Registry Cleaner Scams
Dave’s Computers Tips has often published articles that suggest making changes to your Windows Registry. This can be a hazardous place in which to be tinkering. We always try to warn you before making changes to your Registry; you should create a Registry back up before making these changes. If you don’t know how to make a Registry backup, check out this Quick Tips article right here on DCT: Windows Quick Tips – Backup/Restore Registry
Unlike most Quick Tips articles, this is not so much of a How-To article as it is a Do-Not article. Read on to protect yourself…
The Good
There are many good reasons to change settings in the Windows Registry. It gives you control over settings which would otherwise not be available to you in the normal Windows interface. Examples might be:
- Changing Fonts
- Changing the Context Menu
- Customizing the Taskbar
- Eliminating Windows Update interference 🙂
The true power of understanding the Windows Registry can be an incredible experience.
The Bad
The downside of editing the Registry is that if you aren’t sure of what your are doing, and don’t pay close attention to detail, the results can be catastrophic. Windows may not even boot properly. We don’t want that. And “cleaning the registry” is most certainly not an approach we recommend as a questionable “fix”. If you’ve gotten buried this deep in the barrel, it probably won’t work anyway.
The Scams
Here is a quick video from Linus Tech Tips that will give you a good idea of what I am talking about– in true Linus form, of course:
If you’ve never watched Linus’s videos before, it can be quite the experience. He is excitable. At the same time, I believe he knows what he’s talking about and his advice should be respected. His YouTube videos are generally well worth watching if you want to learn something.
Final Words
The bottom line here is not to fall for the many crooks’ attempts out there to empty your pocketbook by convincing you that Registry Cleaners are a necessary thing. To the contrary, they are to be avoided and mistrusted.
As Linus points out, you will garner no legitimate boosts in performance by spending your hard-earned cash on bogus Registry Cleaners. I agree with his conclusions and have have been preaching this for years… perhaps even before Linus was born? I don’t know for sure… checking… born August 20, 1986… yep!! I started preaching in ’82.
You have been warned,
Richard
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Been using CCleaner for years as my cleaning tool. Can’t really say it speeds my PC up, but it does help keep a lot of junk files at bay. It is also pretty good at removing registry entries after uninstalling programs.
Richard. I believe there are some programs or should I say there were programs which allowed users to safely make some changes safely in the Registry. Not sure if these fixes are packaged within software, as the only product that comes to mind is Tweak Now Power Pack. Used to be free, but not much is free nowadays, Mindblower!
”I agree with his conclusions and have have been preaching this for years… perhaps even before Linus was born? I don’t know for sure… checking… born August 20, 1986… yep!! I started preaching in ’82.”
You were..umm..minus four years old then?
We had NOT been warned about that 🙂
Good post and thanks.
Hi Colin,
Linus was born in ’86, not me 🙂
Richard: Your article is very timely, especially the link– DCT: Windows Quick Tips – Backup/Restore Registry(11/9/2016) . Just uninstalled ERUNT registry backup program because it couldn’t create a backup file in my Windows 10. Is there a way to schedule your backup of the registry everyday at login? Thanks
Hi Gary,
Backing up your Registry everyday is overkill. All you have to do is back up your system drive and that will include a Registry backup, as well.
How often you do that will depend on your usage habits.
Thanks for your comment,
Richard