Many thanks for all of the advice. One of my biggest concerns is the
accessibility of any of these programs with JAWS. One of the previous posts
mentioned setting a system restore point. Unfortunately, with the versionof
JAWS I use, it is not very blind friendly.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Doris and Chris" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2011 1:03 PM
Subject: Re: [Blind-Computing] Registry Cleaning Program
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!"
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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:
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