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From: LD55ZRA on 16 Mar 2010 23:04

"Peter Foldes" <okf22(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:OH%232DxVxKHA.404(a)TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>
> One Care has been discontinued. Where have you been
>

Microsoft discontinues its products all the time from time to time not
because they are bad but just because it is strategically a smart move in
business terms. It is same as you keep changing your girls in your escort
agency all the time;

So please stop talking rubbish here.


From: Bruce Chambers on 16 Mar 2010 23:53
R_W_B wrote:
> Hello I searched the xp forums and found some 2 yr old dated stuff and wanted
> to get a more recent update of opinions and information about registry
> cleaning software. From the search I found this was a highly emotional
> subject back when. Anyhow, all I want it your honest opinions and experience
> with these things. And bottom line, are there any dependable ones that
> actually do any good.


No, there's simply no such thing as a "good" registry cleaner, unless
you limit the meaning of the word "good" to "using it didn't tank my
system this time."


> To start with I will give you my story. In 2006 I bought my first registry
> product called Regcure, it crashed my machine and had to do a restore. I got
> a refund and then tried MaxRegistry cleaner (yea I'm a sucker for punishment)
> it seemed to run ok (i.e. no machine crashes) and I kept it (and used it)
> until the year's subscription ran out and then tried RegistryFix, it broke
> one of my old Cad apps but I did not find out until it was too late to get a
> refund. A friend of mine used RegistryEasy and it broke his XP
> start->help&support, but he found a vbs script that fixed that.


None of that is at all surprising. Quite typical, in fact.


> So at present I am thinking of just giving up on Registry apps and
> excluding myself from the "sucker born every minute" group that P.T. Barnum
> spoke of. But I just wanted an outside opinion just to make sure of the
> current status of these things. They seem to be selling faster than Win7.
> Appreciate any input.


Why would you even think you'd ever need to clean your registry?
What specific *problems* were you actually experiencing (not some
program's bogus listing of imaginary problems) that you think can be
fixed by using a registry "cleaner?"

If you do have a problem that is rooted in the registry, it would
be far better to simply edit (after backing up, of course) only the
specific key(s) and/or value(s) that are causing the problem. After
all, why use a chainsaw when a scalpel will do the job? Additionally,
the manually changing of one or two registry entries is far less likely
to have the dire consequences of allowing an automated product to make
multiple changes simultaneously. The only thing needed to safely clean
your registry is knowledge and Regedit.exe.

The registry contains all of the operating system's "knowledge" of
the computer's hardware devices, installed software, the location of the
device drivers, and the computer's configuration. A misstep in the
registry can have severe consequences. One should not even turning
loose a poorly understood automated "cleaner," unless he is fully
confident that he knows *exactly* what is going to happen as a result of
each and every change.

Having repeatedly seen the results of inexperienced people using
automated registry "cleaners," I can only advise all but the most
experienced computer technicians (and/or hobbyists) to avoid them all.
Experience has shown me that such tools simply are not safe in the hands
of the inexperienced user. If you lack the knowledge and experience to
maintain your registry by yourself, then you also lack the knowledge and
experience to safely configure and use any automated registry cleaner,
no matter how safe they claim to be.

More importantly, no one has ever demonstrated that the use of an
automated registry "cleaner," particularly by an untrained,
inexperienced computer user, does any real good, whatsoever. There's
certainly been no empirical evidence offered to demonstrate that the use
of such products to "clean" WinXP's registry improves a computer's
performance or stability. Given the potential for harm, it's just not
worth the risk.

Granted, most registry "cleaners" won't cause problems each and
every time they're used, but the potential for harm is always there.
And, since no registry "cleaner" has ever been demonstrated to do any
good (think of them like treating the flu with chicken soup - there's no
real medicinal value, but it sometimes provides a warming placebo
effect), I always tell people that the risks far out-weigh the
non-existent benefits.

I will concede that a good registry *scanning* tool, in the hands
of an experienced and knowledgeable technician or hobbyist can be a
useful time-saving diagnostic tool, as long as it's not allowed to make
any changes automatically. But I really don't think that there are any
registry "cleaners" that are truly safe for the general public to use.
Experience has proven just the opposite: such tools simply are not safe
in the hands of the inexperienced user.

A little further reading on the subject:

Why I don't use registry cleaners
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=643

AumHa Forums • View topic - AUMHA Discussion: Should I Use a Registry
Cleaner?
http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=28099


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot
From: Bruce Chambers on 16 Mar 2010 23:56
LD55ZRA wrote:
> The technology has moved since 2006. Nowadays everybody uses CCleaner that
> is highly recommended by non other than Ken Blake, MVP and Pig-Bear MVP.
>


And you're deliberately lying and misrepresenting their positions vis a
vis CCleaner.

Their position, like that of any knowledgeable technician, is that all
registry cleaners are pure snake oil.

CCleaner's only strength, and the only reason anyone should use it,
lies in its usefulness for cleaning up unused temporary files from the
hard drive. It differs from the native Windows tool in that it allows
more granular control and you can specify which folders you want
scanned. For instance, WinXP's disk cleaner will examine only the
profile folders of the user who is running the utility. On a
single-user machine, this is fine, but on a family or other mult-use
machine, the ability to clean temorary files from all of the user
profiles at once is a great time saver.

I've tested the most recent recent version (with all updates)
version on a brand-new OS installation with no additional applications
installed, and certainly none installed and then uninstalled, and
CCleaner still managed to "find" over a hundred allegedly orphaned
registry entries and dozens of purportedly "suspicious" files, making it
clearly a *worthless* product, in this regard. (Not that any registry
cleaner can ever be anything but worthless, as they don't serve any
*useful* purpose, to start with.)


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot
From: Bruce Chambers on 16 Mar 2010 23:58
db wrote:
> http://onecare.live.com/site/en-US/article/registry_cleaner_why.htm
>
>
>


Which has been discontinued for a good reason: it was worthless.

--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot
From: LD55ZRA on 17 Mar 2010 00:21

"Bruce Chambers" <bchambers(a)cable0ne.n3t> wrote in message
news:ekAhXXYxKHA.2644(a)TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

> I've tested the most recent recent version (with all updates) version
> on a brand-new OS installation with no additional applications installed,
> and certainly none installed and then uninstalled, and CCleaner still
> managed to "find" over a hundred allegedly orphaned registry entries and
> dozens of purportedly "suspicious" files,
You have just proved my point that CCleaner is a fantastic tool nobody
should be without because it managed to find all orphaned registry entries
left by Microsoft OS Installation. Windows OS and Applications makes sure
that everything is properly registered even if something is for temporary
purposes (for example updates of anti-virus definition files by manual
downloads are registered and old entries still kept in registry even though
you may have deleted them!!).

During installation of the OS, system need to unzip many cab files and all
these have to be registered and after installation, the cab files are
deleted from temporary folders but entries in the Registry is left to
indicate to the OS that a particular cab file has been dealt with.

How do you expect an installation file to keep tract of nearly 20,000 files
during installation? Answer: By making sure they are adequately registered.
No wonder you found over "a hundred allegedly orphaned registry entries and
dozens of purportedly "suspicious" files". I would expect a good registry
cleaner to damn find them!

Hope this answers your suspicions and you will refrain from stating this
over and over again on these newsgroups in connection with registry
cleaners.

Bye bye troll.





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