Registry Maintenance Utility Programs

[xxmikexx]

Registry Maintenance Programs

This is a copy of an Outer Marker thread started by oakfloor on the subject of registry maintenance utilities . . .

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Posted by oakfloor . . .

Will it help? and should they be used? and if so, whats a good one? Thanks.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



xxmikexx replied . . .

oakfloor,

See the extensive discussions in the PC Software Tech forum. (Use search.)

My position is a) they help but b) some of them can break your system so c) use the one called RegistryRepair, which has proved harmless on each of the four computers I've used it on.

They help because no matter what anybody tells you, the registry can become fragmented, and loaded with useless obsolete entries, and this can slow down certain applications.

I run RegistryRepair twice a week as part of my regular system software maintenance.




xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

azur then posted . . .

I suppose there's a difference between registry cleaner and registry repair.

As for repair... if your registry is in a pretty bad state and you actually think it needs repair, chances are the rest of your system is too. A reinstall might well be more beneficial.



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Then sandgate posted . . .

Quote:
Originally Posted by oakfloor
Will it help? and should they be used? and if so, whats a good one? Thanks.


Hi Oakfloor
My experience with registry repair/cleaner programmes is not a happy one, really. De-frag programmes tend to be good. bad or indifferent, and a bad one won't usually do any damage, other than not de-fragging your drive.
Registry cleaner/repair programmes are different animals, and they can and do cause serious problems to systems by deleting or amending the very files that are the life-blood of your system.

I have tried two in the last two years - one recommended in a magazine and the other by a friend - and both gave me horrendous problems, necessitating complete re-installations each time.

My advice - back up all your personal stuff and do a nice, clean and planned re-install. If your systems has been running for a year or two with lots of software added and removed in that time, you'll definitely notice an improvement. First - be sure you have the installation disks at hand to re-install. This method also gives you the opportunity to re-install only those programmes which you want and get rid of those you don't.

Others here may have found good registry repair/clean programmes and might recommend them - I can only give you my experience!



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After which xxmikexx posted . . .

sandgate,

I wasn't recommending trying various registry-related products, I was recommending the use of one that is known by me and other to work, namely the specific product named RegistryRepair. And this issue is unrelated to the issue of defragging the on-disk file structures, so please don't confuse oakfloor by mixing these separate issues.

Amyway, a) what was your experience with the specific product named RegistryRepair (none?), and b) what is your level of knowledge relating to registry issues? I ask the second question because you said that the registry contains the very files on which your system is vitally dependent -- when in fact the registry contains no files at all.

So ... Kindly give a reason why I should change my remarks. Otherwise we risk confusing oakfloor with irrelevant and incorrect information.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

oakfloor,

There is a great deal more information on this subject in the PC Software Tech forum, information from system software experts like jwenting, loki, Paxx and me as well as some other people. Our opinions often differ but they're all educational since they are based on actual knowledge of the subject matter. Let's bring the discussion there if you have further questions.

I've asked Darrell Robson to move this thread. Whether he will do it remains to be seen. In the meantime I'm going to continue to post to it as if the thread had in fact been moved . . .

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



xxmikexx continued . . .

P.S. ...

Folks,

I just tried out the donationware program CCleaner, another program that is known to be benign -- not harmful to systems. It found 61 registry problems that RegistryRepair did not find, mostly registered but no longer used file extentions. However, RegistryRepair found 529 problems that CCleaner did not find.

So from this point on I will be using both programs. By donationware I mean that the CCleaner author requests donations but does not require them, and the downloaded program is fully functional.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Your systems are not likely to develop as many registry problems as my development system does, because this machine of mine is in a constant state of file system churn, details not of interest to anybody but me. Anyway, the registry inefficiencies resulting from this churn are the reason I do registry maintenance twice a week. This heads serious problems off at the pass, so to speak.

The significance of most of the registry problems any such program finds is registry entries that are present but no longer meaningful, so that they slow down registry searches. Similarly, the registry itself is organized into "hives" -- clusters of related entries, but as system operations proceed, the contents of the hives becomes scattered throughout the registry instead of concentrated, again making registry searches inefficient.

So another important function of these programs is registry reorganization and defragmentation because this issue too can slow registry searches.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Why are registry searches important? Because most applications store configuration information in the registry, and many applications additionally store runtime information that is changing on the fly. So with many applications various registry entries are constantly being a) modified (Windows must search for them in order to change them), b) deleted (Windows must search for them to do the deletions), and c) created (Windows must find free registry space in which to store them).

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Let me emphasize again that before installing and running any of these programs for the first time, a System Restore snapshot should be taken, after which the system should be excercised to make sure that no damage has been done. I've never heard any damage reports involving either RegistryRepair or CCcleaner, but there is always a first time, and the last thing anybody needs is a truly damaged registry.

