Registry Cleaner App?

kelper said:

Why backup just the registry? A good disk-imaging program can back up everything in minutes. If Windows gerts borked you can restore the image in minutes.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I just didn't elaborate, I also do an image backup once a week.

Disk Cleanup has not yet been retired. I used it today. Revo uninstaller only removes registry entries that relate to the specific program that you are uninstalling, it is not a general registry cleaner.

as others have stated, i recommend using revo to uninstall programs as it will track down and remove reg keys following the uninstall. i don't advise digging through the reg and deleting keys as you see fit.. but to each their own... if you really want an independent reg cleaner, giveawayoftheday has Wise Registry Cleaner today included in a holiday bundle:

IgnorantOne said:

Please note that one of the things Revo and Geek uninstallers do is clean the registry as part of an uninstall.

Click to expand...

Well, not exactly. What they do is look for App related entries and remove them.

EDIT: oops - didn't see kelper's post saying pretty much the same thing.

Even Dave says you want to avoid registry cleaners. Navigate to 4:57 in the video,

Even Microsoft says a bloated registry can affect performance.


All those naysayers are wrong.

I doubt the truth will ever come forth!
Let's just keep computing and forget about the Registry, shall we?

I mean when I was a teen I use Ccleaner to clear or *Fix the Reg. but now I don't bother

kelper said:

Even Microsoft says a bloated registry can affect performance.

Compress large registry hives - Windows Server

Describes how to compress large registry hives.

learn.microsoft.com

All those naysayers are wrong.

Click to expand...

That article doesn't say anything about registry cleaners.

Edwin said:

I doubt the truth will ever come forth!
Let's just keep computing and forget about the Registry, shall we?

Click to expand...

Microsoft wouldn't lie to us!

kelper said:

Even Microsoft says a bloated registry can affect performance.

Click to expand...

My next question would be if any registry cleaners actually do what is outlined there. The registry is a database. If you just remove entries from it, the files don’t automatically get smaller.

IgnorantOne said:

Interesting. I designed, fabricated, built, installed and used my first computer in 1975. My first PC in 1985 or thereabouts. I've worked in all positions, helpdesk, manager, database creation and support, network and internetwork design, etc., etc. I've never felt the need to prove that a registry cleaner is worthwhile; it either increases performance or it does not. Yet I have to wonder . . . a registry that is, say 1.2 Gb, with numerous unneeded and dead items, must take a little longer to load, parse, and run than a registry that's only 760Kb. Can anyone point to research that proves or disproves this conjecture?

Click to expand...

That was exactly what I was trying to say earlier. The registry is a database and if it gets bigger, it will obviously slow down. No different than my gmail.com on the web or even using Thunderbird. The first page is fast which is 100 messages but if you go to like 10+ pages, it will slow down. If I remember correctly and not sure if it's true or not, the registry is supposed to grow even if you clicked the mouse once so it all adds up over the long term. I mean even with regedit, a new system when you search in it will obviously be way faster than a system with a registry that is like 5 years old. Obviously uninstallers like Revo Uninstallers work as a good case is Dell Trusted Installer v6.3 to v6.4. v6.4 if you upgrade will be stuck on the splash screen so one will have to reinstall v6.3 and then Revo Uninstall v6.3 completely before installing v6.4 where it will work correctly as v6.3 calls it Dell Trusted Agent while v6.4 has a different name. Others had the same problem.

As for registry cleaners, while I do have CCleaner installed since the 2000s, I had never used it.
The Norton one that originally came with Norton Utilities seems to be the safest because it just does the cleaning from the start to finish and backs up on it's own so you can undo it. Norton does not call it a registry cleaner but more registry repair which seems to check keys to see if they are needed anymore and also compresses the registry.

jv16 PowerTools which was what people used in the 2000's basically scans and let's you select individually what to keep or remove and it also backs up the things it removes but is more risky because it seems to have way more things than Norton would show.
As for not being able to boot up, couldn't one just boot up in Safe Mode in Windows, run the same registry cleaner and then just undo the changes using the backups provided or the other method is to first do a system restore point, use the registry cleaner and clean whatever and if it fails, then just restore the system restore point.

jv16 also has a compress registry function. CCleaner does not have a registry compressor function.

