Registry clean up How TO?
Like many other junkies who learn by hit and trial. I have this habit of getting hands on experience on any interesting application utility I come across that can make my life easier.. because of Installing and uninstalling things I guess my windows keeps getting those tiny bits of information in its registry pool. I was looking for a free/open source registry/driver clean up/check up application for windows. That can check which entry is useless unused and/or outdated and can suggest me to remove those entries. Or does it itself. I mean any tested proven thing?
I googled it and got driver robot, installed it ran it, it gave me a whole list of these entries but wanted me to pay for that. I said forget it dude. and uninstalled it but it has put some info there. it keeps coming back and keeps telling me that. So in the end I got One more bad entry instead of getting rid of previous ones... fooooh.
I googled it and got driver robot, installed it ran it, it gave me a whole list of these entries but wanted me to pay for that. I said forget it dude. and uninstalled it but it has put some info there. it keeps coming back and keeps telling me that. So in the end I got One more bad entry instead of getting rid of previous ones... fooooh.
Replies
But...
One sure fire thing you can do is make a note of every software you uninstall from the system. Take note of the vendor, version and version number, search the registry manually (run command, type "regedit") for strings with these names and remove the entries. After this you can run an automated tool using compaction option to remove related empty key containers.
I myself usually reinstall windows every 1/2 year just to make sure the system stays speedy and clean and because I know how awe full windows itself can be. Also next time perhaps better research the software you just downloaded - because most things that look easy are usually fishing nets for unexperienced users seeking for the easy *free* tool.
Even the word "free" is bended in such a way on so many ways that it can contain adware and many other unwanted stuff.
http://www.ccleaner.com/
I also use Advanced System Care Free (a "one click" fix your computer sort of program - has a bunch of different scans it runs and also has a list of utilities it can install).
http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html
However, the Advanced System Care has begun to have one of those "You still have blah blah" pop up screen after running sometimes and encourages you to buy it - but I just ignore it and use it anyway.
Definitely look at CCleaner though at least - good for cleaning out junk files on your computer, but also can scan for registry errors and fix them. They are two separate scans - make sure you specify on the left which one you want to scan. The UI is easy.
Those are the two programs that have registry cleaners in them that I run - I use a further assortment of free programs for spyware, adware, malware, and viruses (Spybot, Ad-Aware, Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware, and AVG respectively) and also downloaded Smart Defrag for defragging.
I'm a big user of open source and free now - you'll find a variety of programs of that nature on my computer. :-)
http://www.faronics.com/
Thats how I keep my 'work/performance' OS partition clean.
Good luck!
Is this a ghosting program?
Although I would suggest using CCleaner if you do want to clean the registry. I mainly only ever use it to clear history and temp files, but it also cleans the registry a bit.
All respect due, but that's just bollocks. Granted, it won't beat a regular defrag and general good housekeeping, but to say that it isn't worth spending the mere minutes that CCleaner requires to run is pretty stupid.
Third-party apps often install startup items to check for updates, etc. It's usually safe to disable all or most of them.
You want to speed up you machine then kill off useless startup apps and processes.
i started using this recently as well. its great!
GCMP: well I am familiar with controlling startup apps and windows features through msconfig & regedit. But since I didnt want to reinstall my winXP64 at the moment not at least for next 2-3 months. And I was getting few unusual things happening so I thought I should at least clean up my windows. Since I am an artist not a Code junkie so I needed a simple UI based tool to do this.
krypteia: I am going to try CCleaner bc I think this app has some serious reputation in here. Lets see if I get things right or not.
Pior: would you care to tell us more about this deep freeze thing what exactly you used it for and the result..
Thanx again to all who commented.. cheerz
Basically DeepFreeze is a little program based on the idea of "thawed" and "frozen" state.
Let's say you have a fresh OS install, with all the programs you *really* need for your daily work. Absolutely no extras, just the bare minimum. No games, no visual theme manager, no itunes...
Once you have all your apps installed (2D app, 3D app, image browser, file compression, you name it) you basically reach your ideal workstation setup : the computer is responsive, nothing clutters the process manager, everything feels like new. At that point you install DeepFreeze. Lets call this time F, like frozen.
From now on, no matter what you do to your computer, add programs you regret installing, get viruses, anything - all you need is to do is restart your computer, and DF will turn it like it was at time F, like new again.
Now lets say 2 months later you want to install a new version of a program. After trying it out for like 3 days (and it being wiped out at each restart) you realize you really need that upgrade. You jest tell DF that you want to "thaw" your system for a given number of restarts (2 usually is enough), install your new app, and voila! instead of your computer behaving like F + 2 months and 3 days, it really is F + a few minutes old. Basically you just saved yourself 2 months of trojans, useless automatic updaters, mistakes, pollution...
