PC utilities forum: Slow computer: Will a registry cleaner help?

That sounds like a good program, where can you get it from?
The last registry cleaner that I got didn't work so well.

Hello,

that is a good question. my first question to you is when is the last time you defraged your computer? as you install more and more programs your computers hard drive will get more cluttered and unorganized. imagine your hard drive as a spinning platter with walls on the side. next the program that you are installing can be pictured as a handful of marbles, the larger the program the more marbles you are going to use. now imagine dropping those marbles onto the spinning platter, those marbles will spin and roll over the place. when you defrag your computer you are essentially grabbing all of those marbles and putting them in one spot on the platter so your computer has an easier time finding all the files for that particular folder.

next thing to try is to run msconfig from the run menu to see what is starting up with the computer. most of that stuff you don't need to start with the computer. for example adobe and quick time will place an item in the startup menu. these are not essential. the only things that are vital to the startup in here is the anti-virus program and or internet security software you might have. if you see entries that are blank then your computer is not and spyware and virus free as you think it to be.

i hope this helps.

I've been using CCleaner (www.ccleaner.com) for a couple of years now without any problems.

It has a thorough 'cleanup' mode that removes temporary files, internet cache files, etc.

It also has a good, safe, registry cleaner that can identify and fix lots of different inconsistencies in your registry. Of course, it gives you the opportunity to backup your registry before any changes are made.

In addition, it provides a tool to examine and modify your 'installed programs' list, which lets you finally get rid of that old Acrobat install which just won't seem to go away.

Finally, it provides a tool to examine and clean up your startup configuration. It's a good way to prevent old or unwanted background processes from starting up without your permission.

The other fix you might want to try is to defrag your hard drive. As you probably know, over time, the files on your hard drive can get scattered around the physical area of the disk. This makes it harder for the drive to retrieve data. Defragging re-arranges the pieces of those files so that they are physically near each other (contiguous) so the drive can retrieve the data much faster.

Before you hit the registry cleaners, have you done defrags and used the disk cleanup utility? Whenever my computers start to slow, some time spent on both of those things makes them as good as new. They're easier and far safer than fiddling with the registry.

A simple thing to do at least once a week Tom is to go to the upper Menu Bar and click on "Tools." The click on cleaning your "Cookies." The click on cleaning your "History." Also set history to zero if you don't mind re-entering websites each time to log on your computer like I do. Finally, click on cleaning your "Files." These are unneeded Internet files. I guarantee you will find your computer goes faster now.

Also, don't forget to defragment your hard drive weekly too. Files that are fragmented cause a computer to run more slowly too.

E-mail me if you need more help.

Mr. Leslie Iain Kay
iainkayphd@bellsouth.net

since long time ago,i never use such program anymore.it maybe safe,but only if u know how to restore the system in case of ur pc cant boot up again.
just use other program if u not sure what u doing.
thanx

i think its best just to use the basic windows defragmentor. its free with ur system and works GREAT!! y wuld u spend 100$ on a program that does the exact same thing?

My mom just had this happen to her. She upgraded some of her software, and in doing so, outgrew her 512MB of memory after her computer ran for a little while.

An easy way to figure this out is to get the task manager running by hitting <control><alt><delete>, choosing the performance tab, and looking at the lower half called "PF Usage."

If this is more than the amount of memory that you have on your machine, then you are having to use part of your disk for the extra memory, and this is really slow.

Increasing your memory will really speed things up.

All registry cleaners have faults and sometimes they do remove entries some programs need. Fortunately a registry cleaner may not be what you need. Often, with older machines that have been running a long time, you will have so many programs running in the background that it is those programs that are making your computer slow down. XP has a built in solution for this problem. Go to the start menu and click on "run", enter "msconfig" and OK, click on the "startup" tab. You will see a list of all the programs that start with windows. To make a program not start all you have to do is uncheck the box next to the program. In the second column, is the pathway of the program that is set to run. Expand this section so that you can see the entire path. As a general rule, do not turn off anything that is in the 'System32" folder. Other programs you do not want to stop are your security software, whatever your using, and sometimes your video card may have some sort of software running. All else is fair game. You may see some blank lines or partial blank lines, these you should unchecked. I believe that any programs not being identified by a file name and location are suspicious. When your all done choosing the programs you do not want to run at startup, click Apply and then OK. You will be prompted to reboot. Reboot. When your computer starts again, after you sign on(if you do), a window will pop up saying that you have selected to start in "selective startup mode" put a check the little box that says remember this and click on OK. Your computer should run faster, depending on how many programs you unchecked, much faster. You can do this whenever you need to.

Dear Tom:

As with everything else in the computer world, BACK IT UP! I am referring to XP restore point and backing up the registry independently. These are two of the smartest things anybody can do.

You can learn how to backup the registry and restore it here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756

You can make a backup file of the registry using REGEDIT. Just enter REGEDIT into the RUN command box. Click on OK. Click on My Computer (make sure it is highlighted). On the FILE menu, choose EXPORT. Export the .Reg file. You could also burn a copy of this to CD and then have XP Recovery Console installed on your computer. You can learn how to install XP Recovery Console here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058

In order to use Recovery Console, you must know the administrator password for the computer and you should familiarize yourself with the Recovery Console command set...you do not want to have a crash and then try to learn what the commands do, have a strategy first!

Learn how to use a System Restore Point to restore your computer in case of a crash:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306084
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315222

You must have admin rights to use Safe Mode when the computer needs to be restored. You can restore the computer in Safe Mode.

I would first, if I were you, do a test run by doing the above. Ensure you have your admin password and you can use the recovery console and get into safe mode.

Now, after you have done these things, you are better prepared instead of worrying about recovering from a system failure.

