Registry o.k.?

[JODO]

:wave: Hi, here I am with my first question:
Registry, one should stay away from it as far as possible, so I was told. But my couriosity was tickling and so I downloaded Registry Booster. It told me that I have 87 errors. I then tried Registry Mechanic which came up with 70! Whome should I believe and which one would you recommend for use?
JODO

 

[kimsland]

Neither.

Try the free CCleaner

It has a Registry button that can be used to find and repair invalid registry issues

 

[JODO]

Hello kimsland

You had suggested to me that I should try CCleaner.
Unfortunately I was kept busy with other problems, but today my focus is back on my PC and related questions. I started to check my PC with CCleaner and found
4 errors under the Registry button,
under Cleaner however, 162 files were indicated for removal / deletion.
This made me curious to see what other Registry Repair programs would come up with (those that fix only five or six errors for free) because I had once downloaded on or the other. Some are checking more than just the registry and so results differed considerable and I am now puzzled about which way to go.

A few examples:
Registry Repair Pro showed 8 Registry problems
TuneUp click 1 showed no Reg problems
Registry Booster indicated 57 Problems
Registry Easy indicated 642 problems of which 336 empty keys
and under
Free Windows Registry Repair the Full Scan came up with 495 errors!

What does this tell me? Whom should I believe and what should I take as a next step?

 

[Tedster]

glarysoft registry repair is also anoter good tool to clean and repair registries. and it's free too.

Some are a little more extensive than others.

 

[kimsland]

The reason for registry errors being different (increased or decreased amounts) across different programs are numerous:
Some count missing entries or entries not pointing anywhere as errors
Some do not do the entire registry but just parts of it
Some look at cache (like last opened entries) as errors
Some look further than the registry and even check other areas in Windows

Actually, if you check out CCleaner registry button and run it, you will see that you have many options to select\deselect

So who's telling the truth?

This all depends upon what you define the word "error" as
ie MUI cache is not an error, actually the contrary, cache entries help us know what the last known data or program startup was, for easy access. Such as Recent Files in the Start menu.

I find CCleaner to be a basic, registry fix only (well it has a little bit more ) But it's generally safe to use, and therefore to be quoted to others. I have seen registry fixes rip through the registry removing user settings ; effectively putting Windows program startups to default (ie Windows Media Player back as the default video player)
I have even seen, where programs such as Notepad will not open again, because the association to txt or log etc files were removed

Therefore just running a range of them to view the results can have disastrous effects on Windows. Again CCleaner in default setup, is very safe as a registry repair. Plus it's an excellent cleaner of temp file locations (ie its real purpose)

I would suggest to stay with CCleaner, and only venture out (try alternatives) at your own peril, as each is not exactly the same as the next. And may in fact do more harm than good. Registry editing\removal or fixing\repairing is generally a sensitive area at the best of times.