If you’re computer is crashing and freezing all the time and some funny looking blue screen pops up every once in awhile, you may have some problems with your PC. Even if you don’t think you have problems with your PC, you probably still do. When your Internet Explorer shuts down every once in awhile while you’re browsing or you get an error message when you try to run a program, something is wrong with your PC. At this point, you have a couple options. You may want to choose a registry cleaner or you might want to use an anti-virus service. What happens if you need both or something completely different? Let’s clear up some confusion, in case there is any.

Registry Cleaners

Registry cleaners work much like industrial lubricant for machines; kind of like oiling the cogs so that the machine will run better, this is a function which comes as regular maintenance and doesn’t provide any long term assurance for functionality of actual files or components within your machine. The actual technical purpose is to remove obsolete links to orphaned files, let’s say for instance that you’ve created a link on your desktop to a file on your hard drive, after you’ve deleted that file the link still remains but points to a file which doesn’t exist on your machine any longer – this is called an orphaned link.

Sometimes there is certain software which installs a new version of a DLL on your machine, but instead of deleting the old link referring to an obsolete version it just creates a new link to point at the new DLL – and this happens for many files on each install of new software, which means the old remaining links stack up and can cause a slowdown which won’t be noticed by a human being on a singular incident but might cause a general slowdown in the long run.

Anti-Virus Software

Anti-Virus software prevents, detects, and removes viruses, Trojans, malware, spyware, and the like. They help protect your computer against hackers and identity theft. Anti-Virus programs are usually more updated to be able to protect against the most updated viruses. You also need to be careful when choosing your Anti-Virus/Spyware software because if it isn’t designed well it may also mistake important files for viruses (and like Registry Cleaners) accidentally delete important files or essential components that allow your computer to run properly. **Let’s not forget that in most cases, these programs don’t reverse the damage that has been done to corrupted and damaged files.

Now what happens when you need to use a service that will both “tune up” your PC and remove malware? More often than not, it isn’t just one problem that’s slowing your computer down. If you have error messages and your computer is slower, it might be a combination of problems that will require a program that removes anti-viruses and fixes bugs within the registry. If only there were a product out there that could do everything. Actually, this is the idea behind the Reimage software. It’s one program that you use one time to remove viruses, Trojans, malware AND to clean the registry AND determine hardware issues. The product also repairs and reverses the damage done by replacing deleted, missing, or corrupted components of essential files with new and updated files stored in Reimage’s online warehouse (a database of over 25 million essential components/spare parts to replace those that were damaged on your PC ).

If you are choosing between a registry cleaner and an anti-virus program, you need to know what is actually causing the problem on your computer, otherwise if you choose the wrong solution, you might make the state of your computer even worse. If you have a program that deals with all the problems, all you need to focus on is letting the program fix your PC.

Part of the challenge Reimage encounters in the course of our marketing efforts is the public’s confusion on what we do. Being an innovative technology this is not surprising. However, it gets really insulting when we are compared to registry cleaners.

According to WikiPedia:

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 being associated with utilities of this type.

Here is what the award winning technology writer, Ed Bott, has to say on registry cleaners:

Scam 2009: Coming to a PC near you this winter.

Don’t run registry cleaner programs, period. I won’t go so far as to call them snake oil, but what possible performance benefits can you get from “cleaning up” unneeded registry entries and eliminating a few stray DLL files? Even in the best-case scenario the impact should be trivial at best. Maybe a second or two here and there, maybe a few kilobytes of freed-up RAM, and I’m being generous.

Ed, of course, is not alone in feeling uneasy about the usefulness of registry cleaners. Indeed, both Microsoft and Washington State’s Attorney General are pursuing legal action against companies that dupe users

into downloading a fake scan (of the computer) and then duped into paying for software they don’t need.

A 160 year old saying by Abraham Lincoln still holds true you can fool some people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all of the time. A public outcry is mounting via the Internet on the deceptive nature of the registry cleaner industry. One of my favourite excerpts is:

(It) really looks classy on the outside, but it finds loads of errors to begin with and when you re-boot and run (the software) afterwards, you get load more errors. Very strange as (the program) was meant to have fixed the errors beforehand.

I don’t want to point my finger at a particular company or product but a simple search of the the registry cleaner previously reviewed, for example, yielded 443 complaints made on ComplaintsBoard.com, have a look. It’s an interesting read.

Final words on the matter are given by Chris Pirillo a leading technology blogger and former PC technician:

And in case your wondering how Reimage.com fares when pitched against a registry cleaner, have a look at this previous blog post.

We had a lot of fun with this experiment. We went to all the nastiest sites and engaged in the most dubious on-line activities. A few days on, the PC ground to halt with so many nasty viruses, trojans, malware and corruption that we thought the time was right to initiate the experiment. Pitching Reimage against multiple anti viruses, registry cleaners and spyware removal programs, here are the results:

Advice on PC repair

Save yourself the hassle of buying software that will fall short in repairing your PC. The products reviewed below have been tested, trying to repair the same operating system (VMware) using different solutions. This example of a dysfunctional computer offers a clunky user experience, slower than usual boot and user will find surfing the Internet difficult.

