Waht version of jaws do you use on what flavor of windows? System
restore, the creation of a restore point in particular, is very
straight forward at least under my xp system and since this is
straight Mickysoft, I would have expected it to be so under newer
versions of windows also.
If your version of jaws doesn't read portions of system restore, grab
a copy of nvda from
www.nvda-project. org and use it for those tasks your version of jaws
can't handle. nvda is free and open source and is constantly being
updated. It works well or most parts of the programs and utilities
that come with windows.
hth
Doris
At 06:49 PM 10/6/2011 -0500, you wrote:
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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