Registry Scanner/Cleaner

[dseisun]

Anybody know of a good registry scanner/cleanup utility?
My computer is really sloooow and I think it may be caused by many years of adding & removing all kinds of software.
I understand these scanners can 'clean up' the registry but some may screw up the whole system by cleaning up the wrong thing.
Reg Cure and XP Medic are two utilities I found online but want to check with users before trying.
Using windows XP SP3
Thanks for any suggestions
Dennis
858-451 6080

 

[NoEnglishUsernamesLeftToChoose]

Not sure I want to recommend a particular one in case I get blamed for what it does , but just to say I have used various ones in the past. The final screen showing all that's been fixed was really pleasing to see; but I am unconvinced that the response changed, at least significantly.

I say the following knowing I never bother myself, but the best activity is probably to scrub the hard drive and reinstall the OS, its patches, and required applications from scratch on a regular basis. That way you start with a "clean" registry each time.

Alternatively put up with its speed until it's time to upgrade the PC anyway.

 

[technology-sponge]

Finding a good reg clean program is a hit and miss. Some are useless, some flag every entry as faulty and delete half your registry, others are too passive and leave 95% of faults untouched. Then, what distinguishes other programs is some just delete bad entries, while others attempt to find a fix. Here's an additional small selection:

CCleaner - actually clean user tracks/traces, uninstaller, filewiper, and reg clean application. Is designed for ease of use and safety, so its rare to go wrong with it. Freeware. A lot more reserved when it comes to registry cleaning.

Norton WinDoctor (gag) - average removal rate, not too aggressive or passive, but comes with SystemWorks only. Attempts to find a solution.

Registry Mechanic - aggressive registry cleaner, but usually safe to use. Not freeware. Very thorough in finding problems. Also has several bonus features - registry tweaks that improves performance, and registry compactions/compression, which reduces its size.

I find a XP reinstall is the best registry de-gunker available!

 

[mychael616]

I was going to post this exact question... I know nothing about the registry stuff but I have used crap cleaner in the past. It has never appeared to have done anything malicious to my system.

If someone knows of a good reg cleaner, if you have to pay for it or not, please advise. Thx!!

 

[lolitha]

like the above posts ccleaner and registry mechanic are the good cleaners. while ccleaner is free and registry mechanic you have to purchase .

 

[pat mcgroin]

I use the Uniblue power suite.
It does registry cleaning, compaction and defrag
It has not caused me any troubles and as far as aggressiveness it is probably middle of the road. On my first scan it found 2-300 items.
It also offers a decent amount of settings to control what it scans for eg. usage tracks, bad uninstalls etc.

The suite also comes with Spy Eraser that I use in addition to Spybot and Avast AV on both XP and Vista and I cant remember the last time i had any trouble. All 3 of these progs offer regular updates and definitions and have the lowest overhead compared to the many other progs I have tried.

The suite also comes with a prog called Speed Up My PC that will optimize many settings but I havent really used it and cant offer any real numbers concerning its effectiveness.

This computer has 2 teenagers on it all of the time so you can guess the places they go and the challenges the program faces.

It isnt a free package but it isnt expensive either. With a little searching though you should be able to find it at a greatly reduced price

The best advice to give though is get a ghosting program and use it once a month. Especially after a brand new fresh install when all service packs and up to date drivers are in. Put the image on a seperate partition or drive and if things get out of control reload the image and presto zingo zoppo its all new again.