Here are the symptoms of the dysfunctional PC we tested:

The malicious process in the PC

The malicious process in the PC

  • Missing control panel
  • Can’t open the task manager
  • Can’t open the registry
  • Homepage can’t be changed

We generally found that the reviewed tools fall into three main categories: junk, nice-to-have and even superb. If there’s a tool you want to see reviewed, please let us know and we’ll buy it and add it to the reviews here.

We used a two month old image and ran the anti viruses too see if they are updated and can fix the problem.

The PC problems in detail

  • Difficulties in repairing an Operating System due to system maintenance tools being disabled, such as task manager.
  • Viruses distract user from reaching his target in browsing through promoting other websites that he did not want to reach via Google search or pretending to be an Internet security software that causes user to install more malicious content.
  • Malware running in the background hogs CPU Process time, slowing down the entire computer.
    Invisible programs running in taskbar (stealth IRC program that logs into chat rooms in IRC environment and try to steal information out of other users).
  • A hacker deleted the CPL (control panel list) files which control the control panel list such as display properties and language settings.
  • Hacker removed program files entries in the Registry that destroy a user’s ability to access programs via the start menu.

Summary of Testing

In essence, we have seen that all Anti Virus programs completely failed to install, the registry cleaning applications had no effect what-so-ever on a severely infected PC and that SpyBot made some, limited, progress at removing spyware yet falling short in a PC repair.

Category: Autonomic Fix

Reimage: Near Perfection!

Time to use – 19 minutes (22:00 – 22:19)

Software Usage

  • Instant repair starts via going to www.reimage.com and initiating a free scan. A small file is downloaded into the browser and the repair process begins (22:01). The repair is charted through the web browser and describes the process taking place in easy to understand terms, while providing detailed technical information below.
  • First the software analyzes (22:08) and then it moves in to make a repair based on its findings. The “fix” part was concluded two minutes later (22:10). At this point you are asked to reboot the system and it is up and running, after a small post startup screen update in the form of a blue screen. A web page is brought up at this point saying “finalizing repair, please wait” and a list of applications that you many not want to erase is presented. It allows you to UNDO the repair if your not happy with the result.

Result

  • The old wallpaper is present, which I can change
  • I can change the homepage of the web browser
  • All the icons are visible in the control panel
  • There are no malicious processes running in the background
  • There are still viruses in the system, but isolated and inactive (they recommend running an anti-virus as a garbage collector).
  • The machine is as good as new!

Category: Anti Spyware

SpyBot: Superficial Success

Time to use – 57 minutes (20:33 – 21:30)

Software Usage

  • Spybot immediately cleans out about 1,000 temp files.
  • Ask me for a registry backup and prompts a question regarding which server to use for downloading updates. I select ifwd.org (USA) I click ok at 20:36. Then I am prompted to download multiple updates that I can choose and I am requested to re-apply immunization after the update.
  • I click exit and am admitted to the main menu for the first time. (20:38), I click check for problems and the system starts a scan.
  • A 36 minute scan is completed (21:26).
  • The system says that some errors couldn’t be fixed entirely and it will require a reboot to finalize the repair. It reports that 40 problems were fixed and that 2 could not.
  • System is rebooted. Asks to delete 239 temp files (21:30) and software launches again.

Result
• All viruses are gone.
• Cant’ change the wallpaper, task manager or see most of the control panel.
• A few viruses still present.
• MIRC still active.
• Original wallpaper is restored but can’t be changed.

Category: Registry Cleaner

CCleanup: Or CCmuckup?

Time to use – 8 minutes (19:04 – 19:12)

Software Usage

  • 4.68MB of cleaning required.
  • 24 Registry issues, clicking scan immediately after revealed 12 more problems, another time 2 more.
  • Computer rebooted in normal mode at 19:09 , booted up at 19:10.

ResultCrashing Web Browser

  • Task manger still disabled.
  • Multiple viruses still present (system doctor, virusseigyo, advanced registry optimizer, winspyware protect).
  • Can’t change wallpaper.
  • Control panel has missing functions.
  • New: Internet explorer won’t load now.

Registry Booster: Busted!

Time to use – 15 minutes (19:53 – 20:08)

Software Usage

  • Program says it must restart the machine out of safe mode to finish install at 19:57.
  • Install is completed and Uniblue “auto launches” .

    Problematic install and no results

    Problematic install and no results

  • Starts repair at 20:00, reports finding 143 “invalid registry entries”.
  • I finally see the user interface and its gorgeous.
  • Repair is completed and system is foes through a reboot 20:04.
  • Process completed at 20:08.
  • Installs Microsoft windows installer 3.1 as pre-requisite, takes 2 minutes.

Result

  • Task manger still disabled.
  • Multiple viruses still present (system doctor, virusseigyo, advanced registry optimizer, winspyware protect).
  • Can’t change wallpaper.
  • Control panel has missing functions.

Registry Mechanic: Fail!