I mean there was one time where I couldn't get a Intel Rapid Storage Driver never version to install so I deleted the current used driver in Device Manager, Storage including deleting the actual driver files and yes, it BSOD/GSOD but Windows Automatic Repair took over and at the end, system was back to normal again. Not sure what it did to restore the driver I deleted. I forgot the major no no from Windows XP where you can't just clone the HDD with the Intel Rapid Storage RAID driver and expect it to boot on a different motherboard without first switching to Standard IDE for the Storage Controller first in Device Manager before cloning or else it will result in a BSOD.

pseymour said:

My next question would be if any registry cleaners actually do what is outlined there. The registry is a database. If you just remove entries from it, the files don’t automatically get smaller.

Click to expand...

Registry Size - Macecraft Software
which mentions what the original size was and what it was after using several registry cleaners from different vendors.
"The same question i did ask to Yamicsoft. The prgr Windows 7 manage produced for a nearly naked OS windows 7 64 bit, the first time 280 MB.

After compression it was 170 MB.

But done thesame with Registar Registry manager, gives 53 MB.

The answer i got : Because our program scans more hives in Registry than other programs."

My question is, does the registry size have an effect on how much memory Windows uses and if the system is not as fast if the registry is a larger size versus a smaller size since whether or not boot times is faster is not as important as when you are actually using Windows which is what matters.



I mean with apps/software in Windows that uses the registry, it is way different than apps/software that uses a configuration file, the later would make it way easier to completely remove something if there is a need to, with the later similar to how it's down in UN*X Oses for example which includes Linux and the various *BSD's.

I could probably understand some of the points being made here if the registry was more like the breadcrumbs to a file system as that can get more complicated and harder to find information the more you add to it. I could probably understand if, like in the case of a traditional spinning cd hard drive, that the system places new information in available spaces that have to be searched for by the system and defragmented.

What I cannot understand is that these are directly linked to and referenced in the files they are storing information for, meaning that much like a directory index of hyperlinks on the internet, as long as the link exists inside the referencing program adding more and more will not slow it down and removing the program will simply mean the tiniest bit of space is being used on your hard drive to store redundant information, it's not as if there is not already plenty of that going on in windows anyway.

I would therefore conclude, as previously suggested that this is an OCD solution only, with no benefits to speed unless you are manually searching though the registry yourself and even then, not even a split second. My conclusion is that, although I used to use them all the time (OCD driven), doing so is a waste of time and can 'potentially' risk OS problems should a program accidently remove the wrong entry, as this obviously happens on rare occasions.

That is my reading of all this anyway.

In conclusion, I already suggested to the OP to use the given removal tool from Adobe to ensure there is no risk to having accidently removing a wrong registry entry.

@saltedm8 - the registry does get loaded into memory and using resources so obviously the bigger it is, the more resources it will use. Not talking about storage resources but talking about things like user heap, GDI, etc resources which are limited as seem with the csrss.exe process.

Also, this is from Microsoft:

that is covered here as well:

The Adobe Removal Tool might be the best choice for the OP but it's still possible it still leaves things remaining which is better to run Revo Uninstaller afterwards.

Almighty1 said:

@saltedm8 - the registry does get loaded into memory and using resources so obviously the bigger it is, the more resources it will use. Not talking about storage resources but talking about things like user heap, GDI, etc resources which are limited as seem with the csrss.exe process.

Also, this is from Microsoft:

Registry bloat causes slow logons or insufficient system resources error 0x800705AA in Windows 8.1 - Microsoft Support

KB 3063843 contains a leak fix and a cleanup utility that removes leaked WNF state registrations. Such registrations cause delayed user logons on Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2, or you receive "0x800705AA" error when you use an app.

support.microsoft.com

that is covered here as well:

Registry Storage Space - Win32 apps

Although there are few technical limits to the type and size of data an application can store in the registry, certain practical guidelines exist to promote system efficiency.

learn.microsoft.com

The Adobe Removal Tool might be the best choice for the OP but it's still possible it still leaves things remaining which is better to run Revo Uninstaller afterwards.

Click to expand...

I see your point about the registry loading into memory and using resources. However, my take is based on practical experience and a bit of a minimalist approach when it comes to system maintenance.

While I'm aware that the registry does indeed get loaded into memory, the actual impact of additional entries on most modern systems with decent specs seems redundant. From what I've seen, the registry's size becomes an issue only in extreme cases, like with severe registry bloat or specific errors that Microsoft pointed out.

A cleanup utility and other fixes are great tools for those specific scenarios, but for the average user, constantly cleaning or worrying about the registry won't make a difference. It's like cleaning out a rarely used storage closet; it's nice when done, but you won't see a day-to-day benefit.

Most users won't see the milliseconds of difference, nor encounter the system resource limits due to registry size alone, unless there are underlying issues or very outdated hardware.