System Restore restores not only missing files, it also puts the registry back into exactly the condition that prevailed at the time the snapshot was taken, provided the changes are not massive -- measured in the many thousands. So even if an errant registry utility were to do damage, the damage can be undone by using System Restore to roll back to the state the machine was in at the time the snapshot was taken -- as if the registry program had never been installed and run in the first place.

That is the purpose of System Restore -- to undo system changes. By the way, this same policy should be followed before doing any driver installation, and in fact I do it before installing every new program/application.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The result of all of my various system maintenance policies is that my system is running just as well today as when I reinstalled everything fourteen months ago. At some point it will break in a nasty way, but at that point I will, thanks to loki, be able to reinstall my weekly Acronis system snapshot. This will save me a 36-business-hours system rebuild time, reducing it to about four hours ...

And because I back up my work every day to a pair of duplicate external HDDs, the most work I'm going to lose is a day's worth, generally easy to remember what was done during that day and therefore easy to recover from.

But won't I have to reinstall all of my programs? No, that's what the 36-hour rebuild would require. The Acronis strategy captures not only all of the files and folders, including the system folders and program files, it also captures the complete state of the registry. Thus in the event of an Acronis restore, I will be back to exactly where I was at the time the Acronis snapshot was taken. I might have to reinstall a new utility program or two, but the daily incremental backups tell me what got installed, because I back up the program installation packages and registry keys.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Yes, this system maintenance stuff is a lot of work. But it's worth it to me, though it might not be to you.

In closing I should note that there are differing expert opinions on the matter of registry maintenance tools, and that there are legitimate alternate viewpoints of the issues -- viewpoints that differ from my own.

As usual with such matters I'm not telling anybody what to do, I'm simply saying what I do and why I do it -- why my policies are right for me. I also point people to the full range of dialog on these matters though in this case there isn't a single thread in PC Software Tech that discusses the issue, at least not that I can recall. (So a forum search would want to be done by interested readers.) To my recollection this is the first such thread.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

sandgate then replied . . .

[quote=xxmikexx;1190830]sandgate,

I wasn't recommending trying various registry-related products, I was recommending the use of one that is known by me and other to work, namely the specific product named RegistryRepair. And this issue is unrelated to the issue of defragging the on-disk file structures, so please don't confuse oakfloor by mixing these separate issues.

Amyway, a) what was your experience with the specific product named RegistryRepair (none?), and b) what is your level of knowledge relating to registry issues? I ask the second question because you said that the registry contains the very files on which your system is vitally dependent -- when in fact the registry contains no files at all.

So ... Kindly give a reason why I should change my remarks. Otherwise we risk confusing oakfloor with irrelevant and incorrect information.

Hi Mike
I wasn't suggesting that you were recommending trying various products - I was simply relating my own experience of such programmes - two in the last two years!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I compared registry repair programmes to defragging programmes simply because using registry programmes, in my opinion, should not be undertaken too lightly - they can cause a lot more trouble than, for example, a defragging programme which more people are familiar with, I'm guessing.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On both occasions when I tried two of the programmes, I had major problems, when my pc would not boot or hung on me. Both occasions I had to do a full re-install 'cos their was no alternative. (Even my IT department at work couldn't get the machine up and running - it worked fine on both occasions prior to running these programmes). That is my experience and I have stayed away from them since then. A system restore is fine, but you need the PC to boot to get there! Now, if you are saying that making changes to the registry won't adversely affect the running of your PC, I'm not sure that this is right. Files or not!

Anyway, that is my experience. I know nothing of Registry Repair and don't pretend to. CCleaner rings a bell though!



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

and then xxmikexx posted . . .

sandgate,

I agree that there are some registry utilities that cause problems. I went through 3 (4?) of them before settling on RegistryRepair (now supplemented by CCleaner).

Perhaps I'm simply lucky that none of them rendered my system unbootable. On the other hand, it's more likely that you had some kind of registry corruption that cause the utility to go so bananas that your machine wouldn't boot after that.

Anyway, we're in agreement that using the wrong registry maintenance software can be very dangerous. I think the question for the readership is whether to accept anecodotal evidence that thus-and-such product is okay.

For me personally, if a registry utility causes any kind of problem, whether experienced by me or reported by somebody else, it immediately goes to the bottom of my list of things not to use except in extremis.

So the real issue is the balancing of the risk that something nobody has bad-mouthed might fail, versus the benefits of using that utility if it is in fact going to work.

I can't usefully speak to that issue -- I can't assess that tradeoff for anybody but me -- but I will observe that it is at the heart of the disagreements on this subject when it was debated in the PC Software Tech forum here on FlightSim.com.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

So I advise interested readers to do the necessary searches within PC Software Tech to come up with the relevant posts and threads. However, they should also understand that while there is always the possibility of trouble, the fact is that I have never heard of a problem with RegistryRepair, and I have found it to be the most effective of the tools I tried in terms of problems found and reported on by the utility.

