Whats the best free registry cleaner?

orlando1974 · Jul 11, 2015

Hi, something wacky is going on with my Downloads folder in Windows Explorer... opens every folder within it as duplicate, if I try to do renames, sometimes hangs and crashes. System was scanned and is clean so I want to check the integrity of the registry.

Whats the best free tool to do this?

Berton · Jul 11, 2015

System was scanned and is clean

What program did you use for that process? My routine is to first do a full/deep scan with a fully-up-to-date antivirus program followed by installing Malwarebytes and a full/deep scan.

As for cleaning the Registry there is only one guarantee, making the wrong choices in such a program can kill Windows. After having said that, I use CCleaner but then I've used it for several years with only a couple of issues that were quickly fixed by restore to a System Restore Point I had manually created first. CCleaner has the option to do the same.

orlando1974 · Jul 11, 2015

I used Microsoft Defender and MalwareBytes.
Sounds like I should create a Restore Point before performing the CClean. I just cant think of what else could be causing this. It also creates a second Downloads icon in the left tree below (but not in) Network section. Strange... and only started doing this a week or two ago.

orlando1974 · Jul 11, 2015

OK I ran CClean and fixed 363 issues with the registry but it didnt fix the problem.
I could not find anything else being reported thru Google. How can I really be the only one with this issue?
Only thing I can think of now is to uninstall one program at a time although if its just that folder, maybe there is something specific with its properties or sharing on the network settings?

orlando1974 · Jul 11, 2015

Even the SFC Scannow that Brink posted failed. It found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them!

TairikuOkami · Jul 11, 2015

I use WiseCare Free, among registry, it also clean junk files, which might fix some problems as well.

You could also try to run this, in this order:

fsutil resource setautoreset true c:\
fsutil usn deletejournal /d /n c:
Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
sfc /scannow
Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
sfc /scannow
Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase

Bobarry · Jul 11, 2015

Tairku, How about an explanation of what each line does? Should I run it on a (supposedly OK) Win 8.1 computer? Thanks, Bo

TairikuOkami · Jul 12, 2015

Bobarry said:
Should I run it on a (supposedly OK) Win 8.1 computer?

It is like running CCleaner, they just reset/clean stuff, fix some problems.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc788042.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff621564.aspx
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/44351-winsxs-folder-component-store-clean-up-windows-8-1-a.html
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/26512-dism-fixing-component-store-corruption-windows-8-a.html

m4v3r1ck · Jul 13, 2015

orlando1974 said:
Hi, something wacky is going on with my Downloads folder in Windows Explorer... opens every folder within it as duplicate, if I try to do renames, sometimes hangs and crashes. System was scanned and is clean so I want to check the integrity of the registry.

Whats the best free tool to do this?

Mac OS X! ;-)

Cheetd

m4v3r1ck · Jul 13, 2015

Berton said:
System was scanned and is clean

Click to expand...

What program did you use for that process? My routine is to first do a full/deep scan with a fully-up-to-date antivirus program followed by installing Malwarebytes and a full/deep scan.

As for cleaning the Registry there is only one guarantee, making the wrong choices in such a program can kill Windows. After having said that, I use CCleaner but then I've used it for several years with only a couple of issues that were quickly fixed by restore to a System Restore Point I had manually created first. CCleaner has the option to do the same.

Click to expand...

Yes, SRP is THE key factor for save using registry cleaner aplications!

Cheers

brooksndun · Jul 14, 2015

Just wondering why so many people scare people off form registry cleaners? I have used CCleaner, Microsoft Reg cleaner, and one other I can't even remember the name right now and I never remember any problems from cleaning the registry.. and on top of all that, I only see that it removes old entries like uninstalled programs or bad links or shortcuts no longer valid and all that.. so unless I'm using these registry cleaners in some "safe" or something but I haven't seen or heard anyone ever come on here complaining about a problem after they've run a registry cleaner..

having said all this - of course do a system restore point before doing anything really..

but anyway just my rant for today that registry cleaners don't seem to do the amount of damage everybody seems to worry about so much in my opinion..

here is my registry cleaning for today.. oh my! is this going to "destroy windows 8" today???

but i've never seen anything that it removes that ever will in all my years (5+) of using reg cleaners!

hope people realize i'm not so dead serious about this just throwing another viewpoint out there so people are so scared to use registry cleaners.. especially the ones like Ccleaner which that company knows they shouldn't screw people's computers up or else they will loose all their business!!

posted below is just an old game I deleted and now the terrible damaging "registry cleaner" found it and wants to get rid of it..