Time to use – 15 minutes (20:22 – 20:28)

Software Usage

  • Initiating an easy install for RegMechanic, during the setup process you will be asked if you want to install Google toolbar as well.
    Bells and whistles to no effect
  • Setup takes a minute. RegMechanic checks for updates. The scan in completed in a few seconds and instantly recognizes 102 faults with the registry.
  • I also choose the optimize option on the system and defrag it, this launches the standard windows defrag utility. I give it a miss as it is simply a quick launch option for a Windows utility and unrelated to RegMechanic.
  • I go for the “analyze and compact” option, the process is completed in a few seconds and reports that the registry has been compressed by 13% saving 1.59MB from a total 12MB.
  • Additionally, before starting, my system health was reported as LOW.
  • I now restart the system, after playing around with the various functions (20:28).

Result

  • Task manger still disabled.
  • Multiple viruses still present (system doctor, virusseigyo, advanced registry optimizer, winspyware protect).
  • Can’t change wallpaper.
  • Control panel has missing functions.

Category: AntiViruses

AVG: Installation blocked

19:00 – 19:02

NOD32: Installation fail

19:31 – 19:34

Norton: Setup hassle & fail

19:35 – 19:42

  • Norton started up by installing updates that took about 2 minutes, after which saying that it can’t install on safe mode and required a reboot.
  • Once in normal mode Norton did not manage to install.

Reimage preserves your data

Looking through the Microsoft knowledge base, I stumbled upon this neat little list of the most popular KB articles of the last three months. Through these popularity ratings, you can see the information that most people are looking for, and this can give you a vague idea of the most common problems encountered.

Number 17 on the latest chart is an article describing the manual solution for a corrupted registry.

For those among us who are less familiar with the way the operating system works – The registry contains almost every configuration setting in Windows XP; core operating system settings (Hardware settings, passwords, system file locations, drivers and services) are stored alongside custom user settings and software installations. It consists of a set of files (not readable in regular text editors) which are an easy target for viruses and malware, since they can do a lot of damage with very little effort!

Corrupted / Missing Registry files

Corrupted / Missing Registry files

The solution suggested in this post is a rather lengthy process, and requires you to be familiar with fairly advanced tools – recovery console, command line tools, etc.

Even if you are a power user or technician, this process will get you up and running with a clean copy of the registry – as it was when you first installed XP! This means you’re gonna have to install all your hardware and software from scratch!

Although I am hardly objective about the product I helped develop (it’s my baby!! :) ), here are two FACTS about Reimage:

1. Reimage fixes this problem automatically and then proceeds to address other issues!!

2. Reimage will save as much information as possible – in over %90 of cases, nothing needs to be reinstalled!!

25 minutes, no hassle, no “know-how” (Just find yourself another PC and get our boot CD), and other problems repaired along the way vs. hours and hours hassling with a command line tool and reinstalling your stuff. You decide. :)

My first post and I am doing it without my PC, why? Because my Vista is down again.

One of my Vista’s 500,000 objects has probably been overrun by another object causing my entire machine to hang and run slowly. Don’t get me wrong, I think that Microsoft are doing an amazing job building the most common and scalable platform that anyone ever made – but, with so many moving parts, statistically, something will not work right.

So, what can I do now, having no PC to work with?

I tried to update my Vista to service pack 1, had a whole problem with that too, after 2 days of “fun” I found that I had to remove some files, reinstall some KB and pray. Nothing helped.I can spend hours, or days, understanding what is wrong with it. Frankly, I have better things to do. Alternatively, I can reinstall my PC – because when my Vista was new it worked (quite) well… Right now my backup is at about 39% …

Reinstalling is actually a pretty bad option, which is frustrating. I need to backup my documents, licenses, software, reinstall all over again, find the drivers, re-enter the licenses and hope that I am not going to forget anything.

I would gladly use our own product Reimage but we are not supporting Vista, my R&D team is promising me a working product by mid 2009 …

Googeling “Vista Repair”

Being at this “frustrating” situation I was even ready to pay for a simple promise, so I googled “VISTA repair”. I did not expect anything but a scam. There are so many products promising me that they can miraculously fix my PC.

All of those registry cleaners, registry scanners, registry thingies, registry sliders, registry fixers & mixers, registry and registry optimizers. Why the Registry ? it is just one big sitting database of Windows. It just became such a buzz word.  If it was fixing star-trek ships, it would be “Re-modulating the buffers”. The registry is a database, called Configuration Manager inside the windows kernel – nothing really to optimize there, it is working very well from the days of NT 3.51 (15 years ago),  these folks would go through this big database and look for something that looks like a file name, these programs will check if this file name exists on the disk. If not, they will delete it from the records. By definition, Windows automatically ignores these keys. In essence, these registry cleaners do nothing.

The registry industry marketing is amazing- “I had 2498723762348 errors and my [insert the product name here] fixed it for me”. Random name, random state. My mother would buy that! Furthermore, when they scan the system they would associate the location of a key to a group and write: you have 74 errors in your fonts!

Windows has about 100 different sub systems, .NET components, network subsystem, video, drivers, synchronization, security, internal / external application communication mechanisms, etc. PC repair is not that simple …

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