My NSW 12 Basic Edition doesn't seem to have a license that expires and comes with WinDoctor which I use to clean my XP registry. I understand that the "Registry Cleaner" that comes with the new Norton Utilities (NU) is similar to PC Tool's Registry Mechanic.
Once registered, does NU's license expire or, like NSW BE, never expires?
Does anyone have a compare and contrast experience with WinDoctor vs NU's Registry Cleaner? What I like about WinDoctor are the solution choices you get to choose from when fixing a registry problem: Deleting the Registry entry is different than choosing to re-link a file WinDoctor finds for the registry entry. Does Registry Cleaner provide those solution choices?
My NSW 12 Basic Edition doesn't seem to have a license that expires and comes with WinDoctor which I use to clean my XP registry. I understand that the "Registry Cleaner" that comes with the new Norton Utilities (NU) is similar to PC Tool's Registry Mechanic.
Once registered, does NU's license expire or, like NSW BE, never expires?
Does anyone have a compare and contrast experience with WinDoctor vs NU's Registry Cleaner? What I like about WinDoctor are the solution choices you get to choose from when fixing a registry problem: Deleting the Registry entry is different than choosing to re-link a file WinDoctor finds for the registry entry. Does Registry Cleaner provide those solution choices?
Thanks so much for sharing your insights with me; I did come to the right person!
You are so right about WinDoctor's often goofy suggestions it makes to update a broken link with a wrong file it finds on some other totally unrelated path. I too pass on the suggestions 90% of the time and simply delete the entry.
But most important to me, in the many years I've used WinDoctor to scrub my XP registry for errors, I've not once needed to undo a registry edit WinDoctor performed. Years back, I once tried a registry cleaner from the Fix-It Utilities and after running it, had to revert to the last known good registry in order to boot back up! So despite WinDoctor's quirks, I've come to trust it and am reluctant to switch to a new solution.
In the two years you used Registry Mechanic, did you need to undo many deleted registry edits? Did it ever break an app or prevent you from uninstalling one?
It's interesting that Symantec after acquiring PC Tools chose to discontinue their own registry editor in favor of their old competitor's. Often the reverse is the case as the acquiring company's intent is to increase their in-house product's competitiveness. That Symantec is embracing PC Tools registry cleaning solution in NU and dropping their own WinDoctor (and NSW, for good measure) may be a clue that it's time for me to switch too.
Symantec's strongest suit is in the PC protection arena, AV software, internet security and the like. They cover much territory and as often happens they have acquired other companies over the years and in a couple of instances they have opted to integrate their previous competitors solution into their own software suite. This is one such example. Another one was their acquisition of PowerQuest back in 2003 I believe it was. They leveraged PowerQuest's DriveImage engine for the Ghost solution.
Actually, there has not been even once I have had to fall back to a restore point after using either the Registry Scanner or the Registry Defrag utilities in NU. This includes both the period of time I used the stand-alone Registry Mechanic as well as the integrated solution in NU.
There was recently a serious bug in NU affecting Windows 7 which appears to have been resolved. You can see this thread for more details. I don't say this to scare you but I do believe in giving a full account. I must say that they resolved this one in pretty quick fashion. I myself reported it to Symantec and they had a fix within a few weeks.
All in all I would seriously suggest the new NU and the recent price drop from $49.99 to $29.99 makes it an even better deal.