..

TairikuOkami · Jul 14, 2015

Enable deep cleaning and you might see, of course people blame it instead of themself then.
WiseCare with deep cleaning or even CCleaner with CCEnhancer damaged my Windows.

Mooly · Jul 14, 2015

orlando1974 said:
Even the SFC Scannow that Brink posted failed. It found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them!

There is a well known bug at the moment with sfc reporting non correctable errors. If this is all it is then its a non problem.

http://www.eightforums.com/performa...fc-after-installing-kb3022345.html#post500232

I'm afraid I don't know the cause of your other issue... sounds like something you need to be sat in front of to figure it out... but I'm one that would advise against registry cleaners. A hundred 'errors', a thousand 'errors', they are not doing any harm and the odd one or two may be part of a dependency that some other program or process needs. Look at the size of the registry ! look at the size of the so called errors. A drop in the ocean.

brooksndun · Jul 14, 2015

TairikuOkami said:
Enable deep cleaning and you might see, of course people blame it instead of themself then.
WiseCare with deep cleaning or even CCleaner with CCEnhancer damaged my Windows.

Ok well, did you not look through what these programs were deleting? maybe it was too much to look through and I can totally understand that.

Anyway the point is I agree with you that messing with the registry Can brick windows but Yeah, I'm not enabling "deep" cleaning mode and so I guess maybe that's why..

Mooly said:
I'm one that would advise against registry cleaners. A hundred 'errors', a thousand 'errors', they are not doing any harm and the odd one or two may be part of a dependency that some other program or process needs. Look at the size of the registry ! look at the size of the so called errors. A drop in the ocean.

I can understand this as well, I'm sure the size of the registry is miniscule, however, and this may not be relevant (cause i'm not sure how windows has to "search" through the registry) but having had to "search" through the registry before, it can take a long time and maybe if there are thousands of error's in your registry maybe windows will take longer to boot/load etc..

maybe the performance hit is negligible but I'm just throwing that out there for a possible reason to actually rid yourself of the hundreds or whatever errors in the registry..

Again, I agree about not messing with the registry but all I'm saying is a pretty big name Program like Ccleaner has a reputation to hold and they probably setup their "basic" registry cleaner not to mess with windows essential files.. I"m sure a more "deep" scan/cleaner might..

I only say this because I imagine Piriform can't lose all its people downloading Ccleaner due to windows being ruined by its registry cleaner..

Please don't take this as argumentative but just as some different views on why I feel registry cleaners are ok to use.. apparently not the "deep cleaning" setting though..

Now if i'm incorrect on how the registry works and how Ccleaner searches through it, then I'm wrong period.

Mooly · Jul 14, 2015

I believe the registry is typically around 100 to 200mb in size (try it yourself, just export it to flash drive and see) and contains around (ball park figure) 2 million plus lines of entries if you try (don't !) to paste it into notepad.

So a few hundred 'dead' entries are of no consequence, they are just ignored anyway. The real problem comes when something that actually relies on one of those so called and flagged 'dead' entries has to run... and it can't... and the system crashes or comes up with an obscure error message.

I dabbled with CCleaner years ago (running Vista) but totally abandoned it after clean installing Vista and latterly W7 and W8.1

I can honestly say I've never had any issues that the inbuilt Windows housekeeping tools can not deal with.

hTconeM9user · Jul 14, 2015

I use CCleaner all the time have even paid for the full version worth every penny in my opinion, got CCleaner monitoring as well works well alongside McAfee cleans out old rubbish on disc so keeps my laptop running smooth and fast.
Even got both on my smart phone :dinesh:

:thumb:

David Bailey · Jul 14, 2015

Once upon a time I had issues from obsolete registry entries.
I used CCleaner to check for registry problems.
I looked at the ones it found & fixed them.
I repeat--- I looked at what it found.

I removed the bad ones & the issues were fixed.

I still use it since it has never caused problems by using it.

I use Revo uninstaller too.
It will find left over registry entries too.
Especially if you install using it.

Whats the best free registry cleaner?

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