The catch is that DF works on whole drives. So you need to make sure that your program preferences (photoshop brushes, interface layout, and so on) are sitting on a secondary drive.
I personally have two OSes on my computer. One is a 'test' environment where I install all the crap I want to try out. I just reformat it whenever needed. The other one is the 'powerhouse' OS, kept extremely clean thanks to DF, and I only have the bare minimum on it. I use it whenever I need a very stable work environment (big paintings, very dense highpoly sculpts).
Hope this helps!!!
[edit] so basically no it's not a ghosting program. However I think it would work very nicely with a ghost, used to reinstall the powerhouse partition every now and then. But in my opinion ghosts are not really needed in out case since : A) programs are kept to a minimum so it's fairly quick to reinstall ; and
And yes, stay away from those dodgy registry cleaners. Google is your friend!
pior: DF sounds nice, how long is reboot time when using it?
check out http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
you'll be amazed how fast your net becomes when you lose all the tracking cookies and advertising shite.
Pior: deepfreeze looks great. Thanks
The registry has hundreds of thousands of entries. Removing a few dozen won't increase performance. Though, CCleaner is worth running to delete all the temp files that hide all over your system.
buy a hoody from the shop. that how i eased my guilt
I'm not sure where the registry cleaning hysteria started, but at some time there were tons of adware and paid apps playing with the paranoia of the general windows user. I dare you, take a stopwatch and tell me how much faster your PC is after "cleaning" the registry
CCleaner - not a waste of time, because it cleans temp files, history and other stuff which hangs around in your PC really hows down your system with garbage.
I don't use the registry cleaner though. If you want to give it a try, set at least a system restore point before doing so.
start -> Run -> msconfig - clean out all the trash apps that start with your PC and sit in the tray hogging resources for nothing.
run scandisk on all drives - broken filesystems often cause lag. don't trust windows to be always clever enough to scan on startup.
defrag your hdd - it really helps
And I don't know why people think cleaning your registry is something you can neglect....that's ridiculous. Neglecting your registry after having installed and uninstalled programs over the years can absolutely destroy your pc's performance, and bring up constant needless dialogs about programs long passed that you will have no idea how to answer to ("Yes, No, Maybe, WTF ERROR" kind of dialog boxes). I think people confuse it with it being something you only need to do every ONCE IN A WHILE, rather than every week or so, as you should do with defrags.
It's definitely not as important as a good DEFRAG.
Anyways, this is seriously all you need...these few programs...they're free, constantly updated, and are super easy to use. They are also extremely fast at what you do, therefore, it's stupid to not to it anyways, even if it just makes you feel better in the end thinking it worked ;D
1) CCleaner - http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download
2) Defraggler (Another defrag program, made by the same peeps who made CCleaner - http://www.piriform.com/defraggler
3) AusLogics Defrag - http://download.cnet.com/Auslogics-Disk-Defrag/3000-2094_4-10567503.html?part=dl-6267754&subj=dl&tag=button
Another tip...
Dunno what OS you use, but if it's Windows, turn off all that extra fancy graphical shit....
Because, unless you have tons of RAM, it's not worth it. You can make your windows theme really plain and super simple through the control panel > display properties. Yeah, your desktop etc will look like utter shit, but the performance is worth it. At least for me it is!
Programs usually look for specific registry keys, just as they would have done in an .ini file long ago. As long as specific keys are accessed it doesn't matter if your registry is small or big. the speed is the same. It's just like in a filesystem - you know the path? blam, instant access.
Programs which store config values just know where they are in the registry. no need to search.
Also entries are unique. That means old entries get overwritten if they have the same key. That means there cannot be 2 entries with conflicting values. No need to clean anything up here.
Unused entries are just that, unused. They slow nothing down, except registry searches because the search goes through all the entries. However programs just don't search the registry. They know what they need (see above). No need to clean stuff up.
Now if your registry cleaner accidentally removes an entry which a program expects, then you're in trouble. The program knows where the key is, it doesn't find it -> error. This can happen, for example, when windows doesn't know about a program (e.g. it hasn't been installed using an installer, like portable apps for example)
What can happen though is if an older program overwrites registry settings of a new one, then you're in trouble too. Therefore just be a good user and uninstall programs properly. Don't just delete programs in the file system (that's a good way to screw up everything).
Tip: if you install and uninstalll lots of programs, especially ones you don't fully tryst, try using a sandbox or a VM instead.
Just to quote Mark Russinovich "No, even if the registry was massively bloated there would be little impact on the performance of anything other than exhaustive searches.".