The cleaner in spybot is slightly better, in that it asks for confirmation before every change. After a virus removal and a major tidy then we look at the results and usually run a single pass. I like to know what each entry is and over time you learn what you can safely remove. Occasionally this can have a major impact, especially if it's a reference to a deleted AV product, but you need to also check for where the bad reference is. If it's an uninstall or a start-up app then it should be ok to tidy, if it's a driver or a system hook then be careful, take a backup and test.
Mike From: Jon Harris [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 02 April 2009 01:27 To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Registry Cleaners I worked on a system last week where the user had "cleaned" the registry and the Windows folder so well much of his system was un-usable. Since I was not his IT guy I just sent him home to talk to the person that put all that trash on his system in the first place. I stopped counting when I hit 6 different registry cleaners, 4 or 5 spyware checkers, and 2 antivirus programs. He said he was told to run certain programs daily to keep it clean. Jon On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 6:31 PM, Steven Calvanese <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: I use Your Uninstaller instead of Add/remove programs. It removes the program and all registry entries. Steven Calvanese [IT Support Technician] MEMBER SOLUTIONS [P]267.287.1023 [F]267.287.1033 WWW.MEMBERSOLUTIONS.COM<http://www.membersolutions.com/> CONFIDENTIALITY NOTE: This email and any attachments are confidential and intended for the sole use of the persons named in the email. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify MEMBER SOLUTIONS immediately at 267-287-1000 and permanently remove this email from your mailbox. Any disclosure, copying or distribution of this email by any person who is not the intended recipient is strictly prohibited. ________________________________ -----Original Message----- From: Sam Cayze [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 6:25 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Registry Cleaners +1 I stay very far away from cleaners... I'd rather re-image. -----Original Message----- From: Peter van Houten [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 5:12 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Registry Cleaners +1 Don't massage the registry unless you know what you are doing. Registry Workshop has saved me many times and its powerful cumulative search/search-replace function is brilliant: http://www.torchsoft.com/en/rw_information.html -- Peter van Houten On the 01/04/2009 23:41, Carl Houseman wrote the following: > Don't fix what isn't broken, If you use a reg cleaner every day > sooner or later you will break something that was working. > > Carl > > From: Matt Plahtinsky > [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] > Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 4:23 PM > To: NT System Admin Issues > Subject: Registry Cleaners > > I recently had a discussion about Registry Cleaners with a friend. I have > never used them before and my friend swears by them. With a little > research different products seem to do different things. Some clean, > some compact, and some look for errors. > > Just for fun I can the registry clean built into CCleaner it found a > few hundred errors but I didn't seem to notice a difference after I > ran it and rebooted. > > What are your thoughts on them. > > Matt ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
