A registry cleaner is a type of software utility designed for the Microsoft Windows operating system whose purpose is to remove redundant or unwanted items from the Windows registry. However the necessity and usefulness of registry cleaners is a controversial topic, with experts not agreeing on their benefit. The problem is further clouded by the fact that malware and scareware is often associated with utilities of this type.
Registry Cleaners are software utilities that attempt to remove configuration data from the Windows Registry that is no longer in use or that is unwanted on the system. Such data may include information left by software that has not been uninstalled completely from the computer, information that is no longer of use, or settings required for the operation of malware. A registry cleaner scans the registry, and attempts to pick out the unnecessary values in order to delete or repair them.
Purpose
Registry Cleaners are software utilities that attempt to remove configuration data from the Windows Registry that is no longer in use or that is unwanted on the system. Such data may include information left by software that has not been uninstalled completely from the computer, information that is no longer of use, or settings required for the operation of malware. A registry cleaner scans the registry, and attempts to pick out the unnecessary values in order to delete or repair them.
Registry cleaners, or registry cleanup software, may improve the performance of computers by ridding the registry of redundant information.
Due to the sheer size and complexity of the registry database, manually cleaning up debris and invalid entries would be impractical, so registry cleaners are essentially tools that automate the process of looking for invalid entries, missing file references or broken links within the registry and resolving them.
The correction of an invalid registry key can provide some benefits.[citation needed] For example, on older versions of Windows, a registry entry indicating a program should be run at startup from a network path that no longer exists can delay startup by as long as the network protocol takes to timeout. (Note: A Registry Cleaner is not required to correct this, as free tools such as AutoRuns from Sysinternals (now Microsoft) can resolve this issue.)
Noted Windows architecture expert Mark Russinovich has concluded that registry cleaners will continue to have a role until most applications have moved to the .NET Framework platform that does not rely on the registry for application settings.
Some registry cleaners offer backup and restore functions that allow the user to revert changes made by the registry cleaner in case they are undesired. A registry cleaner may be useful for someone that adds or removes programs from their computer very often, however a virtual machine is a faster and more reliable means of reverting an operating system to a previous good known state in a testing scenario.
Disadvantages
Some registry cleaners make no distinction as to the severity of the errors, and many that do may erroneously categorize errors as “critical” with little basis to support it.
Registry damage
Most notably, critics say there is no reliable way for a third party program to know whether any particular key is invalid, redundant or neither. Poorly designed registry cleaners may not know for sure whether a key is still being used by Windows or what detrimental effects removing it may have. This has led to examples of registry cleaners causing loss of functionality and/or system instability.
Malware payloads
The benefits of Registry cleaners have been used by a number of trojan applications to install malware, typically through social engineering attacks that use website popups. Rogue registry cleaner “WinFixer” has been ranked as one of the most prevalent pieces of malware currently in circulation.
Scareware
Rogue registry cleaners are often marketed with alarmist advertisements that falsely claim to have pre-analyzed your PC, displaying bogus warnings to take “corrective” action, hence the reason that they are sometimes called “scareware”. In October 2008, Microsoft and the Washington attorney general filed a lawsuit against two Texas firms, Branch Software and Alpha Red, producers of the “Registry Cleaner XP” scareware. The lawsuit alleges that the company sent incessant pop-ups resembling system warnings to consumers’ personal computers stating “CRITICAL ERROR MESSAGE! - REGISTRY DAMAGED AND CORRUPTED”, before instructing users to visit a web site to download Registry Cleaner XP at a cost of $39.95.
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12.Registry Toolkit - Registry Cleaner Tool. Increase Computer Speed And Stability By Removing Corrupted Registry Files With Registry Toolkit.
