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August 26, 2008

Registry Cleaners compared: speed up your PC

Five best registry cleaners tested

Steve Bass

PAGE 4


A cluttered Registry can slow Windows to a crawl, but cleaning it up effectively isn't easy. We've looked at some of the leading Registry cleaners, and have found some tips to help you get your Registry down to size and improve your PC's performance.

Registry First Aid

Registry First Aid is eager to help you fix and compact your Registry, and it does a terrific job, too. Of all the programs I tried, this one inspired the most confidence, both from a safety perspective and in the way it handled Registry problems. The interface is clean and easy to navigate, and the program includes a Registry defragger, a Registry searching tool, and a built-in automatic backup module. Registry First Aid supports all versions of Windows.

The only drawback is that the program costs $28 (£14); the trial version lets you see everything the program does, and is fully diagnostic, but fixes only 14 entries at a time. I'm hoping that won't dissuade you from trying Registry First Aid.

Registry First Aid found 2161 faulty entries in a 20-minute scan, a high number that may be explained by the program's relatively liberal definition of what constitutes a faulty entry. I was comfortable with the way it listed problems, either by category (such as invalid file or DLL, invalid path, or unused software entries) or by safety level. All of the entry issues that were safe to fix were automatically checkmarked, and I liked having to check the ones labeled 'Caution' or 'Extreme Caution' manually.

Most problems that Registry First Aid found were marked 'Delete the entry', but some had other choices. I could cut the invalid substring or, in some cases, repair the entry. Unfortunately, the program's Help function wasn't too helpful, so I opted to use the default. While the program was scanning, I was able to examine each listing, check or uncheck it, or open the specific entry in the Registry.

A great feature, and one worth the price of admission: with one click, most of the problem entries popped open my browser and conducted a Google search on that Registry key. Very cool, and ideal for determining whether a risky entry should be removed.

One quibble: I wasn't happy that the tool attempted to find a home in my system tray, unnecessarily adding clutter just to check for new versions. I disabled it in the settings.

NEXT PAGE: RegSupreme and RegSeeker

  1. Top tips to speed up your PC
  2. Registry dos and don'ts
  3. Registry Cleaners: How They Fared
  4. Registry First Aid
  5. RegSupreme and RegSeeker
  6. Advanced WindowsCare Personal
  7. jv16 PowerTools



Continued...
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Comments received


Dave Haverty said on Tuesday, 26 August 2008

Very useful article, but would have been good to see Registry Mechanic included in the comparison, because it's generally highly regarded.

waney said on Tuesday, 26 August 2008

I'm a techy novice and wonder if a registry cleaner will cure my computer of a faulty in that it sometimes needs 2 or 3 seperste attampts to boot up in fact sometimes I need to switch everything off and re-start, any advice please.

John Walne said on Tuesday, 26 August 2008

I thought Vista Manager (or XP Manager) would have been included too, as well as a fab freebie: Wise Registry Cleaner. Both can show you where the errors are and whether you want to fix them.

John Walne said on Tuesday, 26 August 2008

waney, you do not say which system you have but if you have Vista, you can tell your pc to do a clean up from the control panel before booting up. This sometimes resolves boot up probs.

Robert Alcorn said on Tuesday, 26 August 2008

I use CCleaner, though it is a junk file searcher primarily it has a registry checker, which I have used on 3 systems with various usage and have came across no problems. In fact between avast antivirus, spybot, auslogics disk defrag and ccleaner I have rarely had any malware, spyware, viral or registry problems.

eysha said on Tuesday, 26 August 2008

Sounds like a novice like me should stay away from registry cleaners all together. Is there no other way to speed up the computer? Mine is quite slow now after 18 months use and no regestry cleaner ever used so is there any help for us novices or is it a case of leave well alone? I was very surprised to learn that messing with the registry can send your computer/laptop to laptop/cpmputer heaven too - nasty. More articles please for people like me, but make them easy to understand too. I learnt two things from this article, one is don't mess with what you don't know about and the other is how to kill a computer. What other ways can you kill a laptop/cpmputer just so i know what to avoid doing. I cannot be the only one here that knows little to nothing about computers so educate us please and save the lives of lots of computers/laptops.
Thanks for the article.
E.

Karl said on Tuesday, 26 August 2008

Eysha, Have you never run Windows own DiscCleanup or defragmented the hard drive in 18 months.
Both are safe to do.

Michael Durham said on Tuesday, 26 August 2008

Disappointing. It should be made CLEAR at the beginning that these are NOT Free.

Gordon Braid said on Tuesday, 26 August 2008

I was disappointed you didn't include something about Fix It Utilities 7 which you gave away free 2 months ago. I have found its free Registry Cleaner and Registry Defragger do everything all the programs mentioned above can do both safely and well.

DieSse said on Tuesday, 26 August 2008

You say 5 BST registry cleaners - how do you know they're the best if you've only tested 5??

And what about the various free ones commonly recommended in you own forum Help Room??

Bit pathetic I'm afraid.

John Zebedee said on Tuesday, 26 August 2008

A very helpful article Steve, thanks.

I have 'Windows Registry Repair Pro'... it allows you to restore changes you've made (if you've cocked up) not too sure how this would rate amongst the rest?

Catweazle (part 2) said on Tuesday, 26 August 2008

Also 'it also didn't provide categories, such as invalid path or shared DLL, in order to help me decide whether items were safe to delete.' Yes it does. It tells you what category the fault lies in and also codes the entries red or green according to whether you should pay some attention to it or just delete it regardless.

I always delete every registry entry that RegSeeker finds and have never had any issues. That, of course, will now guarantee a cornucopia of future problems!

Hey ho...

Catweazle (part 1) said on Tuesday, 26 August 2008

I didn't recognise the RegSeeker reviewed compared to that which I have installed and use regularly.

The author says 'its interface sports a strangely labelled 'OK!' button that doesn't really give you a sense of what the program will do next.' It seemed quite obvious to me when I came upon it. Said button also contains a small picture of a besom which quite clearly indicates what it is going to do!

Also 'you must make sure to check the 'Backup before deletion' option, another oddly labelled feature.' In my opinion, not true on both counts. The 'Backup before deletion' is a) not oddly labelled - entirely logical in my view, and b) is checked by default and one has to uncheck if required, i.e. the default condition is to perform a backup. Not a problem there I think.

wilsenda said on Tuesday, 26 August 2008

As a newbie, I have been advised to use RegCure - recommended as the best available, but it doesn't get a mention. Why not?

WANEY said on Thursday, 28 August 2008

Thanks John,
I have the Windows XP system, any advice anyone?

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