Registry cleaner

Registry cleaner

A registry cleaner is a type of software utility designed for the Microsoft Windows operating system whose purpose is to remove redundant or unwanted items from the Windows registry. However the necessity and usefullness of registry cleaners is a controversial topic, with experts not agreeing on their benefit. The problem is further clouded by the fact that malware and scareware is often being associated with utilities of this type.

Purpose

Registry Cleaners attempt to remove configuration data from the Windows Registry that is no longer in use or that is unwanted on the system. Such data may include information left by software that has not been uninstalled completely from the computer, information that is no longer of use, or settings required for the operation of malware. It is possible that these persistent items may interfere with performance or have other negative impacts.Fact|date=April 2008 A legitimate registry cleaner scans the registry, and attempts to pick out the unnecessary values in order to delete or repair them.

Advantages

Registry cleaners, or registry cleanup software, can in some cases improve the performance of computers by ridding the registry of redundant information.

Due to the sheer size and complexity of the registry database, manually cleaning up debris and invalid entries would be impractical, so registry cleaners are essentially tools that automate the process of looking for invalid entries, missing file references or broken links within the registry and resolving them. However, due to the actual size of the registry hive (usually totaling in the 500 kB range), its performance impact is negligible.

In certain cases the correction of an invalid registry key can provide limited benefit. For example, a registry entry indicating a program should be run at startup from a network path that no longer exists can delay startup by as long as the network protocol takes to timeout. Most registry cleaners however make no distinction as to the severity of the errors, and many that do erroneously categorize errors as "critical" with little or no basis to support it.

Noted Windows architecture expert Mark Russinovich has concluded that registry cleaners will continue to have a role until most applications have moved to the .NET Framework platform that does not rely on the registry for application settings. [cite web|url=http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2005/10/02/registry-junk-a-windows-fact-of-life.aspx|title=Registry Junk: A Windows Fact of Life|accessdate=2008-06-21|publisher= [http://blogs.technet.com Mark Russinovich] ]

Some registry cleaners offer backup and restore functions that allow the user to revert changes made by the registry cleaner in case they are undesired. A Registry Cleaner may be useful for someone that adds or removes programs from their computer very often, however most organisations would rebuild a problem machine back to a known, good state rather than waste resources trying to repair a machine that is not working. Furthermore, professionals typically use virtual machines for scenarios such as testing or application packaging where programs need to be installed and uninstalled frequently.

Disadvantages


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Most notably, critics say there is no reliable way for a third party program to know whether any particular key is invalid, redundant or neither. Poorly designed registry cleaners may not know for sure whether a key is still being used by Windows or what detrimental effects removing it may have. This has led to examples of registry cleaners causing loss of functionality and/or system instability. [cite web|url=http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/sunset-c2002kb.nsf/pfdocs/2001142275577966?OpenDocument&Src=bar_sch_nam&docid=2001142275577966|title=Error: "Internet Explorer Script Error..." when scanning after running a registry cleanup utility|publisher=Symantec|accessdate=2008-05-19|date=October 2, 2002] [cite web|url=http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951950|title=The .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 installation fails on a computer that has the .NET Framework 2.0 installed and that is running Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, or Windows 2000|date=April 24, 2008|accessdate=2008-05-19|publisher=Microsoft] [cite web|url=http://support.microsoft.com/kb/247678|title=OL2000: Error Message: "Outlook Caused an Invalid Page Fault in Module Msvcrt.dll" When Creating an Appointment|date=November 5, 2003|accessdate=2008-05-19|publisher=Microsoft]

Malware

The benefits of Registry cleaners have been used by a number of trojan applications to install malware, typically through social engineering attacks that use website popups. Rogue registry cleaner "WinFixer" has been ranked as one of the most prevalent pieces of malware currently in circulation. [cite web|url=http://www.stopbadware.org/reports/reportdisplay?reportname=winfixer|publisher=StopBadware.Org|accessdate=2008-06-21|title=WinFixer]

careware

Rogue registry cleaners are often marketed with alarmist advertisements that falsely claim to have pre-analyzed your PC, displaying bogus warnings to take "corrective" action, hence the reason that they are sometimes called "scareware". In October 2008, Microsoft and the Washington attorney general filed a lawsuit against two Texas firms, Branch Software and Alpha Red, producers of the "Registry Cleaner XP" scareware. [cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7645420.stm|title=Fighting the scourge of scareware|date=2008-10-01|accessdate=2008-10-02|publisher=BBC News] The lawsuit alleges that the company sent incessant pop-ups resembling system warnings to consumers' personal computers stating "CRITICAL ERROR MESSAGE! - REGISTRY DAMAGED AND CORRUPTED", before instructing users to visit a web site to download Registry Cleaner XP at a cost of $39.95.

Marginal performance benefit

On Windows 9x computers, it is possible that a very large registry could slow down the computer's startup time. However this is far less of an issue with NT-based Operating Systems (including Windows XP and Vista) due to a different on-disk structure of the registry, improved memory management and indexing. [cite web | url = http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/1100/Registry/ | title = Windows 2000 Registry: Latest Features and APIs Provide the Power to Customize and Extend Your Apps | accessdate = 2007-07-19] Slowdown due to registry bloat is thus far less of an issue in modern versions of Windows. More importantly, however, the difference in speed due to the use of a registry cleaner is negligible: rarely do they remove more than a few kilobytes from the total size of the registry. In fact, technology journalist Ed Bott has claimed that no-one has ever successfully managed to measure any significant performance increase from the use of a registry cleaner. [ [http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html "Why I don’t use registry cleaners", Ed Bott] ] Any potential user of a registry cleaner must thus balance a probably negligible performance increase against the possibility of system instability. A safer and more measurable approach to Registry performance is to defragment the Registry files using a tool such as PageDefrag. [cite web|url=http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc137806.aspx|title=Utility Spotlight PageDefrag|author=Lance Whitney|publisher=Microsoft|date=September 2007|accessdate=2008-08-29]

Recovery capability

A Registry cleaner cannot repair a Registry hive that can't be mounted by the system. However a corrupt Registry can be restored from a backup (e.g. Automated System Recovery), from a "Last Known Good" boot menu, by re-running setup or by using System Restore.

References

External links


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