Hi Charles, Yes, there are a number of quality tools I could recommend, but as Yohandy pointed out one of the best is CCcleaner. Fixing and maintaining your registry is just one of the great things CCleaner does and it is fairly accessible with most of the screen readers I have tried it on.
The thing is, and one thing Microsoft does not widely advertise, is that in order to make Windows run safely and efficiently you have to constantly maintain it by cleaning out garbage in your registry, dump your temp directories, and all sorts of things simply because all that junk will slow down your system, degrade performance, and over time will cause the system to crash or just run poorly. In my experience in handling tech support as well as a personal user of Windows many of the failures and problems are a direct result of registery errors due to the user's ignorence of how to properly fix and maintain their system. Many people aren't aware a problem exists until their system begins crashing, coming up with x number of general protection faults, etc and call a tech support person for help to reinstall Windows for them or to try and resolve the problem. Usually installing a tool like CCleaner will find and locate thousands of registry errors, several MB of unused files in their temp directories just waisting space, expired cookies, etc which all results in Windows not operating at full performance. In other words Windows is basically a slob that never really cleans up for itself and we, the end user are expected to handle it, but most end users aren't aware of why and how to properly maintain the OS so they run it until problems can't be ignored. I don't want to get into a rant, but i do feel it is my duty to remind people that Microsoft has a history of overlooking or ignoring problems with the OS that could be minimized by an alternative method. Back when they were using the Fat file system they knew that the Fat file system was a poor design, that it would fragment, break down, and they had to produce the Disc Defrag tool to maintain the file system even though there were better file systems in use by their competition. The Windows registry is another bright idea Microsoft had, proprietary to Windows, that never worked out. Microsoft knows it is problematic, a technical support problem, but refuse to replace it with something else. Other operating systems like Mac and Linux simply use configuration files that get placed in local and global directories that can be easily backed up, replaced, maintained, and are more stable when it comes to saving system configurations. For instance, one of the things I really like about how Linux saves settings over the Windows registry is all of the settings on Linux is stored in a the /etc directory. All of the *.conf files are text files that can be edited manually with any text editer of choice, are clearly documented where and what to change, can be backed up to a thumb drive, and when you perform a fresh install of Linux you can simply restore your old settings from the backup drive. It is Quick, simple, and very reliable. the Windows registry on the other hand is none of those things. I know my way around only because reading books on the topic. However, for the average user it is complicated, very hard to edit manually, requires a tool like CCleaner to repare errors, is unstable, and every tech and programmer I know of hates the registry with a passion. Question is, why doesn't Microsoft fix it? Who knows, but the fact remains its up to us to be aware of those problems and to purchase the right tools to maintain and support the Windows OS. Certainly as long as they are selling copies of Windows and the public is largely aware of the problems or issues I doubt they will change these design issues/problems with their OS. I personally think they should have done away with the registry years ago and went back to *.ini files like Dos had, or use *.conf files like Linux and most other modern operating systems have. Cheers! On 7/1/11, Charles Rivard <[email protected]> wrote: > In order to not have such a thing to occur, is there a registry tool other > than the tool that comes with Windows XP that you would suggest? I've never > used one for fear that they would not be safe, and so don't have one. For > me, it must be a JAWS friendly program that works reliably. Answer on or > off list as you think appropriate when you have the time? Thanks. > > --- > Shepherds are the best beasts! --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
