Windows 10: Are Registry Cleaners Still Needed on Windows 10?

I'll check it out later and have a great new year my friend!! *Biggrin

 

That's true. I would say it's mostly the fact that I HATE having anything in excess lying around. I like a tidy house. There can't be NO PERFORMANCE increases from the use of registry cleaners. Remember, Microsoft doesn't want to have to support system that have awry from using these tools incorrectly or irresponsibly, so they suggest against their use. But used correctly, I have seen a modicum of improvement.

I used to use really abrasive one like RegSeeker, but I stay away from that now. Ccleaner is good enough of an all around cleanup tool.

 

I have used CCleaner for years with great success, have never had an issue with using it to keep the registry clean.
Now I can not say how much if any that has helped my performance, I can say though my systems have always run very well, from win7-win8 and now I will be using it in Win10.

 

My friend insists using IObit system care all the time and it invariably screws up his system, has to reinstall his W10 every couple of month.

 

Why not? Unless your number junk records significantly exceeds your valid records it will not even theoretically make a difference - it will just take a bit more disk space. You have to get information in 4k pages from the index anyway.

Discounting the tiny number of records you may remove from the database (a few hundreds or thousands say) who is to say how the database engine works? For sure it doesn't just read through every record but is indexed and this index may or may not contain the key data (depending on value type, size, database engine).

Even if your whole registry had just 1 valid key you would still have to get a minimum of one 4k page (of the index or database I don't know) from disk. Add 1000 unnecessary ones you'd still only have to get one page. Add another 50 billion unnecessary ones and still you'd only have to get one page most likely (unless MS made the indexes wrong).

Eventually your index would exceed your page size, and with only one value you wanted out of some massive number it would be (theoretically) slower if all of the junk ones happened to have the same key on the index as the one you were looking for.

Now you can argue that junk registry entries add a tiny bit of disk space. You can't argue that they "must" add a performance overhead. Maybe (but considering that the registry has significantly more than one key) probably not.

In any case if anyone had tested it then the answer would be clear and we would all do it (one way or the other). Thing is no-one has proved anything either way so it is all anecdote and speculation.

or

is hardly a ringing endorsement. On the other hand,

is hardly a reason to think the other way (although you have to trust someone and he seems cleverer than me).

Now, when I went to see my mother in law she put some salt and nigella seeds on my bike to keep the evil-eye away. Can I prove it worked or didn't? No. No-one nicked my bike though.

So if you like using CCleaner (or RAM disks or changing your page file or disabling services or using one AV over another) go ahead. You could try a little bag of nigella seeds and salt as well *Smile

Most likely, in most cases, it makes no difference either way.

 

After XP, windows doesn't read whole registry looking for right entries, it ignores anything not needed for any operation. You can have a TB of registry size and still will not make any difference. Erroneous entries may be a problem though.

 

They have not been needed since XP days. Applications have been written a lot better to install or uninstall. Even microsoft has stated in a video about how much harm than good these registry editiors are.

 

I wouldn't trust MS as far as I could throw Nadella but in this case I tested it myself.

 

Just to add to this interesting discussion, I find it funny, that most people, who do not recommend registry cleaners, never actually used them. Their opinions are based on reviews of people, who used a fake software like from iobit. *Smile

Basically it goes like this: How is the sushi? It is disgusting, I know, I have read all about it. *Rolleyes
"Repeat a lie a thousand times and it becomes the truth." - with articles like this one, I am not really surprised.

 

This post has not so much to do with registry cleaning, but it does deal with the registry's affect on system performance a little.

A few years ago, an audio user reported slow startup on a particular audio platform that seemed excessive. Lots of folk tried to help. I suggested he run PROCMON and send me the results. After studying it for a while, I realized he was a software developer and had a few MS development tools installed. His environment search path was enormous and he had 5938 CLSIDs [I have 1046]. Most of these I believe where from the development tools. It took his system 300 ms to scan a certain system entry while mine took 100 ms. Multiply that by the dozens and dozens of stuff he had to get through and you can see the performance issue.

Now a registry clean tool will not help, he would have to uninstall all the development stuff and shorten his search path. But the size of one's registry can have a profound affect on performance in some cases.

 

How "few" years ago, XP time ?

 

Oct 2014, Windows 8.

You can read about it here:

Extremely slow startup of all NI software | Page 2 | NI User Forum

 

I have never used one and never will.. why? The don't improve system performance one bit and if you can supply any real evidence to show how it does then I might consider using one.

Jeff

 

K..., I'm gonna put a stop to this!

I have had negative consequences as a direct result of using a Registry 'cleaner'.

I have never had negative consequences as a direct result of not using a Registry 'cleaner'! *Wink

 

I have run benchmark tests in W7 and than again in W8 before and after intentionally dirtied system and could not see 1% of difference. Also tried few of those miracle speed-em-uppers and in many cases found lower performance after their "work".