Need help with finding a good, free Registry Cleaner

I recently had my laptop disinfected by a staff member here on windowsbbs.com named GERI. Phenomenal job by her...thanks geri. I did install an antivirus and a malware detector after the disinfection was done. My Laptop while it's not infected continues to run slower than it should. I highly suspect the registry needs to be cleaned. Any suggestions???

 

I'll second that, PeteC. I've used RegSeeker for well over a year on 4 different machines, with no problems, until I started using Vista. There, regseeker will find a bunch of items for deletion. You could delete all the items, immediately "clean the registry" again, and all of the item you thought you had just deleted are back again.
I am currently using EUSing Registry Cleaner, and, so far, so good-both under XP and Vista.
If anyone had trouble with it, please let us know. I picked it more or less at random, and used it on a computer that won't be missed if it crashes.

 

Well I'm open for suggestion. Leaving the registry alone is always an option. But my laptop is still slow...Could it be not enough memory? any other suggestions????

 

Cleaning the registry will not do much for the performance of a PC.

However, cleaning up the startup processes can improve performance. CCleaner is another freebie that has the ability to do both.

However, MSCONFIG is also free and does that too.

 

I hesitate to contradict, because even though I'm shown as a senior member with intermediate experience, I still feel like a novice. I buy all of my computers used. They invariably have had quite a bit of "stuff" deleted from them, if not by the previous owner, then by me after the purchase. In at least 3 computers, after having run regseeker, and after having found between 1500 to as high as 2500 items to delete, I always felt that the speed increase was from noticeable to dramatic. Regseeker 1.55 has the option of undoing what you have done. I have never had any occasion to do that. In my humble opinion, I would say, go ahead and clean the registry. I also run Adaware2008, AVG8.0, ASquared, SpywareBlaster. I don't visit too many unseemly sites, so I don't pick up too much malware. There are plenty of cookies to get rid of however. All in all, the 5 computers that I maintain in my home all run essentially flawlessly. I probably overdo on keeping the various programs updated, but it seems to work for me.

 

I never said I did not use registry cleaners, just that registry cleaning by itself does virtually nothing for the run time performance of a PC.

Unless of course one includes unneeded startup processes, cache, MRU lists, history lists, and such as registry entries.

 

Hi virtue1boy, you say your comp runs slow after installing an AV program. Can you tell me what you run? I assume XP (Pro or Home?). Do you have SP3 installed? What AV program did you install? Neil.

 

Hi everyone!!!!!

I did not mean to start a "polite argument" between you guys but my laptop is a 2002 fujitsu with:

Microsoft Windows XP
Home Edition
Version 2002
Service Pack 3 (recent upgrade)
Hardrive: 14.6 GB
**All current updates installed

First of all. I tried the "regseeker" and I tested it by removing registry files that started with the word "Norton ". Then I attempted to restore the files back to the registry and "regseeker" crashed twice. And I found out that product is from some guy in France....thanks, but no thanks!!! I also assume when you say "AV" you mean antivirus...I did install AVG Free 8.0 after Geri helped rid my computer of VIRTUMONDE. My hardrive is only 14.6 GB and most antivirus programs are just too big. So are you suggesting that my AV could be the culprit (to retiredlearner)????

 

@virtue1boy

Right click on your C drive and see how much free space you have. That could be the slowness problem.

Have you got indexing turned off?

Look in your add/remove programs and see if you can uninstall unneeded programs. 14 Gigs is very small and some of the things you have installed may be "smothering" your operating room and thus your speed.

 

Sorry I'm late getting back to your question. My own experience with Anti-Virus programs is on previous posts, but I have had 5 min slow down with Norton AV & NIS. I had to get Mike Flynns help with total removal of Norton & Symantec glug. I tried AVG 7.5 which worked OK except it hogs at startup a bit. I updated to AVG 8.0 after installing SP3 and there was a major conflict so I uninstalled AVG. I now have all my comps running with Avast 4.8 which at this point in time does not conflict with anything and it is not a resource hog like Norton and minor hog like AVG. I'm very happy with Avast it runs in the background without slowing normal operation down. You will find Anti-Virus programs are a big talking point and what you find works best for your application is what you will go with. My son uses Avira Anti-Virus and he's happy with that. Note: I did have a conflict with AVG 8.0 hence my change and no problems. If you Google you'll find a lot of users have had conflicts with AVG 8.0 and SP3. Best of luck .Neil.

 

Another option is Registry compaction - it rewrites the registry deleting most of the blank keys.

I have been using NTRegOpt & ERUNT for many years.

http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

 

Yea I did have indexing "on" so I turned it off. My available space is about 55% which is pretty decent I think.

 

55% free space is good. That's what I have.

Now, are you talking about the lap top being slow to boot or slow to open programs or just slow on the internet?

The slow to boot is usually caused by loading too much stuff at start up. You can fix this by not starting stuff that you don't need to run at start up. This should be done in the program that is running. They usually have a "start with windows" check box that you can deselect. I have no programs that run from the Programs menu and only a very few from the run command in the registry. MSCONFIG is a good temporary stopping point for troubleshooting but after you find which is slowing you down, it should be stopped from the registry.

I only run Avast, Comodo firewall, Winpatrol and True Image Monitor. I also don't run System Restore as I use Acronis for daily backups.

Check back after a good cleanup and we will see what sort of progress you may have made....

I think I would start with a good cleanup of temp files and temporary internet files, a ckdisk and a defrag.

 

Here's one for you to try.This is from ZDnet.com a list of 10 programs that are known to bring a computer to it's knees and keep the owner weeping.
Yes I "have" had this stuff on my system and it is slow.
If nothing else goto this (http://content.zdnet.com/2346-9595_22-202392.html)
and at least read it.Very funny stuff.
Jack

 

If all you are trying to clean out is Norton, you might want to give the Norton Uninstaller a try. It can be found on the Symantec.com website.

BTW, if you are trying to eradicate McAfee, there is an uninstaller for that on the McAfee.com website, too.

I found that the Norton uninstaller removed about 98% of the traces, which was much better than the 55% removed by the normal uninstaller.

 

My laptop was running SLOW (period) so I removed the AVG8 and It worked. Everything is fast now!!!!!!!!. Yes I also did a defrag. But I had to keep restarting the defrag because it was giving me an error that said it could not fix certain files. So I kept on doin it over and over until it would'nt defrag any further...I got like 90 percent of the "c" drive done. I haven't loaded AVAST yet but thanks for all your help guys. V1B.

 

Hi V1B, Have you tried running Error checking? Start > Computer > Right click new volume (C > Properties > Tools > Error checking and follow setup. Neil.