Thanks in advance

-Larry

Like most everyone else I have tried registry cleaners, et al, and have had good and bad experiences. I use XPPro & XPHome plus SP3 and all updates have been installed on my PCs/notebook. Software I had tried to speed up my units where were then low on RAM include some of those mentioned here: Advance WindowsCare, Glary Utilities, NCleaners, etc. The one practice I have learned is to create a system restore point before using any of these cleaners.

I now have Tune Up Utilities, CCleaner, ATF Cleaner, Registry Booster, Win Utilities, ARDPro and all work fine without any conflict. I used to just download, install, activate and run cleaners. After having learned my lesson on use of cleaners, I made it a point to do some Windows basics like Disk Cleanup, Disk Check, Defragmentation, on line-security updates, etc. I followed all the recommendations in speeding up PCs from an on-line article, “Speed Up Your PC,” that I read.

Based on the free servicing I do around my neighborhood I noticed that not everyone running XP SP3 does the basics and here’s where the problem lies. When cleaners, et al are installed and used crashes or conflicts occur. I believe one basic in using cleaners is the user has to understand what it does before using it.

All the PCs and notebooks I now have at home work like brand new. [An IBM NetVista desktop came back to life after I used ARDPro [thanks to GAOTD] and had since maintained this unit using such.] The three PCs are six years old already while the notebook is only two years old.

Before shutting down any of the units at home I run the following in order since not all cleaners remove all types of trash: 1) ATF Cleaner, 2) CCleaner and 3) Tune Up Utilities One Click Maintenance. The next time I boot up my PCs/notebook are as good as new. I hope you will find this useful.

For those mentioning that it looks like Premium Booster, here’s why…

If you go to this site you’ll see that Advanced Registry Doctor is a product from Elcor.

Programs developed by Elcor Software:
h ttp://software-informer.software.informer.com/

Premium Booster costs $26.95 and Advanced Registry Doctor goes for $24.95

It took out my MSSLLFile entry which was an new update to Internet Explorer….MSSLLFile\shell\open\command\: “”iexplore.exe” “%1″”…This has to do with security…..VERY BAD

It removed the app path entry for for my Sound Blaster.mcl, although the path is correct and the file exists in that director…..BAD
It removed the App Paths the setup.exe and install.exe. These are the default values that are created on a Windows install…..lockOnTSNonInstallMode REG_DWORD 0×00000001(1) This can produce errors when you run programs with setup.exe or install.exe…VERY BAD

It removed the App Paths\table30.exe\UseShortName: “”. No longer do my shortcuts have the name Advanced Registry Doctor – shortcut….This can only be done with a registry hack. Excellent. Didn’t stay however

I did a search on my computer for msvcr71.dll and found about 10 files in different folders. As long as the file is the exact size in the windows\system32 directory, these can be safely deleted. I tested it by running each program after deleting the msvcr71.dll and they all worked fine.

So when it deleted these entries, it removed the entries in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SharedDLLs key…..VERY GOOD

It removed many CLSID\Typlib entries which were pointing to programs I had uninstalled….VERY GOOD

WARNING Do not delete any .dll file that exists in the C:\Windows\system32\SMINST or the C:\Windows\system32\winsxs directories.

What can I say? This GAOTD is absolutely a keeper even though it’s quite similar to its “twin” Premium Booster given here by GAOTD a few days ago.

And as proof of it it got a good rating on Softpedia (4 stars out of 5 given by 37 users is not bad at all for a Shareware, is it?).

FREE ALTERNATIVES:

- TUNE UP UTILITIES 2007

- ADVANCED SYSTEM CARE (formerly Advanced WindowsCare): very good!

- SWEEPI 5.4

- FREE WINDOW REGISTRY REPAIR 1.5 (very good)

- ASHAMPOO WINOPTIMIZER 4

- ARGENTE REGISTRY CLEANER 1.5.2.1 (EXCELLENT)

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Registry-Tweak/Argente-Registry-Cleaner.shtml

- QUICKSYS REGDEFRAG 2.1 (VERYGOOD)

http://www.download.com/Quicksys-RegDefrag/3000-2094_4-10844188.html?tag=mncol

- GLARY UTILITIES FREE EDITION

- Glarysoft Registry Repair

Actually I was impressed by the last one which I discovered just a few days ago. It’s an advanced registry cleaner for Windows with many extra features such as a short explanation of why each key is no longer necessary, an option to decide which programs launch on start-up and a feature to automatically back up the Registry before removing anything.

Amazingly when I used this program it has found more than 100 problems to the registry that Glary Utilites, Advanced Windows Care and the award-winning CCleaner did not detect.

Did I say that it’s FREE?

http://www.download.com/Glary-Registry-Repair/3000-2086_4-10372101.html?tag=mncol;txt

For VISTA users I suggest also trying “DTweak Free”, an advanced tweaker and optimizing tool designed to enhance the performance and the speed of your PC and its processes especially for PC running VISTA as OS.

You will be surpised at the speed your PC will be having after you use this little GEM.

With DTweak you can:

- defragment disks and registers,
- clean registry sistem,
- tune computer performance,
- optimize and increase the speed of your system without manually modifying registers or ini files.

h ttp://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/System-Tweak/DTweak-Free.shtml

h ttp://www.download.com/DTweak-Free/3000-2086_4-10800709.html

(remove space at beginning)

As you can see it got VERY GOOD RATING from users in both sites.

Having said, whatever registry cleaner you may ever use, that the best way to dramatically improve the performance and speed of your PC is just to DEFRAGMENT your HARD DRIVE at least once a month, with SMART DEFRAG 1.03 or AUSLOGICS DISK DEFRAG or JK DEFRAG, and then use this GAOTD or, in sequence, other FREE APPLICATIONS such as the following ones:

- REGSEEKER
- CLEAN MY REGISTRY
- REGSCRUB
- CCLEANER
- ADVANCED SYSTEM CARE (formerly Advanced WindowsCare)
- FREE WINDOW REGISTRY REPAIR 1.5
- NT REGISTRY OPTIMIZER, a registry compactor that improves system performance by removing any slack space that may be left from previously modified or deleted keys without changing the contents of the registry in any way.

Check out also the instructions of this two threads:

h ttp://users.telenet.be/bluepatchy/miekiemoes/slowcomputer.html

h ttp://www.speedupyourcomputer.windowsreinstall.com/index.htm

(remove space at beginning)

Finally don’t forget that a great way to avoid the REGISTRY CLUTTER, using all the registry cleaner set out above, is simply to install a VIRTUAL OPERATING SYSTEM in your PC or better still a SANBOXIE PROGRAM such as RETURNIL, previously given by GAOTD, SANDBOXIE, GESWALL or SAFESPACE, because they allow your existing OS to become a Host into another Guest operating system or the applications you download to run in a special environment that does not mess up the REGISTRY of your existing OS.

Since users can switch between the two OS or the OS and the SANDBOXIE LAYER any time they want to, the VIRTUAL OPERATING SYSTEM and SANDBOXIE PROGRAMS are also a great way to make Windows systems impervious to virus attack and spyware being capable to automatically sanitize all web activities and surfing history without any hassle.

In other words with VIRTUAL OS and SANDBOXIE PROGRAMS you can say farewall to the REGISTRY CLUTTER and, as consequence of this, to the tons of REGISTRY CLEANERS such as this GAOTD that almost everybody has installed in their PC…LOL!!

Hope all of this can help!!

Cheers from Italy!

Giovanni

Plus, there’s the added benefit of great suggestions for free
programs similar to what is being offered.

Thanks guys and gals. Have a great, prosperous New Year!!!