Registry Clean-Up advice 1

[mscallisto]

Is scanreg.exe (from Win98) OK to use in WinXP or is there a better way to scan and clean my registry?

If scanreg is OK, has anyone had any bad results from using it?

I was suprised not to find much on this topic in the forum search and FAQ's

 

[linney]

Does ScanReg even run on XP, if I remember correctly that program is used to save or restore a 98 Registry and probably will not be of any use on XP.

The "Rolls Royce" of Registry Cleaners is
jv16 PowerTools - full list of features

http://www.macecraft.com

There are several freeware programs that do a good job.

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=171203805

When you are resulting to work on the Registry then this program can be a life saver.

Registry Backup and Restore for Windows NT/2000/2003/XP

http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

Cleaning the Registry is not something I resort to very often, in my case it is often a precursor to re-installing XP. With that in mind make sure you also backup your valuable data.

 

[mscallisto]

Thanks Linney

I too rarely find the need to scan/clean the Registry and totally understand that removal of the wrong registry entry can result in a no-boot situation where your registry backup is useless.

I have an older PC in the office that has been getting tired and slow even after the usual perk-up procedures have failed to speed it up.

Disk clean-up, de-frag etc etc. also the MFT and swapfile space (on another HD) seem to have no fragmentation.

I was going to re-install the OS but thought I would like to try a registry clean-up first, since the PC has had so many software products loaded and unloaded over the years.

I'll give the freeware a try...thanks again

sam

 

[linney]

FAQ779-4784 may help.

windows XP running very slow
thread779-796508

Disable, not uninstall, any unused network adapters

What are this machines specifications? Would it benefit from a bit more RAM, or early retirement (the machine, not you)?

 

[Pleonasm]

Rule #1 of registry cleaning is "do no harm". The only registry cleaner, to the best of my knowledge, that classifies recommended registry changes by a safety level (green, yellow, red) is RegistryFixer, a component of the Fix-It Utilities suite.

See:

http://www.v-com.com/product/Fix-It_Utilities_Home.html

 

[mscallisto]

Thanks Pleo...I did take Linney's suggestion and tried Easy Cleaner by ToniArts and it seemed to work well for freeware.

I'm sure that RegistryFixer is probably as good as or better (you usually get what you pay for) but I'll probably only use Easy Cleaner on PC's that are hopelessly slow and only after I copied all valued files to backup.

 

[assets]

I agree do no harm BUT the macecract regcleaner pro 1.4 creates a backup file so you can go back (in some cases)

Never give up never give in.

There are no short cuts to anything worth doing

 

[mscallisto]

The only problem I see with that is if you totally hose the registry and can't boot the OS, how do you make use of the backup?

Before I mess with the resistry I do make sure I've saved all data I don't want to loose, if I have to rebuild the system.

 

[linney]

Have another look at this. It has several options for restoring the registry even if you can't get in to Windows.

Registry Backup and Restore for Windows NT/2000/2003/XP

http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

 

[Pleonasm]

Mscallisto, you asked: “if you totally hose the registry and can't boot the OS, how do you make use of the backup?” Good question. The Fix-It Utilities suite includes a tool on the installation CD called Recovery Commander, which allows you to perform a system restore using either a Windows XP restore point or one created by Recovery Commander itself. Before I do any registry cleaning, I always create a restore point in case the unexpected occurs.