Similarly, I've not heard anything bad about CCleaner, and many people swear by it. This may be because it has other features that I haven't tried yet -- deletion of temp files, blah blah blah. But I did find it lacking in the registry cleanup department when I tried it for the first time a few hours ago. Yet it found things that RegistryRepair did not, and it is as reputable as system utility programs can ever be.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Will the typical user experience the same kind of benefits from frequent registry maintenance that I do? Probably not, because the average user's system is not going to be churning at the rate, or in the same way, that my development system does.

This is why it's important for each person to assess the risk/reward tradeoff for himself. Regrettably, the only way to do this is to use one of the utilities in question. However, the good news is that any of these utilities should be completely harmless if used only to inspect the registry, assuming that inspect-only is an option of the program in question. (Most of these programs have try-before-buy, for what it's worth.)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

An equally productive discussion can and should be held about HDD defragmenters. Defragmentation is a serious issue for any FS user, especially for those who regularly install scenery.

The reason that this subject is worth covering again is that the previous generation of the product Ultimate Defrag is now available as freeware. Interested readers should visit the thread titled "My Defragging Time Will Outlast Mankind" , started by Soundwhiz and located here http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/sho...d.php?t=181923.

[loki]

Will the typical user experience the same kind of benefits from frequent registry maintenance that I do? Probably not, because the average user's system is not going to be churning at the rate, or in the same way, that my development system does.

I think this is a key point regarding messing with the registry. In my opinion there is little for most users to gain, and a whole lot to loose with cleaning the registry. Development/test systems or some servers that are constantly being bombarded with new registry keys would likely benefit. For the rest, removing a couple hundred keys out of many, many thousands isn't going to gain you much. If a system has got to the point that registry problems are slowing the system down, it would be better to back up your data and reinstall.

I haven't had anyone explain to me how any one software company can know with absolute certainty which are valid registry entries and which aren't for each of the hundreds of thousands of Windows apps out there. It simply isn't possible.

Do I have a registry cleaner and use it? Yes, I do. However, I only use it when I am having troubles that can be directly linked to the registry. One example is trying to reinstall or upgrade a program and a registry key is preventing it. I know what I'm looking for and that is the only thing that gets removed or edited. The automatic cleaning/repair function doesn't get touched.

For those that do use the automatic registry cleaning functions, at least make sure you have decent backups. A system restore may work, but only if the system can boot in the first place.

[xxmikexx]

Loki,

Now we come to grips with the central issue -- frequent registry maintenance probably won't be of interest to most people, but how about infrequent use?

So for most people that's the choice -- Infrequently? Or never?

You seem to be arguing for never, which is a tenable position but not one that I can agree with. One might as well argue that getting rid of spyware also is a bad idea because 99.9% of the time all it does is slow the system down, whereas the chance that the anti-spyware program might damage your system is slightly greater than .01%, since removing certain spyware can damage the system if the spyware managed to introduce some kind of trojan horse.

Yes, it's a possibility. No, I don't worry about it, because I'm always backed up.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

You ask how a utility can possibly know which registry entries are invalid ...

I'm not a registry expert but if we look at the matter of registered file extensions that are no longer used, this is easy -- all the program has to do is scan the MFT for file extensions and then match each such key in the registry against the list built from the MFT.

Similarly, empty registry keys are easy to identify.

As a third example, there is a mechanism in Windows that keeps track of recently accessed files. If you move a folder that contains such a file, the tracking key will be come invalid because the recorded file path is now invalid, and so on.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I'm not claiming that every registry problem can be identified this way, I'm claiming that there are fifteen or so kinds of problems that can be easily identified and easily fixed, and that twice a week I choose to fix them, their count in my case being in the hundreds each time.

Also, defragmenting the registry is easy, and harmless if the algorithm has been perfected. Apparently in the cases of at least RegistryRepair and CCleaner, they have been.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Regarding making precautionary backups, I do them anyway and always have even before I became aware of registry maintenance utilities.

[loki]

You seem to be arguing for never, which is a tenable position but not one that I can agree with. One might as well argue that getting rid of spyware also is a bad idea because 99.9% of the time all it does is slow the system down, whereas the chance that the anti-spyware program might damage your system is slightly greater than .01%

There is big difference between registry errors that may or may not exist and spyware apps. Depending on which stats you go with, there are hundreds of thousands of PCs out there that are effectively zombie machines for malicious hacker groups. The owners of these machines typically don't even know they are infected. Preventing and cleaning spyware is something that everyone should be doing.

In my research regarding registry apps, I have come across cases where a registry cleaner removed some entries that looked like they were pointing to a file that did not exist. The cleaner dutifully removed the entry and kept on going. Sometime later the user opened up the app that had created the registry key and noticed it didn't default to the previous place he had saved a file from it. Guess what had happened?

