re: Speed up general operation of XP
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 6:14 am
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Alan Masterman
(462 messages posted)
Steve,
My apologies for the delayed response. I tend to forget where I've posted messages.
My first positive result was back in the days of Win98SE (which, you may remember,
was notorious for its shutdown problems). At that time I began running Registry
Mechanic 98 (did I get the name right?), and that solved the shutdown problems.
Another time related to a certain download accelerator program (no names mentioned,
but its initials happen to be DAP) which I installed and set as my default download
manager. Later I uninstalled it, after which, whenever I tried to download anything,
I got the waving flashlight and the message "Windows is trying to locate... " result:
a minute or two wasted, and no download. This was solved by registry cleaning,
but I can't remember now by which program.
Then there was the network printer which was removed, but my computer wasn't aware
of it. When I booted up it would search for the printer until the network protocol
timed out, which, as you know, would have added about a minute to every boot time.
This one was solved by WinASO Registry Optimizer.
I reckon a lot of the confusion about registry cleaning is caused by the software
vendors themselves, who usually imply that their products will improve performance
by "reducing registry bloat". This is misleading, and they do themselves no service
by advertising in this fashion. In fact any product which advertises itself in this
way is probably a good one to avoid, because they clearly don't understand the issues.
Even in a system which is neglected for years, bad registry entries will seldom amount
to more than 1% of the total. So reducing that "bloat" is really not going to make
any detectable difference to performance.
The real value of cleaning is in the quality (not the quantity) of the entries it
deletes. I've written about this in other forums and I hesitate to go over it all
again, but one [trivial] example will suffice.
Your registry might contain information relating to a music CD which you played last
month (and perhaps will never play again). What could be more harmless or trivial?
Well, not much, except that in principle that information could be read by malware,
which will transmit it back to its home server, thus allowing you to be targetted
by spam tailored more accurately to your interests (and PS, if you were thinking
that Microsoft Security Essentials or your Vista firewall would prevent that, think
again - they won't even try. Fortunately, a few third-party programs will, including
ZoneAlarm and Threatfire).
Spam doesn't rank highest in the scale of security threats. But you get my point.
My recommendations?
By all means avoid using freeware registry cleaners which nobody has ever heard of.
And if the author boasts that it has been written in C for greater efficiency, consider
yourself warned!!!
Use only brand-name cleaners which have a proven track record and are free for personal
use (eg Advanced SystemCare; Glary Utilities; Registry Mechanic).
I'm afraid that in a decade of registry cleaning, I've yet to come across any of
the lurid examples of wholesale system destruction which the doomsayers prophesy
about.
If you really like living on the edge, try running deep security scans of your system
by anti-virus programs, and delete all the trojans they think they have found...
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