There are pro's and con's out there from every person I have talked to regarding the efficacy of registry cleaners and compactors. Some IT people I have talked to advise never to use them...I think, because all IT people are inherently scared to death of a crash causing them more work or because the local hard disk is of relative unimportance to them, the only hard disks they are worried about are server hard disks.

But for home owners wanting to improve the performance, I am one of those...I find a registry cleaner to be invaluable. I actually do two things...I clean up the registry and then I compact the Hives, both seem to reduce clutter and improve performance.

No two pieces of software are perfect...by this, I mean, each piece of software works differently, finds different errors and considers different things to be a problem.

I use two main ones, each one seems to find a different set of errors to fix:

jv16 powertools by Macecraft:

http://www.macecraft.com/

Cost is a very modest $29.95 and you get not just a registry cleaner, but also a whole suite of other nifty tools. You get to run a backup of the registry before it does the clean. You get to "fix" errors rather than just delete them. One of the other tools is a hive compactor, and that makes it worth the money right there. I have used jv16 powertools for several years with satisfactory results and no crashes. What I love the most about this one is not only has the software done what it is supposed to and been stable, but the updates have been free for several years now! Magnificent purchase and well worth the initial fee.

Registry Mechanic by PC Tools

http://www.pctools.com/registry-mechanic/

I have used this one for years as well, it does a great of finding errors and fixing them. There is an updater that updates the database of known issues. This software also has a hive compactor. It is $39.99. Version 7.X is latest. It also can be set to set a system restore point. I have a yearly minimal fee, I believe for updates, but don't remember...must be like $9.99 or something.

I have tried several other ones, and found none better than these two.
I have, in fact, tried others, some of which do nothing either to the registry or to the performance level of the O/S. So I stick with the tried and true.

I would also recommend that you use CCleaner to first clean your computer of trash and garbage...do not be quick to just click ok, check out the list of files it recommends on ridding your computer of. This is a freebee!

http://www.ccleaner.com/

I would also defrag my hard disk using a FREE utility like Auslogics Disk Defrag:

http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag

I find this utility better than XP defrag and it is sort of fascinating watching it do its thing. It is similar to Norton Utilities defrag utility, but up to this point, Auslogics has created a real freebee treat.

My normal system routine is:

Clean Computer of Garbage first
Defrag Hard Disk
Run Registry Cleaner
Run Registry Compactor (hive compactor)

Make sure you have system restore points automatically set before doing anything.

I think doing the above will help you immensely, but nothing is more important that backing your system up FIRST!

Sincerely - Jim Clark

jimc52 ended an excellent response with "clean computer of garbage".
How do you do that?

Hi Tom. I have experienced your problem on 2 laptop computers and have tried 2 different options, both with success.
These computers are my two sons and they access the same online games and browse the same sites. Both these Toshiba units had ground to a halt and needed urgent cleaning.
On the first unit I made a DVD backup of the needed files and documents and then proceeded to reload Windows XP from the recovery disk which in turn wiped the laptop and reinstalled a clean system. Including installing Office, Firefox, Opera and anti virus systems the whole process took around 2 hours and I finished up with a new system that runs fast and clean.
On laptop No2 I installed Spybot search and destroy, Auslogic Disk Defrag, CCcleaner, Avast anti virus, and Windows Defender.
Spybot found and cleaned 196 spywares and trojans, whilst Avast cleared 65 viruses hidden in some worrying locations. CCcleaner did a good job cleaning old temp files etc and the difference was immediately noticeable. Auslogic Disk Defrag did another good job putting everything back in order and the laptop now runs clean and fairly fast. Total time this way was around 5-6 hours of monitoring the system.
In conclusion I believe the start fresh to be the best option and the No1 system seems to run the best, the hassle was having to reinstall all the programs but in the time frame it was quicker.
Both systems now have Spybot, Auslogic, CCcleaner, Avast, AVG, Defender installed to keep them clean. As a punishment for letting their computers get in such a bad state, both boys had to sit down and write a list of all programs from Task Manger that are running and installed. Each week they have to check if anything else has be installed, then identify what it is and if unnecessary remove it.
Tom I have had no trouble with these programs I am using and i hope what I have written will be of assistance.
Regards Mr.Coffee.

I came for a Unix background and I've loaded Linux (the desktop version and server versions) on one of my systems several times. I don't understand why people reccommend Linux to ordinary users. Most people don't know how to use any command line arguments so Linux would be confusing to them. However if they just wanted to get on the internet I guess it would be ok but I find it to be lacking compared to Windows when it comes to Microsoft Office programs. I have to have Windows on my primary system. I like to play with utilities and load pictures from my cameras. Linux Server is another story. I have a Linux Web Server running on my local lan just to play with a web server. It's Windows to do most things though.

"Windows and Mac are both running "Linux/Unix" under the covers."

Windows does not run anything remotely like Unix under the GUI. If Microsoft were smart they would rewrite Windows with Linux as the core engine, much like what Apple did with OS X.

Linux is brilliant as a server OS but it's disappointing on the desktop, especially considering that the likes of KDE and Gnome have been around for 10 years now.

I recently set up an Ubuntu machine for my wife. In Gnome she'd connect to a samba share to store her documents. The "mounted" share would show up in all the Gnome apps but when she tried to save a file in OpenOffice the smb share didn't appear in the file browser. She had to save all her docs to the desktop and then move them in the Gnome file browser. It's little details like that which differentiate Windows and OS X from Linux. Paying customers would not accept such a situation and therefore Microsoft and Apple have to make sure that these things work as expected.

I had to hand edit X11 config files to get Ubuntu to work with her video card on a fairly modern HP machine. Hardly user friendly!