Something else I also came across was a test where over 260,000 registry keys and over 2,000,000 values were created. Smaller batches of keys and values were also created for comparison. After this the user searched for both valid and invalid keys and values. The difference in search times between the largest and smallest test was in the hundreds to thousandths of a second. This is about the only independent case where I have seen actual numbers presented when trying to justify registry cleaning or not. If there are others, I would love to see them.

As the registry is a hierarchical database, unused keys are largely ignored when searching and only take up space on the hard drive. Since registry keys are meant to be under 2MB, and are usually less, there is little space penalty for leaving them alone.

With your development and testing I can believe that the number of invalid entries would quickly add up. For most people though, I doubt they would ever get to a similar point. Combined with the fact that most users know little to nothing about the registry, I think it's far more dangerous for most to go messing with it.

[Paperflyer]

The registry was designed to be a fast database for configuration data that would otherwise be stored in millions of single configuration files (as done in every other OS afaik). Back then, this was probably a great choice as it spead up the startup of programs when harddrives and processors were still very slow. Today, computers are fast enough that this is probably not neccessary any more for performance reasons alone. However it might still be a good idea to keep all configuration data in one fast database as oposed to scattered all around the system (The Linux /etc - directory serves the same purpose).

However, as Loki has pointed out, in a database a few hundred thousand entries more or less are not likely to make any difference performancewise.

Truth is, I don't use them reg-cleaners any more as I did never achieve a performance gain by using them. However, different usage patterns may make them worthwhile.

[azur]

ah heck, just use linux, all of you.

To be honest, I reckon a substantial amount of these 'registry cleaners/repair' tools are worthless.

Sure some might say what they do, but the benefit is arguable, and any perceived performance gains, placebo. And as Paperflyers says, the cleaners won't do squat nowadays.

If your registry is in such a state it needs repair, chances are the rest of the system is in a pretty miserable state too.

[xxmikexx]

azur,

Any system that has, for example, the concept of environment variables, has a registry -- it just may not be called that. Indeed the concept of a central location for recording such information is a UNIX concept that everybody else adopted, including Microsoft.


All,

This has been a most interesting and worthwhile discussion. I'm not sure it's finished yet but at least we now have in one thread the full range of positions even if we have not yet listed each and every pro and con.

This has been excellent technical debate and I think we can all pat ourselves on the back for our mutually respectful treatment of what is in fact a highly controversial subject. I feel that several more such threads are called for on various subjects, and if nobody else starts them, I will.

I'm thinking, for example, about a thread to be devoted to the proper use of System Restore. This is another poorly understood subject. However, even when it is well understood it is another example of a topic for which there is a wide range of perfectly legitimate expert opinions.


Readership,

Those things said, do it my way. (I'm kidding, of course.)

[Paperflyer]

Any system that has, for example, the concept of environment variables, has a registry -- it just may not be called that. Indeed the concept of a central location for recording such information is a UNIX concept that everybody else adopted, including Microsoft.

You are right there. However, Microsoft is the only one I know of who has gone as far as actually using a real database for configuration data. In Unix, the "registry" is just a directory with some hundreds of text files in it. (Actually, there are two main places: /etc/ for global configuration files and the home directory ~/ for user-specific ones (usually hidden).)
Additionally, Unix specifies single, global directories where libraries, binaries or additional application data are meant to be stored. These may differ from Linux-distribution to distribution and the Mac has its own model there.
This is an area where Windows could be improved: A whole lot of problems could be avoided if *all* programs would store their data in a civilised manner instead of spreading them where they see fit.

[azur]

The significant difference is that on Linux, things are more separate, and applications tend to behave better.

For a start, user and system configuration are separate. You can destroy a user's own configs, do whatever you like to them, but the system will still be stable, the other users accounts will work flawlessly.

On windows, there's different sections to the Registry for user and system, but these aren't always followed. Some programs also litter their information in multiple places throughout the registry, complicating cleanup. Again, this typically doesnt occur on Unixes, each program creates its own directory, and they stick to it. Very civilised.

One massive difference is in application design. For user applications at least - configs are typically created at runtime, rather than install time. This means that most desktop programs aren't dependent on these config files to operate. If they're missing, they'll just recreate sensible defaults, unlike many windows applications which will need a reinstall.

The windows registry is a group of about 5 files if i remember correctly. A single point of failure. Corruption to one, has a big effect on the system -- it won't boot, and can be difficult to restore unless you have a recent restore point. On Linux, you'd need to corrupt one of the few that are critical to system operation. That's difficult to do by accident, and they can be restored somewhat easily.

So you're right, you could argue that a range of text files in /etc and users home directories is an implementation of the registry (More correctly - the reverse as unix came first...) - they're very different implementations and ways of operation.