Do registry cleaners work?

My PC and laptop seem to take forever to start up and at times run quite slow. They are both about 5 years old and over the years I've added and taken off quite a lot of software. I'm sure that the registry is cluttered and could do with a good clean out.

My question is, do any of the registry cleaners work and if so does anyone have any recommendations. I don't have much knowledge in this area and it would need to be simple.

I've never used one but the one thing that can be guaranteed is that they will stop bits of AutoCAD working. There have been LOTS of posts saying "something" has gone wrong (properties palette IIRC) and all cases could be traced back to using a registry cleaner. Of course there may be times that a clean registry is more important than the properties palette.

Yeah, do yourself a massive favour: backup, format, reinstall - that's how to get it working like new again. Registry cleaners never work properly and although things may seem to be ok at first, usually the PC will start having issues soon after.

Bite the bullet and do a proper job: format / reinstall.

It's better to do this of your own freewill rather than being forced to do it because you've stuffed the registry.

I agree with oddbob: make sure you have cd's or installation files for all your software and drivers, and back up all your data to an external hard drive or to a separate partition on your internal drive. You must also backup configuration type files which often are located in the individual program folders.

Format the windows partition, (usually C:\), and reinstall everything. It will take a weekend.

What OS are we talking about?

I know of only one Registry cleaner that did not consistently mess up the Windows Registry called RegClean. It was a non-supported program written by the Microsoft Windows team. The last time I used it was when I was running Windows XP.

When was the last time you cleaned out your temporary files (TMP)?

When was the last time you went through every program listed as being on your computer and got rid of ones you never used or seldom used?

I'm using XP on both. I delete the temp files every time I defrag which is every couple of months. Same for the programmes although there are probably a couple more I could get rid of.

I've thought about re-formating but I'm not sure if I have all the drivers for the hardware.

To be honest when it comes to sorting out this sort of thing my knowledge leaves a lot to be desired and the last time I re-formated it took my 2 days to get everything up and running again.

I let you know how I get on.

Drivers shouldn't be a problem these days unless you have really old or unbranded parts. With the exception of one or two issues to resolve after a reinstall (usually sound related in my experience), Windows should find the drivers online, download and install them. XP is pretty good at that but newer versions of Windows are better still.

It's really not a big job but I always like to make 2 backups of my data - just to be safe. Remember, you can replace a computer but your data is where the true value is.

My PC and laptop seem to take forever to start up and at times run quite slow. They are both about 5 years old and over the years I've added and taken off quite a lot of software. I'm sure that the registry is cluttered and could do with a good clean out.

 

My question is, do any of the registry cleaners work and if so does anyone have any recommendations. I don't have much knowledge in this area and it would need to be simple.

You need to defrag at least once a month not every couple of months as you say in the last post.

Install Microsoft Securities essentials, free download from MS, and Malwarebytes also free down load.

Once a month defrag is overkill in my opinion. Defrag only if the analysis says it is recommended.

I say it is time you reformat and reload. The biggest headache will be all the service packs, hot fixes and alike required to fully update XP. That could be a pain.

Defrag only if the analysis says it is recommended.

+1

I've had 4 main desktop computers since 1998 that I use full time from a home office. I probably defragged 6 or fewer times in all those years, haven't run a registry cleaner since I stopped using Windows98 (~2001), and have never re-installed an OS due to operating system or registry corruption/slowness.

I once had a (5 yr old) computer that I was about to trash because it was getting too slow.

I add and remove lots of programs.

I decided to do a defrag (which took all night).

I was astounded how much faster this old computer was.

On our main computers we do a complete format and OS reinstall every year.

If you are trying to avoid this then at least do the defrag and

search Google for Autodesk Clean uninstall instructions to remove/reinstall your software if it is still slow (run the registry cleaner after clean uninstall (includes some registry edits)).

Be aware that you can only activate your license twice - so make plans in advance on how you are going to handle the license.

