Norton 360

[snipes1988]

I have been reading online that registry cleaning programs occasionally cause more harm than good.

Is that the case for Norton 360?

Should I disable the registry scanner, or should it not cause any problems?

Thank You!

[PapauZ Norton Fighter]

From the responses we can read here on the forums fortunately there's almost no harm Norton 360's registry cleanup does. If you feel you don't trust that part of the product, just turn it off, but I think you can leave it turned on as well ;).

[yank Trojan Terminator]

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snipes1988 wrote:

I have been reading online that registry cleaning programs occasionally cause more harm than good.

Is that the case for Norton 360?

Should I disable the registry scanner, or should it not cause any problems?

Thank You!

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Hi snipes,

Everyone seems to have an opinion about running a registry cleaner and everyone is entitled to their opinion. 

IMHO, I will not use the Norton Registry cleaner , nor any other registry cleaner if I can avoid having to run one.  I have left the Norton Registry Cleaner turned off since I installed  Norton Security Suite (Comcast's version of N 360) mainly because I do not run registry cleaners, but also because the Norton version does not ask before removing an item.  I prefer more control than that.  If something is going to be deleted, I want to know what it is before I provide the OK to delete it. I do not like the automatic deletions.

I'm sure you'll see more opinions here before the thread ends.

[DistEd2 Super Bot Obliterator Mobile Master (Norton Mobile Users Discussion Forum)]

Like PapauZ says, Norton's registry cleanup is relatively tame; I myself have never experienced any problems with it (although I don't use it often). But like Yank notes, registry cleaners are inherently risky, because they have to try to figure out what every third-party programmer whose software is on your machine has done to your registry--with or without documenting it--and tell the difference between a tuly orphaned key and one that's equally undocumented but still in use by some critical part of something--up to and including your Operating System.

Bottom line is I would disable it and refrain from running it unless you have some specific symptom suggesting a registry problem (not just a "registry error," a term that includes strak keys like I mention above).

[snipes1988]

I can't seem to find an option to switch off the registry cleaner. How could I do it?

Thank you!

[PapauZ Norton Fighter]

Hi,

you just need to open the 360 Settings, and there's a Task Scheduler option in it. Go to that settings panel, and deselect Registry Cleaner. Save the settings, and now it won't run automatically :).

[rhuleva]

There are a few registry cleaners out there that I think are better than what is offered in N360. One in particular I like is IOLO System Mechanic because it allows me to manually backup the registry before I make any changes at all, it allows me to go through each key individually if I want to do so to make sure it isn't removing anything that I obviously don't want removed, it compacts the registry, etc. If a registry cleaning app does not have these key elements I would avoid using it. The nice thing with this feature set is that in a worse case scenario, if you screw up and remove something you shouldn't have, you can restore it extremely easily. I hope future versions of N360 will offer more registry features than the automated cleaning it performs now.

In response to an earlier post, I would say that while you may not ever truly NEED to run a registry cleaner, I do find definite performance improvements when my registry is clean and compact versus when it is not. Think of this as being similar to defragging a badly fragmented hard drive. However NEVER make any changes without first BACKING UP your current registry!!!