Download: Registry Mechanic, EasyCleaner & CCleaner
Most people have no idea where to start looking for a solution when their computers start to work slower over time. Although spyware is one of the leading causes these days, the other issue of poor performance is a computer in desperate need of a tune up to clean off unneeded files.
Many end users are afraid to start deleting things. We've all heard stories of someone removing files that they thought were unnecessary, only to find that their computer no longer booted up.
Three good products that can help clean the registry are Registry Mechanic, EasyCleaner and CCleaner.
Registry Mechanic
Registry Mechanic is a popular shareware program that has one purpose: to clean your registry. The Registry Mechanic features include:
Registry Mechanic is shareware, and will only allow you to delete a portion of the errant registry entries. You must pay to unlock the program so it will remove everything it finds. When I ran Registry Mechanic on my system it found 102 items in Quick Scan mode and 431 in Full Scan mode, the most of any of the three programs.
There were two things I didn't like about it, however. The first was that it required me to reboot, while none of the other programs needed a reboot. The second thing I did not like about it was that during installation it asked me if I wanted to run it automatically upon startup, to which I answered no. Yet after I rebooted and ran the program, it had set itself to run at startup anyway.
Registry Mechanic is the most polished product of the three and found the most problems.
EasyCleaner
When I ran EasyCleaner on my computer it discovered 175 invalid entries in my registry.
EasyCleaner is very straightforward and easy to use, and includes some other useful tools like a graph for diskspace usage, clear cookies, clear history, and it cleans out unnecessary temp files as well. EasyCleaner is freeware.
CCleaner
CCleaner started out with the name "Crap Cleaner" but has since changed to simply CCleaner, probably for the sake of image. CCleaner isn't only a registry cleaner, but like EasyCleaner it also removes unused and temp files from all over your system. It discovered 212 items on my computer. It offered to back up the registry before deleting anything, but it left the choice of location up to the user, which could be confusing if you happen to forget where you stored them. CCleaner is freeware.
Conclusion
All three of these utilities do a sufficient job of finding and removing junk entries in your Windows registry:
Many end users are afraid to start deleting things. We've all heard stories of someone removing files that they thought were unnecessary, only to find that their computer no longer booted up.
Three good products that can help clean the registry are Registry Mechanic, EasyCleaner and CCleaner.
QUICK DEFINITION OF "REGISTRY" - A registry is a database of settings and options for the operating system in your computer. Changes to the Control Panel, file associations, system policies or installed software are updated and stored in the registry.
Registry Mechanic
Registry Mechanic is a popular shareware program that has one purpose: to clean your registry. The Registry Mechanic features include:
- Repair invalid registry entries that are a common cause of Windows crashes and error messages
- Improve system performance and stability by removing orphaned references
- Scans your hard drive for invalid and incorrect program shortcuts
- Safely make backups of any registry change made by Registry Mechanic
Registry Mechanic is shareware, and will only allow you to delete a portion of the errant registry entries. You must pay to unlock the program so it will remove everything it finds. When I ran Registry Mechanic on my system it found 102 items in Quick Scan mode and 431 in Full Scan mode, the most of any of the three programs.
There were two things I didn't like about it, however. The first was that it required me to reboot, while none of the other programs needed a reboot. The second thing I did not like about it was that during installation it asked me if I wanted to run it automatically upon startup, to which I answered no. Yet after I rebooted and ran the program, it had set itself to run at startup anyway.
Registry Mechanic is the most polished product of the three and found the most problems.
EasyCleaner
When I ran EasyCleaner on my computer it discovered 175 invalid entries in my registry.
EasyCleaner is very straightforward and easy to use, and includes some other useful tools like a graph for diskspace usage, clear cookies, clear history, and it cleans out unnecessary temp files as well. EasyCleaner is freeware.
CCleaner
CCleaner started out with the name "Crap Cleaner" but has since changed to simply CCleaner, probably for the sake of image. CCleaner isn't only a registry cleaner, but like EasyCleaner it also removes unused and temp files from all over your system. It discovered 212 items on my computer. It offered to back up the registry before deleting anything, but it left the choice of location up to the user, which could be confusing if you happen to forget where you stored them. CCleaner is freeware.
Conclusion
All three of these utilities do a sufficient job of finding and removing junk entries in your Windows registry:
- Registry Mechanic: 102 (Quick Scan Mode)
- Registry Mechanic: 431 (Full Scan Mode)
- EasyCleaner: 175
- CCleaner: 212
posted by Peter at
12:18 AM
