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Do Registry Cleaners REALLY speed up your computer?


extremepilot

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Do registry cleaners really speed up your computer? enough for you to even notice? lets take the worst case scenario: apps up to your eyeballs and registry keys galore, will a registry cleaner make a noticeable difference in performance?

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Short answer is no :)

I used to be fanatical about deleting every useless key I could find but don't bother with that stuff these days...especially reg cleaners.

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will a registry cleaner make a noticeable difference in performance?
It depends on how aggressively you use the registry cleaner... on one hand, it is quite hard to get any real performance improvement, on the other it's quite easy to mess up your system beyond all recognition. If you really want to do it be sure to create a restore point you can fall back to before doing it.
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I can say I have no idea if they speed up the computer. However I have used Crap Cleaner (registry cleaner part) to fix some strange problems.

The one that comes to mind specifically was a USB printer wasn't working right with the computer (Win XP, not sure if it was Pro or Home). The printer "just worked" afterward. I don't remember if I had to uninstall / reinstall the driver afterward, but the "usual suspects" never seem to fix the problem.

To summarize speed up no (maybe). Fix weird problems - definitely yes.

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Unless the registry gets to an insanely huge size then probably not. But, a registry that is overly bloated will likely be related to far too many startups and what not, so the actual slowdown will be coming from other things not directly related to the registry.

I don't even think Vista/XP loads the entire registry into memory so it's even more circumstancial whether or not it will affect you.

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As noted before, it all depends on how you use it. Most of the things the registry cleaners get rid of like orphaned keys, etc do nothing for performance. Usually only ones that let you change services and startup apps will make things faster. I typically will use a cleaner to do this because its easier than digging in the regedit every time.

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Cleaning your registy won't really speed up your computer at all...So if you're looking for a performance boost, you're looking in the wrong place.

Having old usless keys in your registry won't hurt you at all....but it does take up space on your drive...and the larger the registry is the more likley it is to become fragmented. For this reason I run a registry cleaner frequently.

There are 2 good ones that I like to use. Ccleaner works great....and it also cleans your temp files and everything (better then MS disk cleanup does). The other one is Tune Up Utilities - this one does a bit more of a better job then Ccleaner does.

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A few months ago I was having some strange problems with my PC at work. The Windows installation has been in use for about 4 years, by several users. After running CCleaner, I did see an increase in speed. Explorer in particular was much more responsive. This may be due to removing references to shell extensions that are no longer installed, filetypes that are no longer registered etc.

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tbh the best way to keep your registry clean and avoid problems with Windows slowing down gradually over time is to think carefully about what you install. Once you've installed a program (even just little ones; you'd be surprised how much space they take up) and then get rid of them again, you can never quite remove all traces of it unless you spend hours digging through the registry and removing every single key related to it.

Some people exxagerate the rate at which Windows begins to slow down and say that after 6 months it becomes unusable bla bla bla. Personally I find that after initial driver installation, software installs and tailoring of your settings, and after a few days of 'burn in' period, the system won't slow down much after that. If it does; you're doing something wrong.

Despite what people will say I have also found Macs to be surprisingly similar. Linux seems to be the only OS which pretty much doesn't slow down at all.

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tbh the best way to keep your registry clean and avoid problems with Windows slowing down gradually over time is to think carefully about what you install. Once you've installed a program (even just little ones; you'd be surprised how much space they take up) and then get rid of them again, you can never quite remove all traces of it unless you spend hours digging through the registry and removing every single key related to it.

A fresh install of XP (doesn't even matter what service pack) will leave tons of registry errors. The updates leave them as well. you would be surprised how many there really are before you even start installing software and removing it.

I've always kept my registry cleaned out pretty good to begin with. I spend quite a bit of time in the registry and last thing I want is for it to be cluttered up with useless junk.

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Hi,

I do not know much about the speed because i use COMODO system cleaner that cleans everything from registry to junk to temp and cookie files. However, considering the duplicate entries and entries that point somewhere else when you install, reinstall, or uninstall anything, I would recommend a good registry cleaner for everyone. The best ones I know are the COMODO system cleaner and the CCleaner. The first one has the option of backup and creating a restore point in case anything goes wrong.

I have found many problems rectified after running a registry cleaner. However, before clicking straightaway on the clean now option in case you use CCleaner or any other registry cleaner such as Registry Booster, make sure you create a system restore point.

In short, I feel at ease when I know that my registry is less clutterred with reduced number of incorrect pointers or null entries. Such keys can make some of your applications go crazy. Hence I run the registry cleaner whenever I uninstall any product. PLEASE NOTE that no registry can clean up all the mess. I have tested this by running three registry cleaners in a row. After one showed a clean registry, the other one still showed other problems. CONCLUSION: Use something that can clean your registry aggressively and performs an in-depth scan.

Recommended Registry Cleaner: COMODO system cleaner - as it also offers cleaning the system and to top it all, it is FREE. I am using it for more than a year to get many problems (related to abnormal application behavior) resolved.

Edited by DreamSkape
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Recommended Registry Cleaner: COMODO system cleaner - as it also offers cleaning the system and to top it all, it is FREE. I am using it for more than a year to get many problems (related to abnormal application behavior) resolved.

Great recommendation. I downloaded it and tried it out - it picked up several things that both Tune Up Utilities and Ccleaner missed.

Thanks for the heads up on it!

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