Do folks have any recommendations for a registry cleaner? I’ve noticed some keys related to old utilities that are no longer on my machine (i.e., Kazaa), but am uncomfortable with deleting the whole registry subfolder for fear of screwing up my whole system.
I figure a cleaning/pruning will take care of this stuff. I’d prefer freeware, but would be willing to pay a small amount.
Also, does a reinstallation of Windows XP – not a total wipe of my harddrive – effectively accomplish the same thing as a cleaning?
Usually a clean install of XP will solve the problem too, but I think some freeware registry cleaners are doing the job well enough to prevent a need for it nowadays.
Holy crap. I have Crap Cleaner a whirl and it cleared 4 gigs worth of crap off of my hard drive. I’ve never seen anything like it. Provided it doesn’t blow up my computer or uninstalled parts of my OS, this may be my new favorite freeware utility.
Umm, guys? Those miraculous multiple gigs of “crap” are really just the temporary files of your web browser.
You can delete those without Crap Cleaner via Tools -> Internet Options -> Delete Files in Internet Explorer, or the equivalent in whatever browser you use. (edit: and you can permanently set a lower cap for the total file size. Deleting those files is really a waste of time, many more get created whenever you browse the intarweb.)
Otherwise, Crap Cleaner does almost nothing – clears some log files and recent document lists – and it’s also EXTREMELY UNSAFE because it doesn’t ask for confirmation before deleting files.
Reminds me of that RAM enhancer that was sold a few years back. At least Crap Cleaner is free… if virtually useless.
You can delete those without Crap Cleaner via Tools -> Internet Options -> Delete Files in Internet Explorer, or the equivalent in whatever browser you use. (edit: and you can permanently set a lower cap for the total file size. Deleting those files is really a waste of time, many more get created whenever you browse the intarweb.
Not. Seriously, I cleared all of those folders out last week. It’s possible the bulk of what it grabbed was off of the other accounts that used to be on the machine, but I doubt it - they never had high usage. Maybe it is all Internet stuff, but it isn’t being cleared out in just Tools -> Internet Options.
CrapCleaner will clean out (non-Intarweb related) temporary files (files that don’t have a .tmp extension but reside buried in folders that are normally hidden). Depending on how many programs you install/uninstall, CC can free up a lot of space. For me, it was a modest 155 MB. And while it doesn’t have a confirm dialog (bad!) it does let you specifically select what types of files it should be skulking around for.
I just tried RegClean, too. Apparently my registry is pristine. I find that hard to believe. :?
The good news – after using both CrapCleaner & RegClean, my computer shuts down noticeably faster. CrapCleaner also freed up 300 MB of space.
The bad news – I still have Kazaa entries in the registry, but nothing installed on the machine. I get clean bills of health from both Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy, but was hoping the cleaner would take care of these.
The annoying news – If I re-install Windows XP, it appears I have to download Service Pack 2 again. Not worth the hassle for me.
Guess it’s time to do a System Restore savepoint and manually delete the annoying registry keys. Thanks again for the suggestions; I appreciate learning about helpful utilities.
It could have cleared just standard Temp files. Windows doesn’t do a very good job in actually deleting the temporary files. I cleared mine out last week only to see that some of the stuff in there was as old as this XP install is. A couple gigs of stuff in there easily.
edit - Yeah I just ran it and now I’m having some pretty big problems with my computer. D’oh
Cleaned a couple gig off of my HD as well, and I’m getting faster starts and shutdowns with XP. Don’t like the lack of notification with CC – it’s so streamlined that it’s a little scary – but I’m liking the end results. Thanks for the recommendation, Warlord.
Erm, I ran CrapCleaner and now some Web sites don’t display correctly in Firefox. Some graphical buttons are replaced with generic text links, fonts ar wrong, etc. Problem persists after restart, reload, changing text size back and forth, etc. Help?
