[Red Boy]

For a few years I have been using Reg Cleaner 4.3 by Jouni Vuorio. It has served me well. Safe and no problems. Of course, as many of you veterans know, it has been discontinued for some time. However, I have continued to use. Because as I have said it has seemed to be effective, safe and caused no problems. However, I am wondering if the newer registry cleaners are more effective and if it would be prudent for me to uninstall my old friend and install one of the newer registry cleaners that I have been reading about on Tech Support Guy?

Any thoughts, guidance, gentlemen?

Thanks,
Red Boy

[golferbob]

i have used it for years and love it. here is the website i have used to help others with the download.


http://www.worldstart.com/weekly-dow...cleaner4.3.htm

[brindle]

I use both regcleaner 4.3 and easycleaner.
I see no reason to uninstall the one you now have to try another.

[Red Boy]

Thanks guys. Good to see that I am not the only one still using 4.3.

And Brindle you are correct: Why not use both? I will.

Thanks again, guys.

Red Boy

[regcleaner]

lol, a little too late but i still use regcleaner. it is the best

PS. period

[JohnWill]

Don't fix stuff that ain't broke!

[blues_harp28]

Hi Red Boy "effective, safe and caused no problems"
This is worth a read.
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html

[Dingus]

I too have used it for years, but I just migrated to a new PC and can't get it to start as an application, it only now starts as a process. Really annoying. Wish is was still supported.

I did however find this FREE one.

http://www.ccleaner.com/

[Elvandil]

Registry cleaners are useless and dangerous. They can cause serious harm and have absolutely no positive effects on system function. They are a form of Russian Roulette with no pot to win.

[Dingus]

Elvandil. that worries me. I thought I was doing the right thing for years. Can you explain.

[TOGG]

I have, in the past, cheerfully run various registry cleaners and never had problems. The most recent one I used was Reg Supreme, which is a commercial program, also by Juoni Vuorio.

However, two things made me reconsider using cleaners, the first being this statement from the Reg Supreme Help files;

"Warning
Using the registry cleaner of RegSupreme can damage your computer, in such case you might even have to reinstall your operating system. This kind of situation is rather theoretical but still possible, if you do not know how to recover your computer from such state you should not use any registry cleaning program."

The second was that I have never been able to find anything definite about the negative effects of registry 'bloat', except in the marketing materials of people that sell cleaners, nor any 'proof' that reducing the size ot the registry actually does any good, unless it can shave nanoseconds off bootup times etc.

The one exception to this is where badly written software leaves junk in the registry after an uninstall which then prevents the installation of a replacement program. I personally had to use a cleaner in order to reinstall a game that I had uninstalled earlier, but that is the only positive benefit I ever knowingly got from using a registry cleaner.

Finally, although I cannot now provide a link to it, I remember seeing a quote by Juoni himself to the effect that nobody should use the old versions of his software that can still be found on various sites because it is now so hopelessly out of date. Those of a cynical persuasion could argue that he is only saying that because he wants people to buy the commercial Macecraft versions of his programs, but I myself can see the logic in his argument.

[Mumbodog]

The most I use reg cleaners for is cleaning up after an uninstaller does it job, then I use it to clean up what is left behind. As with any registry cleaner, if you don't know how to interpret the suggested registry files for removal, I suggest you leave well enough alone.

I mostly use the software tab, and the "add startup software" function of 4.3, I rarely use the cleaner function unless I have a specific problem I am looking for in the registry, but I still don't use wholesale registry cleaning.

If you want, use this "full service scanner" from Microsoft.
http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm

There are different types of scans you can run if you don't want the "full scan" which can take some time, read more here about what the individual scans do

http://help.live.com/help.aspx?mkt=e...query=abtscaty

[caraewilton]

I am going to side with Johnwil and Elvandil.
Regcleaners are not a good idea.
On this forum there have been many debates on reg cleaners, run a search and look.
Some use them and think they great, others think they are the spawn of satan.
The facts can be debated for hours but I am not a computer expert, I am simply someone that has messed around with pc since I was 10. So in the last twenty years have come to the following conclusions (based on my personal experience)
-Always keep the original disks - sometimes you just need to reinstall things
-Only install programmes you actually need - sometimes programmes don't uninstall
-Never use registry cleaners - once in a while they delete the wrong thing and then you have to spend a day reinstalling windows and all the programmes (fortunately I keep all my disks)

[md2lgyk]

I use a free program called RegSeeker. Never a problem with it on several computers. I know the "gloom and doom" crowd thinks registry cleaners are spawns of Satan, but I'm not one of them. Do they have any positive effect?? Does your car run better after it's washed?? Who knows? But I still chean my registry and my cars.