Hi Derek, hi everyone, Thank you for your post! I guess you tried/used/are using several other RegCleaners. Please, could you comments on the ones you know, especially those we put a line above... no worries... just your feeling! Thanks, Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

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Thanks Guy's. Again you all came to my aid. at the moment I now have REGSEEKER and a new one I have just tried REGISTER FIRST AID. It found a lot that the others have left. I am also going to try and download Jv16 as it sounds very good. Again guy's thanks a lot, you are all a great help. Big Hugs.

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Hi Sarah T, hi everyone, You're welcome! If you try several Registry cleaners, please, come and give your results and comments! ;-) Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

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Gérard Here are my comments: EasyCleaner has worried me a tad simply because it rejects entries where there is a valid file present but it appears in the registry with a "/" reference after it. Having said that I never had a shake from my machine when I just let it delete everything it found. So, I have mixed feelings, but on balance I regard the cleaner itself being OK. Non-registry features of the EasyCleaner package can definitely get things wrong (like the Unecessary files feature). MsRegClean is no longer supported (you can't get it from MS any more). It can at times remove valid entries but this is quite rare. I run it through a batch file that "temporarilly deletes the good entries it rejects, then pops them back in when it has finished". That way both my machine and its sheet remain clean, except for anything new it finds. It seems to be good at fixing registry problems that cause the machine to crash. I recall some mention that it was unsuitable for OS's other then W9x. RegCleaner is an early form of the cleaner that is now part of Jv16 (from the same source but no longer supported). I now use Jv16 instead and regard it as one of the safest around. The supplier, in the past, has made great claims about its safeness, but he would I suppose. CleanReg can definitely get things wrong. Fortunately it has an Ignore feature so I invoke that for specific entries that I know it shouldn't alter. Use with care. These are the only ones I've tried. Some knowledge is useful whatever one you use, although Jv16's "tick sheet" page is pretty safe, even in the hand of a novice. It is easy to get all these cleaners confused because so many of them use permutations of Reg & Clean(er). Derek

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Hi Derek, hi everyone, Derek... Thanks a lot for having shared your experience and posted oodles of lines here! What do you think about SpyBot Search and Destroy? Did you have a look on it? Version 1.2 gives the option to check separately 3 series of items. -1-spyware -2-"internal" - orphan keys in Registry -3-tracks of computer use, in Registry Did you check part #2? It gives additional messages (orphans) after my EasyCleaner. Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

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Hi Gérard , et al Windows 98se I have Reg Seeker, but do not recommend it. While it finds about 50 more items to delete, it disabled my firewall (Sygate). I found the deleted item - it doesn't even mention Sygate, but nonetheless disables it. I did make use of the backup feature to restore Sygate. But I am not sure about many of those extra 50 items. I would rather not trust it and seldom run it. My main cleaners: Easy Cleaner. Jouni's Reg Cleaner. And PC Doctor On Call. Program is free, however they try to sell a service of the actual cleaning. They show the details and anyone with some skill can easily make the fixes manually themselves (which is what I do). There is also a PC Doctor II. I think put out by the same people, but oddly not available at the same site. It has an exclusive site all to itself. I found no way to contact the company. Only if you pay for the service can you contact them. I found a new entry in my registry: Armadillo. First thought was a virus. Ran search on Google, nothing. Hours later with another search engine, located the company. It is a copy protection software for PC Doc II. Would have been nicer to be told that it existed before I spent 7 hours. Also, I use Spybot. Recommend for most people to run it on Easy Mode. I run Advanced mode and it does some registry work in that mode. Reason I don't recommend people to use in advanced mode - it is somewhat dangerous. Ate my cookies first time around. Found the setting to exclude them. Then windows I open maximized, suddenly were opening "normal." Found that setting too. Trouble is, you have to find out what to fix after it already messed things up. No clear cut instructions to avoid all possible situations before it does its thing. sekirt

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Hi sekirt, hi everyone, What a precious post! thank you very much! it will help many people, for sure! Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

