Windows Vista Restore old ccleaner backup?

Newbie here.

My Vista 64 computer is running slower than it used to. It's about as fast as my old XP.

Should I restore my ccleaner registry backups? Or will the merge just add unnecessary junk to the registry?

I read somewhere a while back that registry repair utilities are notorious for causing speed problems.

I read somewhere else that my Norton 360 might be part of the problem.

And today I read here (http://www.windowsbbs.com/windows-xp/61015-xp-fixes-myth-1-registry-cleaners.html) that registry cleaners tend to do more harm
than good, and they should not be used as general purpose utilities.

I've been using ccleaner on this computer since July 2009. The last time I used it was Nov 2010.

 

Thanks.

I have scanned with malwarebytes. Norton scans automatically. I have not run any Norton manual scans.

I also use TUT, The Ultimate Troubleshooter, to find and disable unnecessary programs (such as Quicktime).

The decrease in performance was not recent. It happened gradually since I bought the computer in July 2009. I installed ccleaner and Norton when I bought it.

I read a recommendation in another forum that said to uninstall Norton, install and run Avira (rated one of the best AV's this year), then go back to Norton. (Not done.)

 

Norton does slow down the computer but as it has slowed down over a period of time, I would rule that out.

You can do following to see if it helps:

1. Run chkdsk /f on all your drives.
2. Run defragmentation on all your drives.
3. Have a look at the page file. If its dynamic [Let Windows decide], change it to fixed size as per Windows suggestion - aim for the highest page file possible.
4. Make space on disks.
5. Empty temporary files.

 

Here is some things I would do and I do with mind ever so often Uninstall Nortons 360 Suites have a history of slowing down a computer. It does so much that it not as affective on the AV side go to http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ and download house calls and run it (its Free) Then go to http://www.malwarebytes.org/ and download it( It's free also)
after That download Advast anti virus the Free Home addition Get it at http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download install it register it again It is free. then after you install it update it and schedule a boot time scan and it will run a scan the next time you restart the computer Run your cCleaner also. How old is the computer?
average life of a harddrive is 3 to five years they can start slowing down a computer when they reach 3 years depending on if it stays on all the time

 

Where did you read this about a HD slowing down? I have a PC that the only time that it gets shut down is if I loose power or have to reboot for an install to take affect. It is 13 years old and runs as quick today as when it was new. It started out with 98SE, then 2K then XP.

 

Average life of hard disk doesn't equate to its slowing down when it reaches that age ! They are not humans.

The technical term is Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF). But its a statistical value & hard disk can fail much before or after it.

 

Something that can slow your system down is having more than one antimalware running at the same time. So don't let Malware bytes run in the background along with Norton.

You can boot into Safe Mode and see if it is slow there. You can also start up the antimalware and run scans there.

Watch you HDD LED, it should stop soon after log in and only flash intermittently after that.

 

Yes, malwarebytes runs a lot faster when I put Norton in Silent Mode.

I ran malwarebytes again today and found an infected registry key and an infected key value.
Performance has improved somewhat.

Another symptom is slow startup. Startup takes five minutes, then a few more minutes after logon.
(I have eliminated unnecessary startups with TUT.) I suspect this may have happened after
a ccleaner registry fix.

 

If you have followed or looked into the instructions for CCleaner or Malwarebytes, there should have been a backup made for your changes. You should be able to "restore" any changes you "made in anger"

If you can restore your changes, you need to find a different fix for the problem. [Was there a problem in the first place? ] You need to be careful, CCleaner and Malwarebytes are great programs, but they are very powerful and will warn you so. Making changes in the registry is very, very delicate in my opinion and if there are any changes required to the registry, I investigate them very carefully.

Don't just go out and look for a "registry fixing" program. That's not the answer.

See if you can reverse your changes, then look more closely if there is a problem, what the cause might be and how it can be solved.

Matt

 

Hi Space Ranger, FWIW, I have given Symantec (Norton) the flick completely. I had Norton AV 2002, NAV 2006, NAV 2007 & NIR 2007.

When I purchased NIR and did the usual uninstall of previous AV - I could not get NIR to finalize. I contacted Symantec and one of their Techos took Remote Control of my comp and spent 3½ hours clearing out their c--p before it would allow the NIR to finalize.

Less than 9 months later, my comp was taking 10mins to load up and allow me to use it. I then followed a process that Mike Flynn Posted here to thoroughly clean all traces of Symantec from my comp and have since tried other AV software (Free) and have settled on Avast on 3 Home comps and MSE on 2 others (Laptop & my main comp)

Symantec can be Resource hungry on some comps and if anyone would like the above-mentioned Norton software (all in their original boxes) please ask.

If you have followed the advice suggested by others above - mine would be to try another AV program. I did try Avira but got sick and tired of the 'splash screen' that kept appearing all the time asking to purchase their Pro software.

Many other users complained bitterly about this and I decided to try Avast instead. Sorry to be longwinded - but these are my thoughts about AV's.
Cheers Neil.
ps. 1½ minutes max for startup now.