PC: registry fix

Charlyn

Does anyone know of a free registry repair that you'd be happy to recommend for a pc that's bogged down? Thanks

Nevyn

Re install your operationg system.

Charlyn

I don't think so!

petes

Bogged down by what?

JonathanAnon

CC Cleaner
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download

is a useful tool for "cleaning" Windows.. but I think you should probably
i) remove any unwanted software from the PC
ii) stop any unnecessary programs from running on startup
iii) run full anti virus / spyware scans
before you run CCCleaner

Also, are you sure that you have enough free space on your C: drive.

Fysh

Charlyn wrote: »

Does anyone know of a free registry repair that you'd be happy to recommend for a pc that's bogged down? Thanks

Bogged down by what? How long has the PC been running with its current install? Was it a clean install or an upgrade from a previous OS? How often do you install software on it, and do you remove unwanted software using the correct uninstallation routines? What do you have in mind when you say "registry repair"?

Thaedyal's suggestion is a good one, whether or not you personally think so (And it's worth noting you're asking for advice on a forum, so dismissing a valid suggestion out of hand is a bit rude). An OS reinstall should take under an hour on even moderate hardware, and you can use the File & Settings Transfer Wizard/Windows Easy Transfer utility in your OS to create a migration-friendly copy of your account and configuration settings. Reinstalling your applications is a bit tedious, but on the other hand this is a good opportunity to take stock and check what software you have installed versus what software you actually need.

CCleaner may help with your issue, but it's impossible to say without knowing what the issue actually is. And when your original post asks for a "registry repair" I'm not inclined to be enormously confident in your expertise, to be honest.

Jimbo

Winutilities Pro is currently being offerred free by Softpedia which might be a better solution than CCLeaner.
Thread here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=66211251

I've found it helped pep up some of my older computers a bit.

Overheal

Thaedydal wrote: »

Re install your operationg system.

I thought you would have known by now Thaed :eek:,

JonathanAnon wrote: »

CC Cleaner
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download

is a useful tool for "cleaning" Windows.. but I think you should probably
i) remove any unwanted software from the PC
ii) stop any unnecessary programs from running on startup
iii) run full anti virus / spyware scans
before you run CCCleaner

Also, are you sure that you have enough free space on your C: drive.

Its really very simple and does wonders. All I do myself is uncheck the option for Unused File Extensions, then run the cleaner twice or thrice in succession. Only takes about 20 seconds per run.

Though I usually do ccleaner First before any virus or defrag runs, only because it takes the shortest amount of time by a long shot.

Also go into ccleaners Tools>Startup tab and Deactivate everything absolutely non-essential that tries to load on startup. That will immediately shave anywhere from 1 to I've even seen 5 minutes off the Boot times of a really slow computer.

For Registry problems, unless the registry is Corrupt, theres no need to perform an OS reinstall/repair. I've never had to do a reformat for it.

Capt'n Midnight

Thaedydal wrote: »

Re install your operationg system.

You'll likely just re-inherit registry problems

As the reinstall will do a hardware re-detect it might solve some driver problems but cause just as many

BTW if you just want to refresh windows files, without changing the registry something use this sfc /scannow



if the machine has only recently gotton slow then check for malware and if clean do a system restore back to when it was faster

Charlyn

Thanks very much everyone who answered post. I've installed CCleaner and so far so good. Happy with the results and my laptop is now working much faster.

coldfire1x

This works well:

http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/registry-cleaner/

Naikon

You can't really "fix" registry problems, unless of course you have the ability to parse it's binary contents and make sense of the data yourself. Otherwise, reinstall or move to an OS without a registry.

Capt'n Midnight

Naikon wrote: »

You can't really "fix" registry problems, unless of course you have the ability to parse it's binary contents and make sense of the data yourself. Otherwise, reinstall or move to an OS without a registry.

fix
you can remove orphaned entries with reg cleaners
you can clean up some settings with a reinstall

a reinstall won't always help as stuff gets inherited, and a reinstall won't remove a lot of bloat

and you can kill any OS by upsetting the config files, and yes I've had to reinstall the display manager for X from the command line and yes it hasn't always worked.

Naikon

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

fix
you can remove orphaned entries with reg cleaners
you can clean up some settings with a reinstall

a reinstall won't always help as stuff gets inherited, and a reinstall won't remove a lot of bloat

and you can kill any OS by upsetting the config files, and yes I've had to reinstall the display manager for X from the command line and yes it hasn't always worked.

Okay, surely the uninstall wizard/registry interfaces should handle oprphan entries? Mind you, I don't know how the registry works, just that I hate dealing with it(had to reinstall 7 on brothers laptop a month ago). What if you strip down the install using nlite or vlite? Surely a freash partition with a clean windows 7 is better than an old install? Also, Xorg does crash yes, most likely caused by binary nvidia drivers, which don't have sources.Fullscreen SDL apps have crashed X on me, but I have always been able to restart X via a tty login or the majic keys. If you can get a login shell, you are sorted. This has not been the case with Windows 7 I have found. Xorg.conf damaged? A simple Xorg -Configure; cp -rpv /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11 usually solves the problem. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft fully seperates the GUI from the CLI in the upcoming releases. Maybe it's just me, but I CANNOT understand why a server needs a GUI in the first place.

