Reg cleaner question

[Ghidrah]

A mind numbing 924 errors, about 200 I was pretty sure I could dump, another 253 were empty reg keys, so I took a chance, the comp booted, so far things seem to be working. I'll be trying progs tomorrow to make sure they all work.

How do you know which files can be removed?

The software tells you that said file, dll, key or path doesn't exist.
If you go to the softwares "help" section it repeats the above but also adds that it might not be correct so be careful of what you remove.

Some things, (programs) I know don't exist anymore but most of the errors discovered have current progs running.
The rest of the registry items are just a series of numbers and letters how does one know which is actually junk and what isn't?

[EzyStvy]

When in doubt - leave the entries alone. 924 errors out of a few million entries isn't going to do much if you delete them....Deleting just ONE entry that you shouldn't delete could kill the pc.

[toomyg]

Wasn't Reg cleaner made along time ago like win95 days? Is it still safe to use on XP on up?

What I'm saying is maybe Reg cleaner thinks that there are errors but there might not be?

[glc]

My registry cleaner of choice these days is CCleaner. It's pretty safe.

[Ghidrah]

Toomyg,
Sorry if the title appeared misleading, I bought "RegCure" The bulk of the remaining entries are "Path File References".

I just did another scan and there were 156 new empty reg keys. Are empty keys created every time you boot? I looked at some of them and they appear to be the same ones deleted last night.
Last night I did multiple scans to see if the same or new ones reappeared, but didn't reboot between the scans.

All the info I read so far says a fast comp gone slow is always due to registry errors, viruses and spybots.
I have NIS08 which runs full sys virus scans 3 times a week, I have Spybot, Adaware and Spysweeper that run at every shut down and all are up to date.

[glc]

NIS and all those other programs that run at startup and in the background will slow a computer down. There is also no reason to *BUY* a registry cleaner.

[Ghidrah]

NIS and spysweeper are the only 2 mentioned running at boot and always have. I've installed 2 programs since early Aug. My Q software and 2 days ago RegCure. The big slowdown began around mid Oct. and the occasional freeze early Nov.

As for processes running at boot, MS Config show NIS, the NV card software, MS Office and software updaters.

[Panama Red]

Originally Posted by Ghidrah As for processes running at boot, MS Config show NIS, the NV card software, MS Office and software updaters.

To each his own but nothing with the name "Norton" will ever be installed on one of my pc's and Spysweeper, while proven effective, drives me nuts running in the background. You don't need any of the Nvidia stuff, MS Office or updaters running at startup either. You can access them manually whenever you want thru the control panel or Programs menu. The only programs running on my machines at startup are AVG Free and any keyboard/mouse software needed for hotkeys or special features. I run periodic scans with Spybot and Malwarebytes just to keep things clean. I've tried different Registry cleaners and I've yet to see a speed increase. But that's just my opinion.

[cameronluke]

I've been using Regcure for some time and it works well for me. Never used CCleaner though. The best thing to do though, is always make a backup of your registry. You can find many references on how to do this on the internet.