Registry Cleaning

Forgive me if this isn't the right thread to put this in. I have used CCleaner since Windows 7, 8, and 8.1. I am debating on installing it on Windows 10 right now but I've heard some things about Reg Cleaning. I was wondering if it really is bad to run reg cleaners and if so should I just avoid installing CCleaner? Should I just stick to the windows disk clean up then?

Windows disk cleanup will do a good enough cleanup, I sometimes use both tools. If you are unsure about the registry cleaner in CCleaner just don't use it. You can use the regular cleanup tool none the less though. The less programs you install the better! I actually find that I get almost identical results with windows disk cleanup and CCleaner.

You said:

Do not run Registry Cleaners. They are not necessary. You don't have to uninstall CCleaner, though, because it has a great disk cleaning tool that is superior to the one built into Windows. Just avoid the Registry Cleaner. Registry cleaners can delete critical registry keys by accident and render your computer completely useless, and they don't actually increase performance (have you ever run a registry cleaner, and did it improve performance for you?).

In fact, Microsoft used to have a registry cleaner that was removed because it caused computers to stop working.

Here is more information:

Using Registry Cleaner: Does Is It Really Make A Difference?

Alright thank you very much for the info, and thanks to everyone else who replied as well in such a fast time. I'll remember to stay away from registry cleaning from now on.

I always run the registry cleaning part of CCleaner after uninstalling something. I also run the Auslogics Registry Cleaner which is much more thorough about once a month. The function in CCleaner is perfectly safe to the point where I never even back up the changes made and have never had any problems. I think doing a registry cleanup is mandatory after doing the Win 10 upgrade from a previous OS. The amount of invalid entries is staggering and definitely will cause a slower boot time.

It is also mandatory to do a thorough defrag with a good third party tool like Puran or even the painfully slow optimization with the built in Windows defrag tool. After the upgrade, my disk was heavily fragmented and the registry was in 27 pieces. A boot time defrag and optimization with Puran after a CCleaner registry cleanup reduced my boot time to a third of what it was right after the upgrade process. I definitely recommend Puran and the registry cleaning function of CCleaner. Keeping a clean, unfragmented registry is a huge benefit regardless of what some people say.

Don't rely on the default maintenance tools of Windows. They work to a point but are painfully slow and not as thorough as the good third party alternatives.

Dch48 said:

I always run the registry cleaning part of CCleaner after uninstalling something. I also run the Auslogics Registry Cleaner which is much more thorough about once a month. The function in CCleaner is perfectly safe to the point where I never even back up the changes made and have never had any problems. I think doing a registry cleanup is mandatory after doing the Win 10 upgrade from a previous OS. The amount of invalid entries is staggering and definitely will cause a slower boot time.

It is also mandatory to do a thorough defrag with a good third party tool like Puran or even the painfully slow optimization with the built in Windows defrag tool. After the upgrade, my disk was heavily fragmented and the registry was in 27 pieces. A boot time defrag and optimization with Puran after a CCleaner registry cleanup reduced my boot time to a third of what it was right after the upgrade process. I definitely recommend Puran and the registry cleaning function of CCleaner. Keeping a clean, unfragmented registry is a huge benefit regardless of what some people say.

Don't rely on the default maintenance tools of Windows. They work to a point but are painfully slow and not as thorough as the good third party alternatives.

I would agree with this, the windows tools does seem to be slow. I typically use O&O it was well worth the money. I'll get CCleaner again and use it only for it's system cleaning though. I'm on a brand new fresh install of Win 10 anyhow.

Absolutely and 100%. It has proven true time and time again on any machine I have ever owned or worked on. The parts you underlined absolutely improved my Windows 10 experience. As I said it made my boot time over 300% faster.

I also always let CCleaner's registry cleaning fix everything that is reported and checked and never back it up. I have never had a single problem. I do do backups of the changes made by Auslogics though since it delves much deeper than the rudimentary and perfectly safe function in CCleaner. I have never had to use a backup though.

Damaged registries are almost always caused by going in and manually making changes yourself. The utilities that do it for you are usually perfectly safe and do provide benefits. The benefit may be very small and even imperceptible by human senses, but they are there and the cumulative effects over time of keeping a clean registry are very beneficial and definitely perceptible.

I use CCleaner on all my machines. No problems so far (knock, knock) but I always save the registry and do an image immediately before, same as updates, new programs etc.