Roger Thomasson via Dorbel Tweeter:
"@Jason Howard: Bravo for your excellent and
accurate post about the misleading and hyper-inflated marketing claims made by
most such "PC Fixup" software. I agree that most users -
novice, average and even most "above average" users - should not use
any registry cleaner (with the possible exception of the conservative CCleaner)
because (1) they don't know enough to use them in a way that avoids damage, and
(2) the artificial intelligence the cleaners use is inadequate to safely and accurately
correct registry problems "automatically." Average users should
instead take their screwed-up computers to a genuine expert (not to the
"computer genius" gamer kid next door) and be willing to pay the cost
of having it expertly fixed.
For just one example of point (2) above: If a cleaner finds a
registry entry pointing to a .dll file (e.g., "xyz.dll") that is
missing from the location where the registry entry says it should be, many
registry cleaners will scan the system's drives (including any available backup
drives, usb drives, network drives, etc.) to find an "xyz.dll"
file. It may find one or more, but those may be:
(a) a different version of the missing .dll file, which won't work correctly
for the program using the registry entry;
(b) a completely different .dll file, made by a different software company for
an entirely different program, which just happens to have the same name of
"xyz.dll" - obviously that .dll won't work with the program using the
registry entry.
(c) a file on a usb or network drive that is not normally attached to the
computer;
(d) an infected version of the file, which has been moved to some backup or
quarantine location by an antivirus program;
(e) etc.
But the cleaner program will nevertheless propose fixing the problem by
replacing the registry entry's filespec for the missing file with a new
filespec for the xyz.dll(s) that it's scan found. If it found more than
one, many cleaner programs will list several "fix" options, one for
each of the found xyz.dlls, but typically they designate the first one in the
list as the "default" solution, which will be used if the user allows
the cleaner to perform an automatic cleanup. Typically there is no
intelligence applied to deciding which of the found .dll's would have the
highest probability of working correctly -- they don't look at manufacturer,
version number, size, etc. of the found .dll's, they just choose whichever one
happens to be first in the list as the default solution.
From this single example, you can see why the probability is fairly high that
an automatic "fix" of this error will be wrong. Multiply that
probability times the 908 registry errors that it found, and you can see why
performing an automated registry fixup is likely to break your system.
A very few of the "better" registry cleaners out there have a
valuable function when used (1) by an expert user who (2) is willing to spend
the large amount of time required to manually walk through the list of found
errors and select the correct fixes. An expert might notice that a large
number of the found errors pertain to a single software program - in which case
the expert might find that it would be more efficient to just uninstall and
reinstall that program, versus manually trying to correct a large number of
registry errors found by the cleaner. (In which case, the cleaner has
performed a valuable service, although we didn't use it to fix the errors it
found.)
The expert would likely perform an "sfc /scannow" command to ensure
all Windows' components are correct. He/she may find, based upon the
cleaner's analysis, that doing a complete non-destructive repair reinstallation
of Windows would be appropriate. (Many pseudo-experts --
"computer-genius" kids next door and even lots of bozos at computer
shops or the "Geek Squad" -- will do a destructive
re-format/reinstall of Windows when it is entirely unnecessary, because that is
the only thing that they actually know how to do. They should instead be
using a registry cleaner in the proper way, but that would require them to
learn a lot, to know how to use one, which would cut into their gaming and
Facebook time, so it ain't gonna happen...)
I am familiar with one registry cleaner, Registry First Aid, which does a good
job of finding errors, and allows the user to customize the way it seeks
solutions (e.g., telling it to not look for files on particular drive letters),
and best of all, upon completion of the scans for errors and solutions, it then
categorizes the proposed fixes according to their potential for being wrong or
causing harm -- it gives you a batch of fixes that would be harmless to let it
automatically perform, another batch which you should exercise caution with,
and another batch which have high potential for doing harm. By default,
it selects only the first batch, the harmless fixes, to be performed if the
user chooses to let the program to an auto-cleanup, leaving the rest
unchanged.
In this way, it prevents an average user from causing harm (although it will
not have fixed all of the found problems), and at the same time is very helpful
for the expert who is willing and able to use it properly to fix many problems
automatically and others manually. I can therefore recommend that
program to both average users and experts. (Although for average users,
the freeware CCleaner may do just as well.)"
