Registry Cleaner?

[rmnc3r]

Is a reliable free Registry Cleaner program available? Quick Search on this forum brought up a Thread from 2014...

REVO Uninstaller, Wise Registry Cleaner, Auslogics Registry Cleaner and Bulk Crap Uninstaller are the top choices according to Google.

Anyone here have real world experience with any of these, or a better suggestion?

Cheers!
R

[MrRichards]

I've used these apps when I was supporting Win7. Somewhat impressed but its not clear what they actually target but the PCs always ran faster for a short period of time. Consider that such apps may inject their own crap into the registry.

If your Windows PC is jacked up its always better to perform a fresh windows installation.

[Preston-CLB]

Registry cleaners are not infallible. If you decide to use one, be sure to do a full system back-up and a Registry back-up. Personally, I don't mess with it.

I have been using CCleaner for a long time. It works. You can read more HERE. There is a free version, but you can upgrade for a cost.
-P

[C.G.]

If you are using Windows, Microsoft PC Manager does a decent job and much lesser chance that'll screw up your registry.

[arrix]

Yep better to just back up files and do a fresh install. Back in the day we would make a drive image of a fresh install with whatever basic configs we needed then just used that to restore over and over again as necessary.

[rmnc3r]

Thanks for the replies. So far, I'm inclined to consider post 4 - Microsoft PC Manager.

Does Anyone take the time to go into the registry to delete remaining unneeded files from deleted programs that were removed via uninlstall?

[Preston-CLB]

"Back in the Day" Windows was much less stable than it is today and it was very easy for something to go south which necessitated fresh installs. Some of the issues were not specifically caused by Windows but by programs with bad code that caused Windows to crash irrevocably.

I certainly suggest keeping one's system backed up and perhaps having a USB thumb drive or DVD with a Windows image. It's easy to do this with Media Creation Tool. It's good insurance.

To the OP, there are things you can do to help increase performance:

• Delete Temporary files, including browser history. This frees up disk space.
• Stop loading of apps at Start-Up that can be started manually when needed. Do Not stop anti-virus apps.
• If you have had Blue Screen critical stops (BSOD) Windows stores the error files. These can be very large. There is a handy app called BlueScreenView that lets you see these files and you can delete them.
• Upgrade your Video Card. Many apps today rely heavily on the computing power of your VGA, especially VRAM. If you are using Photo Shop, a CAD program, or do video editing, upgrading your card will be a boon.
• Upgrade your computer's RAM. With Win 10 or 11, 8GB is a bare minimum. If you can, upgrade to at least 32 GB. This will really punch up performance.

Again, I strongly caution against dicking around with the Registry. I hope some of this helps you.
-P

[benjos]

Registry Cleaner programs are antiquated for Windows 10/11. Modern PCs are so fast that hundreds/thousands of orphan registry entries do not matter.
Better suggestion is to switch away from using Windows OS such as using a Linux distribution like Kubuntu or Linux Mint.

[Preston-CLB]

Registry Cleaner programs are antiquated for Windows 10/11. Modern PCs are so fast that hundreds/thousands of orphan registry entries do not matter.
Better suggestion is to switch away from using Windows OS such as using a Linux distribution like Kubuntu or Linux Mint.

As I said above, messing around with the Registry can be dangerous regardless of the speed of one's machine, so agree with your first statement.

With regard to switching to a Linux distro, it may not be possible for some users who have programs they depend upon that will not work under Linux.

For those users, me included, it makes sense to follow best practices to get the most out of our machines.
-P