IgnorantOne said:

Interesting. I designed, fabricated, built, installed and used my first computer in 1975. My first PC in 1985 or thereabouts. I've worked in all positions, helpdesk, manager, database creation and support, network and internetwork design, etc., etc. I've never felt the need to prove that a registry cleaner is worthwhile; it either increases performance or it does not. Yet I have to wonder . . . a registry that is, say 1.2 Gb, with numerous unneeded and dead items, must take a little longer to load, parse, and run than a registry that's only 760Kb. Can anyone point to research that proves or disproves this conjecture?

Click to expand...

To determine if the size of each registry hive on Windows 11 is normal, you can compare the sizes of your hives to typical values for a standard installation. Here are some general guidelines:

1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE: This hive usually ranges between 500 MB to 1 GB.
2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM: This hive can be around 100 MB to 200 MB.
3. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software: This hive typically ranges between 50 MB to 100 MB.
4. HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT: This hive is usually quite small, around 10 MB to 20 MB.

If your hives are significantly larger than these values, they might be bloated. The hives are stored in %windir%\System32\config. Specifically,

• SOFTWARE: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE
• SYSTEM: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM
• SAM: Security Account Manager database
• SECURITY: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY
• DEFAULT: HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT

So, as long as none of them are bloated, the impact on performance should remain close enough to negligible, but as Dave Plummer also points out in his video that I earlier linked, some applications can have a significantly heavier footprint than others, yet, despite that, choosing to use the uninstaller that is a part of the application itself is still nevertheless generally a much better, safer way to alleviate this when compared to choosing to use a registry cleaner.

saltedm8 said:

I see your point about the registry loading into memory and using resources. However, my take is based on practical experience and a bit of a minimalist approach when it comes to system maintenance.

While I'm aware that the registry does indeed get loaded into memory, the actual impact of additional entries on most modern systems with decent specs seems redundant. From what I've seen, the registry's size becomes an issue only in extreme cases, like with severe registry bloat or specific errors that Microsoft pointed out.

A cleanup utility and other fixes are great tools for those specific scenarios, but for the average user, constantly cleaning or worrying about the registry won't make a difference. It's like cleaning out a rarely used storage closet; it's nice when done, but you won't see a day-to-day benefit.

Most users won't see the milliseconds of difference, nor encounter the system resource limits due to registry size alone, unless there are underlying issues or very outdated hardware.

Click to expand...

It really depends on how much you actually load the system otherwise. I have a i7-8750H with 32GB of RAM and the system can be sluggish and non-responsive at times and I have already pushed the hives, GDI and User Resources to the maximum allowed in the registry. So average/most users is different because the average could mean they don't use the system just like some people could own a Ferrari but driving it like a Toyota. But regardless, people would not be optimizing their systems and all that type of stuff, not talking about registry cleaning or compacting if they didn't want their system to give the best performance it can give when they use it so every bit helps even if it's not based on the registry size alone as everything adds up just like a penny earned is a penny saved, it's the end result that matters.

I think we’re approaching this from slightly different perspectives. You’re clearly working with a higher-demand setup, where pushing system limits is a consideration. However, for the vast majority of users, those who don’t regularly hit the maximum GDI or User Resources, registry bloat remains a largely theoretical issue rather than a practical one.

To your analogy of driving a Ferrari like a Toyota, I’d counter that most people don’t own a Ferrari. They own a modestly spec’d machine that will never approach the resource ceilings you’re describing, even with a bloated registry. In those cases, obsessively cleaning or compacting the registry becomes more about the psychological satisfaction of “doing something” than producing tangible performance gains.

That said, I respect the idea of wanting to optimize everything possible when pushing a system to its limits. However, the risk-reward balance still feels skewed for registry cleaning. The potential for accidental removals or system instability often outweighs the marginal gains, especially when better tools like task management or targeted cleanup utilities (e.g., the Adobe tool) exist.

Ultimately, I think this debate boils down to user context. For someone like you, who’s maximizing every ounce of system performance, cleaning the registry might be a useful tool in the arsenal. For the average user, though, the effort isn’t justified. In their case, focusing on proper program uninstallation or running an occasional specialized tool like Revo Uninstaller offers a safer, solution.

So while I agree that every bit helps in theory, the practical benefits depend entirely on the user’s habits and hardware constraints.

All this just comes to like (should I use a Driver program "There's so much to choose from" like with All these cleaners programs it's just All stupid and not worth it BUT I DO Agree on those Driver programs which I only use for certain purposes)