Win98banter - View Single Post

**Bill in Co.** · May 5th 08, 11:26 PM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion

philo wrote:
"MEB" meb@not wrote in message
...
Ah gosh I hate to do this, BUT,,,,

As we all know, the registry can become quite bloated with entries which
relate to nothing of value, from MRU lists to applications which fill the
registry with open files which no longer exist, to applications
supposedly
removed but actually leave, at times, countless worthless entries; to any
number of other things which aren't need, or may have somehow been
changed
at sometime.
We also know or should know that the registry will FAIL or be prone to
failure after exceeding a certain size [parsing issues].... which then
becomes an issue which may affect recoverability in a time of crisis.

All the MVP that I have observed here, have, at some time, posted
methods
to clean errant registry entries, compact the registry, and otherwise
work
upon the registry... They also have repeatedly advised, when confronted
with
ghost entries, bad drivers or applications or otherwise,, advised HOW to
*manually* search the registry to *clean it*.

I personally have used [and still use] several tools to clean the
registry,
which IF PROPERLY USED can be relied upon to make a system lean and
mean,,,
but the key is PROPERLY USED... ANY use of a cleaner should be taken with
*a grain of salt*. AUTOMATIC cleaning is not a good idea. IF the user
is
unfamiliar with the registry, then damage will likely occur. IF, on the
other hand, the user familiarizes theirselves with the registry, makes an
effort to first increase their knowledge of the entries by searching
first
to see if they ARE un-needed PRIOR to removal, then the desired results
can
be achieved.

Never overlook the KEY, that personal knowledge and understanding is
YOUR
responsibility. OR stay away from these cleaners as they MIGHT cause more
harm than good.

These things ARE after all, relied upon quite heavily during cleanup
activities from SpyWare, Virus, and other such activities...

Sure...as long as you know what you are doing...
or have expert help...manual deletion may sometimes be needed.

That said...it is still not a good idea to trust a registry utility.

If one really knows what they are doing...one probably could use such a
utility with such a level of cognizance as to do some good...
however...one with sufficient skills to use a registry utility
judiciously...
would have the skills to simply manually delete problematic keys.

Yup.
And as I've said before, if you aren't comfortable with regedit, you really
have no business messing with the registry with any of those "registry
cleaning" utilities.

Or, to put it another way, "a word to the wise is sufficient".