Abexo, the sstand-alone cleaner I use, is very thorough and has not
caused any problem but once. I do notice a difference in performance
when using a registry cleaner. Some programs, our beloved jaws among
these, leave a lot of junk behind when being uninstalled. Some of
this can be avoided by using an uninstaller program such as Revo
uninstaller but then these can cause problems on occasion also.
It is always a personal decision and one that should be made
knowing the risks involved and the benefits.
I consider myself a power user and I do tweak a system to my liking
and preferences. I not only use registry cleaners but tweak advanced
settings like virtual memory, programs loaded at startup and many
background services in windows that I do not use. I i Have even
totally removed some components like Dr. Watson or wmp. I use
tweaking tools for this sort of thing and I do so knowing that, for
example, totally removing wmp may interfere with some functionality
like playing of some wmp based streams.
Anyway, it is each user's responsibility to learn as much as they
want aand need to about their systems and what they want to accomplish.
I think it is important to caution people of possible consequences
but on the other hand encourage learning and exploration.
I would never want to dissuade you from not wanting to use a thorough
registry cleaner but on the other hand resent people making general
statements about what should or should not be done on the computer.
Cheers,
Doris
At 01:45 PM 10/6/2011 -0400, you wrote:
It also depends on how aggressively you want to clean your registry.
Programs like CCleaner, Advanced System Care and Glary Utilities
perform a superficial cleaning of the registry that is unlikely to
cause any harm, but some stand-alone registry cleaners perform a
more thorough registry cleaning that could really make a mess of
things. For this reason, I now avoid stand-alone registry cleaners,
whose benefits are dubious at best, anyway.
Gerald
----- Original Message ----- From: "Doris and Chris" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2011 10:26 AM
Subject: Re: [Blind-Computing] Registry Cleaning Program
Whether or not a lay person should use any kind of registry
cleaning software is subject to debate and you will find some
people who tell you not to clean your registry at all. It is true
that monkeying around in your registry can render your computer
unoperational at worst.
With this warning up front, i have used registry cleaning tools for
just about as long as I have used a computer that uses a registry.
<g> IN the good old win 9x. days, Mickysoft themselves had a free
registry tool for download. this does not work anymore on versions
of windows newer than 2k, I believe.
As to when to clean your registry, many consider this a part of
regular computer maintenance and how often you clean out your
registry largely depends on how often you change something on your
computer that writes to the registry. Computer maintenance includes
other tasks as well such as defragging (and there are some that
tell you not to defrag a computer either), running your antimalware
and antivirus software, etc.
Your registry is written to each time you install a program, change
a file association, have a program store a setting in the registry,
etc. when you, on the other hand, uninstall a program, often
"orphan keys" are left behind in the registry that are no longer
needed but take up space and have the computer do more work when it
scans the registry for information.Additionally, even when
information is deleted from the registry when uninstalling a
program etc, "holes" are left in the registry similar to when you
delete a file from your hard drive. When you run a registry
cleaning tools, it checks the registry for information that is no
longer connected to anything you have installed or set on the
computer. and it takes those parts out and thus eliminates
redundant information the computer goes thru each time it accesses
the registry. Ideally, after you ran your registry cleaning tool,
you should also defrag your registry to align everything nicely and
streamline it by getting rid off empty spaces in the registry
caused by either uninstalling a program, etc. or by the work of the
registry cleaner itself when it deleted unnecessary information.
If you decide to run a registry cleaner,make sure you create a
restore point beforehand and also back up your registry before
running the cleaner. A good registry cleaner will either
automatically create a backup of your current settings of the
registry befoer changing anything or it will at least offer to do so.
As to which registry cleaner to use, this is largely a matter of
choice that depends on a few of your personal preferences,
resources, etc. it is best to download the program of yourchoice or
a trial version thereof (if you decide to go for a commercial
program, the program should at least offer a trial version so you
can check it out how well it works and how accessible it is.
Whether or not you consider a program accessible or not, also is
largely a personal thing. some people will want or need to be able
to cover everything by tabbing and clicking while others are
comfortable using their screenreaders mouse emulation and screen
review cursor. Additionally you may want to google for reviews of
any program you may want to use.
Personally, I am cheap and a fairly proficient computer user. So I
go for free programs and will consider anything that can be used
with the mouse emulation if needed.
a good starter for a registry cleaner is "c-cleaner" (get the
"slim" versionwithout a toolbar. It offers registry cleaning as wel
as a bunch of other cleaning options. I do use c-cleaner but for
the most part and longest time use a program called "abexo registry
cleaner". Googling for "Abexo free registry cleaner" should get you
what you need. Abexo is a very thorough cleaner that works from win
95 up; I have had no way to test it under anything beyond xp.
As I said, I have used registry cleaning tools for almost as long
as we have had windows computers and never had a problem but once.
That one time was pretty hefty, though, and I would have been in
big trouble if I had not been using a hardware synthesizer at the
time. I had uninstalled some sound related software and when
running Abexo after uninstalling the program, Abexo was a little
too thorough and cleaned out some parts of my soundcard driver that
the program in question must have overwritten (it was one of those
that installed a virtual sound device). After the cleanup and
subsequent reboot, my computer was dead silent and I needed to
reinstall my sound drivers. Using my hardware synth and knowing
how to deal with driver installs and troubleshooting such a
problem, it was no big deal for me. However, someone relying on
software speech on a single soundcard would have been in big
trouble and would have needed sighted assistence to restore the computer.
So while in most cases it is good and appropriate to run a registry
cleaning tool on a regular basis, the answer is not the same always
for everyone.
As for getting an accessible registry cleaner, if you want to use
something other than c-cleaner, any of the blindness related
computer resource sites such as jfwlite.com or Mr. Tekkkie Dave's
jaws user website probably has a couple of registry cleaners in
their program section. this is a good place to start as these are
usually accessible and free and have been used and tested by other
blind computer users. If you are more adventurous, you can just
google for what you want and find programs and try them out or go
to a computer sshareware site like ZDnet and search their database
and try out what you find.
hth
Doris
At 08:19 AM 10/6/2011 -0500, you wrote:
To All Listers:
How can I tell if my registry needs to be cleaned and, if so, what
registry cleanup programs are out there that are totally blind
friendly via JAWS 11?
Many thanks.
Jerry
"The great thing about faith is that you don't have to see the
light at the end of the tunnel to know that it is there!"
For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit:
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For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit:
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For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit:
http://www.jaws-users.com/help/
For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit:
http://www.jaws-users.com/help/
