Registry Entries question ?

**wonwinglo** · 01-10-2006

Now go easy on me here as I am no computer geek,but this is my dilemma,and any advice will be very welcome-
I Decided to try one of those registry cleaners,this one is called Regcare,after scanning my system it detected 990 things that were wrong (?) these are listed as follows-

No.1 COM Active entries 31/31
No.2 Uninstall Entries 1/1
No.3 Application Paths 7/7
No.4 Windows Start up items 6/6 * see below,needed
No.5 File Path References 473/473 * see below,needed
No.6 Program Shortcuts 1/1
No.7 Empty Registry Keys 471/471

After deleting all of the 990 entries I found that certain aspects of my system did not work,for example my main Database would not fire up,fortunately I had quarantined the deletions so decided to experiment until I got the database back and functioning again,the results were that No.4 Windows start up items & No.5 File path references were retained and the rest were deleted as they did not seem to affect my database,in other words 511 out of the 990 were deleted.
My question is do I need to worry about the ones deleted or are these needed for anything else ?
I found this out by trial and error,why did the registry cleanup want to delete items that were essential for my operating system ? was this an overkill ? Do I need to re-instate any more of the above ?

**John** · 01-10-2006

I think it's a case of if it's not broke don't fix it, I've tried loads of these sort of registry cleaners and all of them find loads of errors, even after fixing them I've found very little if any performance increase

**wonwinglo** · 01-10-2006

http://www.softpanorama.org/Unixific...cleaning.shtml

I think that now having tried this stuff I agree with you John,what is the point of cleaning a registry if it can present problems with removed items ? read this bit above it says it all,I think on reflection it is a scam to generate money,it also mentions that Regclean the one that Microsoft used has now been withdrawn due to problems with some Microsoft operating systems.

Skuta · 01-10-2006

I have used regclean for years on 95, 98 and now XP. Never had any problems probably becuase it's manual. It presents you with different lists of programs that are in the registry, you can then mark the entries you wish to remove. A golden rule that I use is to only remove registry entries from programs you are 100% certain that you have removed.
Gary

**wonwinglo** · 01-10-2006

Sounds like the way to treat these registry cleaners Skuta,glad that I asked about them now.

**GEEDUBBYA** · 01-10-2006

Howdy Barry, Guys,

What I am about to say, you probably already know....."If you are inexperienced with computers and specifically the registry, the best advice is LEAVE IT ALONE". Let someone who deals with computers for a living clean your registry.
I have had to help countless people reboot (from scratch) their computer operating systems due to them "fooling around" with the registry.
You can cause all sorts of things to stop functioning.....including your entire computer.
However, you did the right thing by not deleting the files you removed. Deleting them right away is a mistake that people often make whenever they delete anything.....especially things they are not sure of or dont understand.
Anyway, glad to hear all was not lost and it appears you have it under control now.

Have a good day,

Greg

**wonwinglo** · 02-10-2006

You bet Greg,rest assured I have learned a valuable lesson from this,these registry cleaners are dangerous in the wrong hands,now I will leave things as they are and if there is any problems in opening up any software then simply re-instate the other quarantined items,you would think that a grading system could be introduced so that the chaff could be seperated from the vital stuff ? as John says I doubt whether there is any real advantage in speed anyway once the ones selected are deleted,the one area where there probably is cause for any concern would be the inplanting of spyware in those HKEY's ? as I mentioned if there was some way of sorting them out it would be a better idea.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GEEDUBBYA

Howdy Barry, Guys,

What I am about to say, you probably already know....."If you are inexperienced with computers and specifically the registry, the best advice is LEAVE IT ALONE". Let someone who deals with computers for a living clean your registry.
I have had to help countless people reboot (from scratch) their computer operating systems due to them "fooling around" with the registry.
You can cause all sorts of things to stop functioning.....including your entire computer.
However, you did the right thing by not deleting the files you removed. Deleting them right away is a mistake that people often make whenever they delete anything.....especially things they are not sure of or dont understand.
Anyway, glad to hear all was not lost and it appears you have it under control now.

Have a good day,

Greg

**Bluewavestudios** · 02-10-2006

In answer to Barrys Post,
Yes there is a way of sorting the registry entries left by spyware and viruses on your system...Spybot Search and Destroy will dig these out for you and deal with them accordingly....as will Ad-aware.
These are both free programmes and have been recommended on here many times.
I use both these in Conjunction with AVG Anti-virus and they work very well.

Mark.

**GEEDUBBYA** · 03-10-2006

Howdy Mark,

I also use ad aware, and it works great at removing those "resitry files inserted by spyware. but, its not a "single purpose" program designed to only remove registry files....it does remove other harmful files. I use it in conjunction with AVG also and the pair cant be beat for the money spent ($0 ) lol.
But these "registry cleaners" which are "single purpose" programs.....I leave them alone and unless someone knows of one that is one hundred percent fool proof, I would advize others to do the same. Of course tats just my opinion, but every time I hear of someone "fiddling around with" their registry, there is almost always a sad story to go with it.

Have a good day,

Greg

rjwood_uk · 03-10-2006

i use spyware nuker xt and kasperski anti-viru. both absolutly brilliant programs (but they are not free) Kasperski is rated as probably the best ant-virus program out there and stops everything in its path and both prgrams keep your registery nice and tidy and spyware/adware..etc free. in fact kasperski even tells you if a new registery entry is being made and asks for your permission to let it carry on.