A New Ccleaner Slim # 5.22.5724 has been released to get go to http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/builds (link is external) 5.4 mb in size WITH OUT THE CHROME BROWSER DOWNLOAD ADON
CCleaner 5.22.5724 changelog:
Paul862:Is Registry cleaning a good thing to do, if so when a problem occurs or on a regular basis. Lastly is Ccleaner the best for this. Thanks.
I'm so glad you asked!
I do use CCleaner so let me outline my "attitude" to your questions:
1 -- As a general principle, using anything without knowing what and how it does what it is supposed to be for is dangerous whether slicing meat in the deli or clipping your toenails!
2 -- The Registry is an enormous file or set of files with goodness knows how many lines of code in it -- I sometimes think that not even Microsoft knows -- and it does not really benefit from "cleaning" but if it has errors in it then correcting them may be necessary and beneficial.
3 -- CCleaner is a "good" tool for cleaning up files or for "cleaning" the registry since it works in stages -- first listing what it finds and making you select what it will do if you tell it to go ahead.
4 -- So when it lists things it finds in the registry that it thinks are "wrong" or "unnecessary" do you know enough when you see the list to tell it whether it is safe to go ahead or not?
5 -- The one feature that allows me to use the registry cleaner from time to time but not as a routine, apart from it listing what it has found and making you check each item to be acted on, is that it also asks do you want to make a backup before the changes are made and you can say yes. The absence of this in the old Norton 360 and anything carried over into later Nortons is why I'm delighted when they remove such utilities from their malware security products.
6 -- When I do use the Registry Cleaner part of CCleaner from time to time it's never been because I've spotted something that I can see will speed up my computer or stop it crashing. I may tell it to remove some references to programs I know I've uninstalled (it will mostly tell you that's why it's listed if you click on the more information link) but when it points to some item, a file extension maybe, that it says is not needed by anything or some line that it says leads nowhere I ask myself "How does it know that some program has inserted that because later it will need it?"
So my answer to your very sensible questions are:
Registry cleaning as routine is not a good idea
Doing it to fix a problem is a good idea IF you know enough about a problem and about how the registry works to know that CCleaner will fix it ...... but if you knew that you could go in and edit the registry yourself!
CCleaner is a good tool but like any tool you should not use it blindly.
So FWIW I do use the first part of it for cleaning out "dead files etc" which is the real Cleaner of its name; I don't really use the Second part of it, the Registry tool.
I do use the other utilities in it -- the Cookie Cleaner under Options but again I scan down the list in the left column and manually move items I recognize relate to things I really use into the saved right column, run Intelligent Cleaner on the left column and then check cookies in the CCleaner Cleaner item and run it again.
And the Startup tool is good since you can not only disable but also delete items which the Windows tool used not to.
I hope that makes sense but do ask if you have any more questions.
Is Registry cleaning a good thing to do, if so when a problem occurs or on a regular basis. Lastly is Ccleaner the best for this. Thanks.