Windows Registry Utilities? Any Good?

[philkiwi]

Does anyone have experience of GlaryUtilities? It includes both a registry cleaner and a registry defrag. Any comments on the usefulness or otherwise of these particular tools?

[HansV]

I have no experience with this program. It might well contain useful components, but in the product overview my eye was struck by

"Memory Optimizer
Monitors and optimizes free memory in the background"

All recent versions of Windows have memory management built-in, a third-party utility that interferes with this will probably have a negative effect.

[JoeP517]

So called memory optimizers defeat the purpose of Windows memory management. The way they "optimize" memory is usually to request a large amount of memory causing Windows to determine which parts of memory are available to be freed and then free the RAM. In addition to just freeing RAM the request could cause page file usage. One of the tenents of Windows memory management is that users tend to do the same tasks over and over. Therefore, Windows does not release memory until it needs to thus when a user requests a program or function that was used relatively recently there is a good chance it is already in RAM and does not have to be loaded from disk.

Anything that requires disk usage such as page file access or loading a program is extremely slow compared to RAM access.

BTW, I had Glary Utilities installed for a while some time ago. I found I NEVER used the program beyond looking at it when I first installed it.

Joe

[philkiwi]

So called memory optimizers defeat the purpose of Windows memory management. The way they "optimize" memory is usually to request a large amount of memory causing Windows to determine which parts of memory are available to be freed and then free the RAM. In addition to just freeing RAM the request could cause page file usage. One of the tenents of Windows memory management is that users tend to do the same tasks over and over. Therefore, Windows does not release memory until it needs to thus when a user requests a program or function that was used relatively recently there is a good chance it is already in RAM and does not have to be loaded from disk.

Anything that requires disk usage such as page file access or loading a program is extremely slow compared to RAM access.

BTW, I had Glary Utilities installed for a while some time ago. I found I NEVER used the program beyond looking at it when I first installed it.

Joe

What are your thoughts regarding Glary's Registry Cleaner and Registry Defrag?

[Rebel]

What are your thoughts regarding Glary's Registry Cleaner and Registry Defrag?

If I can comment here, I think that you will find that most here will discourage the use of any Registry Cleaners. I have yet to see ANY objective and documented proof (apart from the manufacturers' claims of course) that a registry cleaner provides any noticeable or actual measured improvement in system performance, especially with the latest operating systems such as Vista or Windows 7. Oh sure, some will say that their system "seems to run faster" after the use of a cleaner, but show me the proof.

On the other hand, there have been many instances where applications and even entire systems have been rendered inoperative by the injudicious use of these tools. If you must run a registry cleaner, the one included with CCleaner seems to be the least intrusive and the safest.

Obviously this is a personal choice, but I don't think that the (questionable) rewards outweigh the possible and very real risks.

[JoeP517]

If I can comment here, I think that you will find that most here will discourage the use of any Registry Cleaners. I have yet to see ANY objective and documented proof (apart from the manufacturers' claims of course) that a registry cleaner provides any noticeable or actual measured improvement in system performance, especially with the latest operating systems such as Vista or Windows 7. Oh sure, some will say that their system "seems to run faster" after the use of a cleaner, but show me the proof.

On the other hand, there have been many instances where applications and even entire systems have been rendered inoperative by the injudicious use of these tools. If you must run a registry cleaner, the one included with CCleaner seems to be the least intrusive and the safest.

Obviously this is a personal choice, but I don't think that the (questionable) rewards outweigh the possible and very real risks.

I agree completely. I never run a registry cleaner on a regular basis any more. The only time I'd even try one is if the PC had some error that I could attribute to a registry problem. Even then I'd be very careful.

Joe

[foureyes]

Hello to All!
I'm tired of arguing with my friends. Do any of you Loungers know of any Windows Registry "Cleaners" or "Optimizers" that really do any good? Frankly, I feel that they promise a lot, but deliver little. In some cases the results they produce may be irritating or downright dangerous. Anyone have an opinion one way or the other? Any product names?
Thanks,
FourEyes

[TonyE]

I agree with you and believe that registry cleaners have limited use. You will find quite a few here are of like mind, for example see the replies to this thread.