PC World actually stated it wasn't a bad idea to reformat/reload if one is not going to swapping out their OS any time soon.

In addition to the posts above, perhaps their are some services running at startup that are slowing down your PC/Laptop. Not all startup programs are necessarily essential or critical to your computer. These services/applications can include automatic updates for media services, search engines, startup accelerators etc...

There is a microsoft admin tool that allows you to control what services & applications run at startup called MSCONFIG. This can be launched by typing MSCONFIG into the command prompt. It can also be launched by pressing the windows key + r.

If unfamiliar with msconfig refer to the Microsoft Support pages before making any changes. Also, do not turn off any programs or services for Microsoft. If you not 100% sure what a service or Application does don't turn it off either

MSCONFIG can be very useful but be careful how you use it

You need to defrag at least once a month not every couple of months as you say in the last post.

Install Microsoft Securities essentials, free download from MS, and Malwarebytes also free down load.

Microsoft Securities essentials is about as useful as a chocolate fire guard. Get F-Secure, it will look after you PC for viruses / spyware etc without bugging the life out of you every 5 minutes like Norton and others.

PC World actually stated it wasn't a bad idea to reformat/reload if one is not going to swapping out their OS any time soon.

Windows 95 / 98 / XP are all ticking time bombs as far as I'm concerned and will all require a format / reinstall from time to time to avoid issues and slowness. If you have never formatted your PC and think it's running perfectly then you're either kidding yourself or not noticing how laggy your system has become or you never install 3rd part programs and so your registry never ends up in a mess. It's much better to format / reinstall at your own will rather than being forced to once the OS has died.

Microsoft Windows success for all these years is also it's downfall. Mac OS users will always tell you how great it is but in reality it's because there isn't anywhere near the same amount of 3rd part programs for a Mac as there is for a PC... and those who use Mac OS and claim "it just works" and "it can't get a virus" are idiots.... (I expect some Mac users pop up on here and tell me I'm wrong... which proves the point).

Windows XP: If you want it running sweetly then format and reinstall once a year because one single day lost doing a controlled backup, format and reinstall is worth the lost day compared to several days spent trying to retrieve your data or trying every fix under the sun to get a dead system to work again.

MS Essentials does not bug the life out of you every 5 minutes as far as I know. I've run it on my laptop for the past 2 years with no problems. But then I don't make a habit of visiting less than questionable sites. One program that does, in my opinion, bug the heck out of the user is Norton AV. I used for for three years on my desktop system before switching to Avast. I've also used McAfee and Trend Micro but did not really care for either.

Most people would have no idea what processes are also running and no idea how to shut them down or even if they were safe to shut down. That's where you start to separate the geeks from the non-geeks.

Windows 95 / 98 / XP are all ticking time bombs as far as I'm concerned and will all require a format / reinstall from time to time to avoid issues and slowness. If you have never formatted your PC and think it's running perfectly then you're either kidding yourself or not noticing how laggy your system has become or you never install 3rd part programs and so your registry never ends up in a mess. It's much better to format / reinstall at your own will rather than being forced to once the OS has died.

 

Windows XP: If you want it running sweetly then format and reinstall once a year because one single day lost doing a controlled backup, format and reinstall is worth the lost day compared to several days spent trying to retrieve your data or trying every fix under the sun to get a dead system to work again.

Non-sense.... Operating Systems don't "wear-out" after a year. If you're not constantly installing/uninstalling "stuff" (including "stuff" you don't know is being installed due to lax internet security settings) a computer will continue to run reliably until the hardware fails.

I'm not saying that slow computers can't be rejuvenated with defrag / re-install, but it's not true that a computer will necessarily run any better after format/reinstall if you're re-loading the same software that was installed before the format.

Use CCLEANER, never had a problem and it will ask you to back up before it cleans the registry and run SpyBot S&D to remove any Adware first (it takes awhile), defrag when needed, remove any programs not needed. My laptop is probably older than yours. You can also Google Speed up Windows XP, you will find some good tips.