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Does registry repair software work?
Results so far:
| Yes | 45% | 23 votes | Total: 51 votes | |
| No | 55% | 28 votes |
Yes
by Nicholas Ward
Created on: June 10, 2010 Last Updated: June 30, 2010
Though some people will say registry entry programs don't work. I believe they work very well if you use the right ones, under the right circumstances. My suspicion is that these people who say that these programs don't work have used a few of them, just not the right ones, and they may even have had really bad experiences with these programs. Deleting the wrong entry would destroy their registry making windows no longer bootable.
The fact is, when you install and uninstall programs you create registry entries. Uninstallers don't always remove these entries making your registry bigger and bigger. Over time the registry can become such a monster, it's nearly impossible to find anything in it.The registry can also become corrupt over time, causing your computer to fail to boot up, due to hard drive errors or power outages.
Registry repair software works on very basic principles. A software utility is run, and scans your registry, once the scan is completed you check all the entries that it found to be erroneous. One by one, you select which ones to remove. Registry repair programs that don't ask you what to remove can be more harmful then good. A good program however, can be invaluable and will ask you about every entry that could lead to disaster. This method still leaves potential for human error, and if you agree to let the program delete one of these flagged files it's your own fault.
Without ever running these programs, computers can become slow as snails, just running basic applications. If the registry becomes corrupted or cluttered, windows can't find the ties it needs, to tie the programs you use, to the Libraries that program needs, or the location of a file. While some registry entry programs may be scams, most are not. The effect of running them is not noticeable on new or nearly new systems. Registry errors can even be attributed to compiling problems, or software issues with a program not finding a particular library.
By running a registry repair program, you can fix a lot of these errors by changing file locations so windows can actually find the files it needs for each program. You see the registry contains links to every DLL(library) on the hard drive, and if a program or a person some how moves them, then the registry can no longer find that DLL. A DLL is in reality a program of it's own which can only be run using another program, passing arguments to it similar to a C++ include header file. When these programs run that require this DLL, but don't know where to find it, you get DLL errors.
Why would anyone say that these programs don't work? To say the ones they have used don't work well, would be fine. But to say they don't work at all, an absolute no. Is just unfair to the people who have spent countless hours developing their software in order to help people keep their hard drives clean and their registries uncluttered.
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No
by Dave King
Created on: January 07, 2012 Last Updated: January 08, 2012
No with some exceptions. Generally registry cleaners tend to be either completely useless or totally dangerous. The difference depends more on the users knowledge than the software.
Most of these cleaners make claims as to how much faster your pc will run and how it will never bsod on you again after using the program. Run it on any machine and you will see a long list of things it wants to get rid of. The problem is you really need to look at each entry and see if it is needed or not or if it is from an old program that is long gone or out of date. If you don't do this ie you get bored and say delete all that this is when you run into problems. It will get rid of dead links and so on as well as happily deleting required system files and links all in the same swoop. Then you end up with Windows not working and having to reinstall. However the registry cleaner actually worked just as designed. It just wasn't smart enough to know any better and unless you have the time and knowledge to supervise it will happen time after time.
Most registry errors are nothing more than orphaned entries. These happen due to installer problems when you add or remove a program. This can also occur from various updates to Windows or programs that do not directly use the Windows setup/installer routines. These are never called as the program is gone or not used. They do make the registry file slightly bigger but not by any real amount. Other registry errors are caused by system issues such drive errors, incorrect or unexpected shut down and so on. Believe it or not you can fix most registry errors simply by rebooting the computer a few times or by uninstalling the last program or update that was installed. On older versions of Windows you would do system updates and find that Internet Explorer was no longer working and Windows was not behaving that well. You choice was either to uninstall the updates or wait for the next patch to fix the patches.
Personally I do not use registry cleaners. I find it just to easy to carefully get so far than succumb to the lure of the dreaded fix all button. When I do fix registries I use regedit and specifically search for what I want to get rid of. That is quick and you are 100% in control whereas with the software you may be using a big hammer to fix a small egg. Basically to sum up if you don't know enough to be sure don't use these and if you know enough you probably won't anyway.
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