[louis5]

My PC has been acting up lately, blank screens, slow, re-boot by itself, etc.
I decided to run a Register Cleaner (RegCure) and gave a result of 1022 errors: 32 ActiveX,16 Start up, 628 File/Path, 42 Program Shortcut, 301 Empty register keys, 3 file associations.
Which is the best and safe way to do the repairs?
Thanks
Louis5

[rbalaji]

Registry cleaners, in general, do not really solve any problems and in many cases experts believe they exacerbate problems. If you insist on cleaning up the registry, make a registry backup before you do so and if anything untowards happens, hope that you can at least get into windows enough to restore the registry from the backup.

[Mr. Newton]

The best and safest way is to do nothing,Stay away from registry cleaners.Stay out of your registry,only bad things come from messin' with the registry(If you don't know what you are doing)

[DerekC]

Originally Posted by rbalaji

Registry cleaners, in general, do not really solve any problems and in many cases experts believe they exacerbate problems. If you insist on cleaning up the registry, make a registry backup before you do so and if anything untowards happens, hope that you can at least get into windows enough to restore the registry from the backup.

Wow that was very elegantly said. Quick and to the point, with just enough under current of, "try at your own risk".

I'm telling you, the Moderators should just make a "Registry Cleaners are possibly bad" sticky near the top of the "All Other Software" forum.

[redoak]

One other well known help site does just that! TSG might also refuse the advert it shows to non-members. I know there is a general disclaimer, but who reads/understands it?

Detailed discourse on Registry cleaners below.

{redoak}

Advice and Info re Registry 'cleaners'- excerpts from TSG, 10-07

The main reason they (are apt to cause problems) is because the cleaners do NOT just clean up stuff left over from uninstalls. They also "guess" that other items need to be deleted, many times incorrectly. They also attempt to "fix" references to files that no longer exist.

As a result, you can end up with programs that no longer work, functions that no longer work and in some cases a PC that will no longer boot.

There is no performance gains to be had by running these things. Windows does not read the entire registry when it is looking for something. It uses the keys which allow them to go straight to the item that they are looking for.

References:
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=643
http://www.computerhope.com/registry.htm


If you really want to see how active the registry is in your normal running environment, download and run Regmon.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...on/Regmon.mspx

As you will see, the registry is constantly being accessed. If, for each of these, the entire file was being searched, your PC would be amazingly slow and not responsive.

[louis5]

rbalaji:

Your response implies that I should throw away my PC to the garbage can.
This makes no sense to me.
There must be a way to fix it. In fact I did a few things to the computer and the number of errors went down to 600.

Louis5

[rbalaji]

I implied no such thing. As long as the hardware works, all you have to do is reinstall the OS and you are good to go. Short of that, you can try a repair install by booting off the Windows OS disc also. But both of them are somewhat time-consuming, hence my post that the best bet would be to have a registry backup that you can restore at the first sign of trouble. Obviously, looks like that is not an option at this point, so you have to either keep at it and see if you can fix it manually or give up and go for either the repair install or a full clean install.

[redoak]

"L5": It is highly unlikely that "messing" with the Registry will solve the problems. Have you read my previous post and gone to the references? "RegCure" is one the worst of the Registry "cleaners" for "scamming" people. Why do you believe their results?

Have you done comprehensive anti-virus and anti-spyware scans with up-to-date programs?

You may need to have the help of a specialist in analyzing a "Hijackthis" scan of your computer.

Take a look at the postings at the Security and HJT Forum.

I agree, however, that reinstalling your system would be a wise move. Just be sure to save your data files beforehand.

{redoak}