Fysh

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

fix
you can remove orphaned entries with reg cleaners
you can clean up some settings with a reinstall

a reinstall won't always help as stuff gets inherited, and a reinstall won't remove a lot of bloat

Fair comments, but in the absence of anything more informative or specific than "I need a registry repair tool" a total reinstall is still a valid option to consider.

The potential issues faced by the reinstalled OS will depend on how thorough the process is ie. do you do a repair install or a clean install? do you nuke the original partition and reformat it the thorough and slow way (or better yet use a third party utility to handle partitions & formatting)? Do you use original media or slipstream service packs/drivers?

I'm not saying a reinstall is the first, last, only and preferred option for fixing problems - but given the choice of potentially spending tens of hours trying to fix a vague and unspecified error, or spending a couple of hours reinstalling the OS and software, I know which option I'd go for. It's always useful to know when to cut your losses.

Naikon

Fysh wrote: »

Fair comments, but in the absence of anything more informative or specific than "I need a registry repair tool" a total reinstall is still a valid option to consider.

The potential issues faced by the reinstalled OS will depend on how thorough the process is ie. do you do a repair install or a clean install? do you nuke the original partition and reformat it the thorough and slow way (or better yet use a third party utility to handle partitions & formatting)? Do you use original media or slipstream service packs/drivers?

I'm not saying a reinstall is the first, last, only and preferred option for fixing problems - but given the choice of potentially spending tens of hours trying to fix a vague and unspecified error, or spending a couple of hours reinstalling the OS and software, I know which option I'd go for. It's always useful to know when to cut your losses.

I agree fully with all you are saying, I just think it's a bit mad that it's required to reinstall the OS over a sluggish system. Kinda like the reboot craze people have(i.e don't look for a fix you fool, reboot!!!). Applications should not require a full reboot.

JonathanAnon

Fysh wrote: »

Fair comments, but in the absence of anything more informative or specific than "I need a registry repair tool" a total reinstall is still a valid option to consider.

Not to get in the middle of a mod fight ;-) , but I disagree... based on the OP's posting, it's fair to assume that a reinstall would be a big deal for this user .... Simply saying "reinstall your operating system" is not a proper, feasible solution. Reinstalling the OS would probably sort out all of the problems on this forum, but the reason people dont do it every time is because it's a lot of hassle.

For a normal user (i.e. not a computer engineer), reinstall should be the last course of action after you have exhausted all other avenues..

Fysh

JonathanAnon wrote: »

Not to get in the middle of a mod fight ;-) , but I disagree... based on the OP's posting, it's fair to assume that a reinstall would be a big deal for this user .... Simply saying "reinstall your operating system" is not a proper, feasible solution. Reinstalling the OS would probably sort out all of the problems on this forum, but the reason people dont do it every time is because it's a lot of hassle.

For a normal user (i.e. not a computer engineer), reinstall should be the last course of action after you have exhausted all other avenues..

Ah, but a user with the level of sophistication involved in this thread is not someone who should be buggering about with their registry with a tool they've never used before and most likely don't understand either, should they?

Aside from which, people with a proper backup regimen don't find reinstalling a lot of hassle. Neither do people who regularly take images of their boot partition. So while I get your point, I disagree with the idea behind it - the people who find a reinstall tedious and time-consuming are the very same people who have no interest in understanding the complex tool which they're using.

JonathanAnon

Ah, but a user with the level of sophistication involved in this thread is not someone who should be buggering about with their registry with a tool they've never used before and most likely don't understand either, should they?

I agree with not running any quick fix software on your PC, but I think it's safe enough to run well established software. I mean there's a certain element of risks when running any software.... even the Windows Updates can mess up a PC at times (as was the case in a recent thread).. But I take your point.

Aside from which, people with a proper backup regimen don't find reinstalling a lot of hassle. Neither do people who regularly take images of their boot partition. So while I get your point, I disagree with the idea behind it - the people who find a reinstall tedious and time-consuming are the very same people who have no interest in understanding the complex tool which they're using.

If it was the case that you could forgo any information on the PC, then I would agree. It has been my experience that the large majority of users will not usually have any software required reinstall the PC, and will not have their data backed up properly.

Capt'n Midnight

just to clarify , to me the word reinstall means you install on top of the existing copy of windows and so inherit some files and settings

if you remove the old copy of windows first such that there are no settings to inherit then you are doing a clean install


and yes windows seems to have a half life and slows down / becomes more unstable as it accumulates crud that you will no longer be able to clear out and will eventually require you to give up and do a clean install. Depends on how much messing you do , some people won't ever have to and others will spend more time fixing windows than using it.