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Gérard You asked about my feelings about SpyBot. Nice program, very useful and thorough. If anything it maybe a tad too thorough for a non techinical user. It throws up umpteen entries first time around, most of which are harmless recent file lists and so on that may not really bother anyone too much. So you either have to ask it to ignore everything but the dangerous stuff (or sift through them if you are sufficiently clued up). As has been implied by others already it also helps if you know the difference between good (desired) cookies and those that are only there to collect marketting information. Not that cookies are generally too much to worry about, Spyware, Foistware and Trojans are far more to the point. In some respect Ad-Aware might be better for the more every day user who doesn't want his/her head to spin, just to get rid of the spyware and other stuff that wrecks or slows down your machine. Derek

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Hi Derek, Thanks a lot for your response! ;-) I was mainly asking about Registry Cleaning by Spybot... Version 1.2 gives the option to check separately 3 series of items. -1-spyware -2-"internal" - orphan keys in Registry -3-tracks of computer use, in Registry Did you check part #2? Spybot-"internal" finds keys to delete after EasyCleaner. Have a good night, Gérard from Paris, France

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You've got me Gérard. I've searched all over my 1.2 and can't find those options. Treat me like a newbie and spell out exactly what menu's to pull/down and/or buttons to press. Wondering if I've just missed the obvious (wouldn't be the first time LOL) or whether my version needs some update or other. I do of-course get registry entries appearing when they are spyware related, but all I normally do is hit "Check for problems". I'll pop back if I uncover those options before you respond. Derek

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Derek I am not sure of everything about Spybot either. But I think this is the area in question. When you click and open Spybot, on the left there is a section called SETTINGS. Within settings, there is also a SETTINGS BUTTON. Clicking that button opens on the right pane. There you will see choices for EASY MODE and ADVANCED MODE. If none are checked off, I believe you are running in Advanced Mode. In Easy Mode, you should (I think) only see actual Spyware found and perhaps the trackers (cookies). I think the registry entries only show up in Advanced Mode - which sounds like the way you run it. And that is what we both seem to agree upon....somewhat dangerous for the average user. sekirt

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Gotcha sekirt Must have been half asleep to miss the settings within settings bit. I do now recall poking around in there at sometime. Thanks for waking me up again, way past bedtime, will take a closer look tomorrow. Thanks a billion Derek

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Hello Derek, Sekirt, hello everyone, I'm sorry, Derek! I always use SpyBot 1.2 in Advanced mode. When I click on the "Spybot-S&D" part (on the vertical menu on the left) and choose "Search & Destroy" (on the left), I have a menu at bottom that reads "Check for problems", "Description of this product" (greyed), "Select all items" (greyed), "Fix selected problems" (greyed), "File sets" (dropdown list), "Print" and "Help". That "File sets" dropdown list displays 7 options to tick among which "Spyware check only", "Inside system check only" and "Usage tracks check only". Another way to choose "Inside system" is to click on "Settings" (on the vertical menu on the left) then "File sets". You should have a look at it... Spybot-Inside System lists some items of the Registry (orphans) that were not found by EasyCleaner and that can be deleted. Enjoy your weekend, Gérard from Paris, France

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Hi everyone, It's worth it to have a look at version 1.2... there are oodles of nice functions (Settings, Tools, etc.) Enjoy your weekend, Gérard from Paris, France

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Gérard I agree it is a good program with the exceptions I noted in a previous post (my file sets are all checked). I think it falls short of being a stand-alone registry checker though. Registry checkers that I use, all find something the others don't. It would be nice to have an all-in-1 registry checker/spybot program that got every last bit. sekirt

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Gérard I agree with sekirt, it doesn't appear to be a registry checker as such. Anyhow I have never used it that way (already have plenty of those). I set it up the way I wanted some time back - then forgot all about the settings (getting old maybe). In order to determine anything about registry checkers they need tested over a long period, or a solid test applied. It is even more important that they don't remove valid entries than how good they are at removing the dud ones. I've not applied any such test in the case of SpyBot so it would be wrong to comment. Seems to be fine at removing spyware entries though. Derek

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Hi Derek, Sekirt, hi everyone, Thank you for your very good posts in this thread! Of course, I don't consider Spybot can be the only Registry checker in the system (I already use EasyCleaner and MS-RegClean) but as Spybot is the antispy step of my weekly maintenance procedure, I am interested in using the registry-checker tab of spybot too. Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

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