Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Do Experts Believe Registry Cleaners Really Essential?

By Jose Watinks

Registry cleaners are one of the controversial topics among computer users. Some claim the regular use of them is necessary for optimal computer performance, increasing speed and disk space. Others claim they do more harm than good, and should be avoided at all costs.

Registry cleaners basically scan your computers registry for entries like malaware, invalid or unused files, DLL files that may not be of use, and corrupted or fragmented files. They then delete these files, and the theory then is that your computer will run faster and will have less problems. However, the questions arise - is all this cleaning really necessary? Are you given the option of manually removing the files that are listed as unnecessary and harmful?

Using a registry cleaner can be dangerous, according to some experts. It may remove files that are necessary for programs to load or perform properly. It can even cause a full system crash. They state that the best results may be the gain of a few kilobytes of disk space, and maybe a faster start up. However, with the storage and disk space on most computers that is a negligible result. Are these programs just 'snake oil, ' as one expert reviewer has stated?

It is possible that the free trials of cleaners give ambiguous information about registry errors, in hopes you will buy the program. Once installed and run, you may find that your computer is faster, and loads better. However, alternatively, you just may find that it has removed some necessary registry entries and you have lost or impaired functionality. Running the program will probably not speed up your computer noticeably, and you may even find it slower because it fragments the registry.

Most of the registry cleaners on the market claim that you will need to run the program periodically in order to keep your registry clean and free of errors. However, just because there are a few orphaned entries and files, they do not affect your computer's speed or performance in a noticeable way. It may even mark some 'good' files as bad, and schedule them for removal.

Experts advise that if you feel the need to fix your registry, you should do it manually. If you don't have the skill, then either leave it alone or hire an expert to do it for you. Do not rely on registry cleaners that may have received some good reviews, but have little in the way of real hard data to back up their claims.

As you begin with a new and clean computer system, take a few basic steps to keep it that way. Use only licensed programs, and keep back up disks so you can reinstall or correct any problems that occur. Make frequent backups of critical data. Always have a good anti-virus system installed, keeping it updated at all times, and running. Don't install and uninstall trial software. Use the disk cleanup and defragment programs regularly. With these steps in place, you will not feel the need to use registry cleaners.

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