junk files & corrupt registries", CCleaner does both of those tasks. I am almost sure that if the OP is asking for utilities that do this his knowledge about the subject might be limited, and your advice will go over his head.

 

I see your point but last time I checked "might" and "should" ,when used like i did,had the same meaning..I didn't say "you will see"...Defragmentation can only help,it should be done periodically anyways, and worst case senario the OP would have seen no improvement.Vista and win7 are set by default to defragment by themselves anyway.No need for diagnostics.So spare me the surprise......

 

other than the page file and hibernation/sleep files, defrag is of little to no use on ntfs disks.

 

You have a valid point, but in the event that an OS becomes unbootable for some bizarre reason caused by the cleaner, all hope is not lost. As you most likely know hard drives just don't stop working when you can't boot into the OS. Worst case scenario, OP has to reinstall OS on new partition & no data is lost. As far as cleaning goes, I believe all important system files are either 1) Right Protected, or 2) In use by the OS, which renders then indestructible to a program such as ccleaner. So the risk of irreparable damage to the OS, is so low there's really no need to make a big deal about it. Backing up the registry is the best preventive measure for serious problems, so I would recommend that, but to prove my point I have never once backed up a registry and I don't plan to. My post may seem ignorant, but I am talking from experience in manually cleaning out the registry and folders, which have never ended up in an unbootable OS. Not to mention it is a lot more dangerous then cleaning programs. So to sum it up the outcome of cleaning with ccleaner or similar program far far outweighs the so called "danger" of using the program.

You are actually incorrect. Fragmented files performance is degraded due to the fragmentation. So if system files are fragmented, then the OS startup and operation will be slower than if the files were not fragmented. Not to mention games are substantially affected by the fragmentation of their files.

 

No, look again. The OP said they were having performance issues and wanted to solve that. The OP made the ASSUMPTION that a cleaner would do the trick. The assumption is wrong. If my advice goes over the OPs head, then the answer is to just point them to a tool to clean the registry? Sorry no, the answer is to EDUCATE the OP so that the advice does make sense, but only AFTER the OP says they don't understand. I make no assumption about what the OP does or does not know.

Gary

 

Substantially affected? Do you have any real documentation to back that up? Sure there is an effect, but SUBSTANTIAL?

Gary

 

Ignorant ONLY if you are suggesting that there is no need to have a good backup of the OS partition, and I don't think you are suggesting that. However, your reply seems so cavalier when suggesting that a reinstall of the OS is trivial. Most folks would have to install a lot more than just the OS. Most of us have dozens or even hundreds of applications installed, all of which would require a reinstall as well, not to mention reconfiguring all of them.

I have been in IT for a VERY long time. If anyone who worked for me ran a tool like this without a backup image of the OS partition they would find themselves looking for a job. The lost productivity time is too important to skip such a step. But then again, I insist on ALWAYS having a backup image anyway as a precaution to any sort of failure regardless of the cause.

Gary

 

Quick Google search.. De-fragment your Counter-Strike Game Files – Counter-Strike Tweaks Recommended by Valve. The source isn't "real documentation", but I'll tell you, 5 different hard drives in different computers don't suddenly all do the same thing with no explanation

 

No, I'm not suggesting that, but what I'm trying to say is that if the OP were to follow my steps from an earlier post, according to their "diagnostic", which may be correct or incorrect, they should be able to cover most "typical" causes of performance degradation. I would recommend a backup since it's the first "cleaning session". I have some other thoughts I would like to add, but it would lead away from the original question so I say we should leave it at the OP should make a backup before running any cleaning tools. It seemed you were suggesting in your first post not to run or do anything, but I think he was asking for a legitimate program to clean his hard drive, which is what I gave him. Like you posted earlier about not assuming the OP's knowledge was, I think my original post explained what to do.

 

xps400 needs to update his knowledge on how ntfs works..... Seriously.

FAT formatted disks, slow 1990s vintage IDE connect drives, etc, etc needed all of the advantages/tricks available. Not so much now with current filesystems and drive interconnects.

With the sole exception of very large files that might overrun the filesystem read buffers **and** that the OS insists on loading into memory whole (of which there are very very few outside of a server class database machine) defrag is pretty useless on ntfs.

On a consumer-class desktop or laptop, those files might be the paging space and hibernation/sleep files and in some cases, Photoshop TIFF/PSD redo files. Not even registry files are loaded into memory these days.

 

If so, would you explain #1: Why is defragmentation recommended so highly for windows. #2: Why there is a noticeable increase in performance? From my understanding, the pagefile acts a "virtual memory" and is by default cleared on windows shutdown. So defragmenting that shouldn't affect performance.

 

1) Who is doing the recommending? Not anyone who knows how ntfs and aslr works on MSFT machines and how journaled FS and unix/linux memory management functions. Consider it to be once-upon-a-time valid but still outdated advice held on to (and repeated by) by loads of people for various reasons. No one who really knows how ntfs works cares about defragging. Search for and read/understand technet articles from the past 3 years.

2) Users generally see a one-time performance boost from defragging the small number of large files I mentioned. After that, well all you're doing is adding stress and unneeded i/o cycles to a critical component that has a finite life span (hard drive).

The windows (unixii too!) page file is constantly accessed. Constantly. Even on machines with large amounts of real ram the kernel will try to maximize the amount of ram available for the OS and user programs by swapping out infrequently accessed (and not otherwise pinned in place by runtime parameters) ram pages to page space. Once in page space memory pages are either swapped back into real ram as necessary or aged out of the memory page tables. It's a constant level of activity which is made slightly easier by a one time defrag of the page space. Same thing with the hibernation/sleep files.

 

Then you need to read it again. What I said was the OP needs to first try to find out the CAUSE of the performance issue before trying some tool. It is a common complant I have of a lot of the "advice" offered here. Folks jump in with a fix before they have a clue what the problem even is. Jumping to the conclusion that a registry cleanup or defrag is going to solve the OP's issue is, well just that, jumping to a conclusion.

Gary

 

Wow that's a real definitive scientifically performed study to determine the effects of defragmentation now isn't it? Yawn.

Gary

 

This is getting way out of hand. My suggestion remains the same. Simply answer the OP's question.

 

I did back in post #5 of the thread. But here is a brief intro on using Task Manager to help sort out performance issues:

15 Task Manager tips for a faster PC | News | TechRadar UK

And one from my buddy Chris Pirillo which talks about the Resource Monitor built into Task manager:

Windows 7: Resource Monitor Tool ~ Chris Pirillo

And a bit more in depth one:

Windows 7 Screencast - Resource Monitor (resmon) | Media | TechNet Edge

With Resource monitor, once you identify a process that is using a lot of the CPU, you can select the checkbox by that process and the disk, memory and networking tabs will all be filtered to show only that task.

This tool will allow the OP to get some actual insight into what is slowing down the machine, without having to resort to guesses and voodoo.

Gary

 

The OP hasn't been back since his first and only post. Pretty sure he isn't coming back.

 

I'm uses Advanced System Optimizer
works good!