Thanks for the tip–it does look handy, but also very complicated to make. I’m not even sure I can make it since all I have is the Medion restore disc and not the actual OS disc.
I guess I’ll go back to CCleaner, but just stay away from the Registry cleaner.
The magic of ccleaner is that 99% of what it does with the registry is delete file associations and DLL links for uninstalled programs. Unlike most “registry cleaners,” the CCleaner guys designed it to only “fix” things that are safe. It’s not aggressively optimizing, it’s just designed to trim the obvious stuff.
Registry cleaning may be pretty much unnecessary, but it’s one of those things that people have heard of and want to do, so I think it’s good to recommend an easy, safe tool for the job rather than let them google it, install some ham-fisted optimizing tool, and bork their system.
I dont know where people get these ideas. The registry is an efficient little database. A few extra records isnt slowing anything down. Its not a big flat file that needs to be parsed every time. Getting a record from a database that is 10 megabytes big versus 100 megabytes is not going to make any difference. You can read this excellent article debunking the snake oil that is registry cleaners here:
There’s a lot of truth to that link.
I confess that I’m not up to speed on the organization, indexing and search capabilities of today’s registry and auxiliary functions. Certainly an efficiently organized, B-tree index held at all times, data included, in RAM, can be so fast as not worth trying to optimize if not accessed frequently.
But there was a time when MS didn’t write efficient code :rolleyes: , the registry was re-read into RAM for each access, and a test I ran with a 23MB reg file showed a significant speed boost when I removed about half of it as unnecessary.
It’s entirely possible my experience is obsolete. But that article asks if you delete files you never use? and yes, I do, even if they don’t take up much space. So maybe cleanliness is an obsession.
Right, I think in the 95/98 days you had to clean the registry after a while with heavy use, but nowadays it doesnt really matter. MS didnt ship a regcleaner with 2000/XP so the third-party guys developed their own and people who saw it as conventional wisdom never changed their ways.
It will cause Windows Media System to crash.
I use CCleaner at least once a week and never had any problem with it.
If you use windows another way to free up disk space is to clean out “System Restore”. Click on “My Computer” right click on the system drive icon (Normally “C”) “Properties” and then the “Disk Clean” button.
After a short time the clean up window will appear, click the “More Options” tab and then the “System Restore” clean up button. This will remove all but the latest Restore point and can free up several GB’s of disk space.
You can also reduce the amount of space System Restore can take up by right click on My Computer - Properties - System Restore - settings. I have mine set to 3%.
I’ve used CCleaner for years without problems. They let you skip cleaning certain kinds of entries, history etc. I do notice that it clears some of the saved entries in autofill browser windows. I know if I thought about it I could change the settings so it left those alone, but it’s not worth the effort.
I’ve got a free program now called Advanced SystemCare that I like. Recommended by Download.com