re: Speed up general operation of XP
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 10:58 am
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by MartinM
(7549 messages posted)
Well, I didn't want to load the post with all the information I have. But your challenge
is fair, so here's a brief summary:
1. I spent 10 years as the CIO of a global corporation responsible among all the
other things for stable, secure desktop computing. Since retiring, sad to say, my
abiding interest in how PCs work has led to me working on a very large number of
XP PCs to fix problems and to help with advanced user-stuff (like writing databases
and that sort of thing). Those are the two reasons for my exposure to and thinking
about Registry "cleaners".
2. In all my professional employment, I did not come across one major corporation
which had Registry "cleaners" in its armoury.
3. From time to time it seems to me (I am being very careful here) that problems
with XP's registry have been caused by the use of a Registry "cleaner". Admittedly
some of these are scam applications, but others are not.
After I've fixed the issues (sometimes a System Restore will do it when I'm lucky,
other times its much more difficult), on at least 5 occasions in the last 3 years
as far as I remember, I have been able to reproduce the issue by running the "cleaner".
4. I have never (another word I use carefully) come across a situation where a problem
(by which I mean something that the user was experiencing, not what a "cleaner" reports
as a problem) has been fixed by using a "cleaner". I have experimented with this
to assure myself, but I no longer do so as I did not fix anthing this way.
5. Try running one of these applications on a fresh install of XP. I've tried this
on several occasions and using different "cleaners". I've seen between 50 and 1,500
issues reported. Something is surely amiss here ?
Now on to analysis rather than evidence:
6. XP does a pretty good job of keeping its Registry in shape. Certinaly much better
than W98.
7. Unused Registry entries (which are the vast majority of what "cleaners" identify)
are harmless and do not measurably affect performance. The Registry is loaded into
memory and access to it is extremely fast - it has to be as nowadays pretty well
every application, and Windows, are referring to/updating it all the time.
8. By no means all applications conform to MS's standards for Registry use - where
they are defined - and in areas where they are not defined (lots of those) software
providers are free to do what they like . . . and certainly do.
Therefore I think it it pretty unlikely that a Registry "cleaner" could know about
how every application is using the Registry, and about every combination of installations
and user settings.
So:
9. I have not seen Registry "cleaners" do any good.
10. I have seen occasional examples of Registry "cleaners" doing harm.
11. For me, the theory of Registry cleaning is flawed.
12. Again for me, the idea of "cleaning" a whole registry rather than tracking down
the miscreant and fixing it (and it often turns out not to be a Registry issue -
look through the posts in this forum for a rough view of the proportion) is wrong.
My own conclusion is that it is unwise to encourage users to use Registry "cleaners.
I was careful to say "in my opinion" in my previous post, because I know that that's
all it is. It is not a "fact" but I have enough experience around these applications
to dare to state it, in the hope of helping others to avoid the worst that I have
seen and to be headed for no benefit thagt I can identify.
Footnote.
There are those - and I may be among them - who have an innate sense of tidiness
and to whom Registry cleaning and Disk defragmentation are intellectually appealling.
Either are fine as long as you have recently taken a full iamge backup. But that
is hardly useful or practical advice to the average user who - by the evidence of
this forum and my own eyes, often does not back up anything at all.
LoL
PS If you are arguing that Registry "cleaners" are both safe and effective (they
have to be both, to be worthwhile), where's your evidence (other than the application
itself telling you it has fixed nnnn isses) ?
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