Legitimacy of Registry Cleaners?

[Dunstan879]

Thanks for considering my question. I'm new here and am hoping to tap into the wisdom of crowds about registry repair software.

I've been doing some research on registry repair software and have found quite a bit of conflicting information. I've found tons (probably 25 or more) "review" websites that claim to review different registry repair options. I found that most of them recommend a small group of registry repair programs, that other (seemingly more legitmate) sources have claimed to be very poor programs. The "top rated" programs also happen to be the ones with the highest paid commissions with their affiliate programs (smells fishy). I'm thoroughly convinced that these "review" sites (at least a lot of them) are clearly biased (and provide virtually no helpful information). I've heard from some that in most cases these registry repair packages cause more problems that they fix.

As such, I'm looking for some experts that have actually had some experience with registry cleaners or have done it on their own. Which, if any, of the registry cleaners on the market actually do a good job (in terms of effective cleaning as well as safety. It would need to be easy to use, however)?Or do you believe that most are junk and are out to get your money?

What I don't want is a bunch of plugs by the companies, so please, only post if you have a good number of previous posts on the forum.

All your recommendations and commentary are well appreciated. Thank you in advance!

[allen2]

The only tool i use to clean the registry is autoruns from sysinternals (now microsoft) which is free. I also clean when needed manually only the needed keys.

Some cleaner tools, might in fact do bad thing if they remove a key used.

The last cleaner i tried was for windows 95 and i had to repair after.

Before using a cleaner, i would run regshot and then after cleanning do a comparison to see the removed keys.

Unless you have a size of registry problem, you shouldn't need to clean it.

[cannie]

Hi Dunstan879!

Taking into account that every program you run uses the registry one way or another, there's always a risk when you use any registry cleaner because it is totally impossible for the manufacturer to take into account every present and future application needs, and therefore something can always be wrongly deleted.

I only clean the registry when I have problems which can come from invalid keys. I mostly use the freeware CCleaner, because it saves as backup a .reg file which allows you to read it carefully afterwards, deleting from it what you consider as correctly deleted and keeping any key which should remain. After saving the modified .reg file you only need to click twice on it to restore all recovered keys.

I would never use any registry cleaner, be it freeware or not, if it does not allow you to preview what has been detected first and to restore any wrongly deleted key afterwards.

HTH

Edited November 29, 2010 by cannie

[Ponch]

See the conclusion of this review on The Register, 1 year ago. Feel free to read the 5 previous pages of course.