[bigaldoc]

... Anyone have an opinion one way or the other? Any product names?

I agree with Tony and because I'm conservative, disbelieving and fearful, I don't use any such utilities, relying solely on the tools that are within Windows.

But to be fair, as you'll see in the thread Tony linked to, it seems the most "popular" cleanup program here in The Lounge is CCleaner, getting many mentions in threads.

[StuartR]

I believe that these kind of utilities do more harm than good. I have heard of many problems caused by registry cleaners, and I have never seen any evidence of the benefits that some people claim.

[JoeP517]

I agree with the previous posters. I've yet to see any quantifiable evidence that runing a registry cleaner regularly does any good on a modern Windows system.

Joe

[Pilgrim]

I'm tired of arguing with my friends. Do any of you Loungers know of any Windows Registry "Cleaners" or "Optimizers" that really do any good? Frankly, I feel that they promise a lot, but deliver little. In some cases the results they produce may be irritating or downright dangerous. Anyone have an opinion one way or the other? Any product names?

Okay, I'll play the "odd man out" on this one with a qualifier.

I do believe that Registry cleaners are beneficial if for no other reason that they remove orphaned and corrupt Registry entries. Whether removing them speeds things up I cannot say and that is of little importance to me since my system is faster than I am already. Now, the qualifier. Put into the hands of a novice who thinks they are more knowledgeable than they really are, which probably includes the majority of computer owners, trouble is around the corner. Unless you understand what the Registry is, how it works, the inter-relations of its contents... leave it alone.

Now, as BigAl mentioned, CCleaner's Registry utility is quite safe to use by most everyone. Can it make a mistake and remove something it shouldn't? You betcha. Is it likely that it will? Probably not. And, like most Registry cleaners, it does have the ability to do a backup first.

Other than CCleaner's baby Registry utility the only other one I would trust and thus recommend to those qualified to use it is jv16 PowerTools. It's Registry cleaner utility when left at its default level or changed to being "safer" is probably the best around and safest, which does NOT mean that anyone can simply click a button and think everything is fine. But IF one is determined to clean the Registry, these two programs are worth considering due to their integrity.

Okay, bring it on boys! hahaha

[Rebel]

I do believe that Registry cleaners are beneficial if for no other reason that they remove orphaned and corrupt Registry entries. . . . . . Okay, bring it on boys! hahaha

Well, I'm not going to "bring it on", but I will ask a few questions:
1) What is the measurable benefit to my system in removing "orphaned and corrupt Registry entries"?
2) What danger or detriment do "orphaned and corrupt Registry entries" pose to my system?

[t8ntlikly]

I've used registry cleaners for a few years and have found several that I like, one of which is CCleaner, and the other is UniBlue, which I now use. Over the years, I have had only had one instance of a problem, and that was caused by OHS (Operator Head Space). My laptop is 4 years old,( AMD Turion64, 2GB RAM) and weekly I clean it, Cookies, Temp files etc. and the last thing I do is run UniBlue. All I can say is it runs as fast today as when I first bought it.
.

[PaulB]

I've used registry cleaners for a few years and have found several that I like, one of which is CCleaner, and the other is UniBlue, which I now use. Over the years, I have had only had one instance of a problem, and that was caused by OHS (Operator Head Space). My laptop is 4 years old,( AMD Turion64, 2GB RAM) and weekly I clean it, Cookies, Temp files etc. and the last thing I do is run UniBlue. All I can say is it runs as fast today as when I first bought it.
.

Are you not confusing registry maintenance with disk/file maintenance? Cookies are not stored in the registry. They are files stored on disk. They should have no effect on your computer's speed in general, only your browser's operation (and even that is doubtful). Ditto Temp files. I'm not familiar with UniBlue but while CCleaner does have a (limited) registry component, its strengths lie in its many other clean up facilities.