AVG PC Tuneup 2011

[AVG]

Is this any good?

<http://www.avg.com/gb-en/avg-pctuneup.tpl-mcr8>

 

[Roland Schweiger]

Pepole have different tastes.
But I do not see any necessity and use for such programs.
greetings
Roland Schweiger

 

[Ken Blake]

Is this any good?

<http://www.avg.com/gb-en/avg-pctuneup.tpl-mcr8>

No!

Registry cleaning programs are *all* snake oil. Cleaning of the
registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone and
don't use any registry cleaner. Despite what many people think, and
what vendors of registry cleaning software try to convince you of,
having unused registry entries doesn't really hurt you.

The risk of a serious problem caused by a registry cleaner erroneously
removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit
it may have.

Read http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html

and http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=28099

and also
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussin.../02/registry-junk-a-windows-fact-of-life.aspx

Let me point out that neither I nor anyone else who warns against the
use of registry cleaners has ever said that they always cause
problems. If they always caused problems, they would disappear from
the market almost immediately. Many people have used a registry
cleaner and never had a problem with it.

Rather, the problem with a registry cleaner is that it carries with it
the substantial *risk* of having a problem. And since there is no
benefit to using a registry cleaner, running that risk is a very bad
bargain.

 

[Thip]

No!

Registry cleaning programs are *all* snake oil. Cleaning of the
registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone and
don't use any registry cleaner. Despite what many people think, and
what vendors of registry cleaning software try to convince you of,
having unused registry entries doesn't really hurt you.

The risk of a serious problem caused by a registry cleaner erroneously
removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit
it may have.

+1!!!!!!

 

[VanguardLH]

Is this any good?

<http://www.avg.com/gb-en/avg-pctuneup.tpl-mcr8>

- What is currently wrong or failing with the registry?
- What convinced you that the registry needs to be "cleaned" up?
- What constitutes the "cleaning" actions?
- What do you expect to gain from the cleanup?
- What are you going to do if the registry changes hose over
your computer since a restore may not be possible?
- What is your recovery strategy from the registry changes?


*_Why the uneducated or lazy should never use registry cleaners_*

If YOU are not adept at *manually* editing the registry, don't use a
tool that you don't understand regarding its proposed changes.
Regardless of relinquishing the task to software, YOU are the final
authority in allowing it to make the changes. Any registry cleaner that
does not request for YOU to give permission to make its proposed changes
along with listing each proposed change should be discarded.

Do you have a backup & restore plan in place? When (and not if) the
registry cleaner corrupts your registry and when you can no longer boot
into Windows, just how are you going to restore that OS partition so it
is usable again? Even if you use a registry cleaner that provides for
backups of its changes so you can revert back to the prior state, how
are you going to perform that restore if you cannot boot the OS after
hosing over its registry? A registry cleaner that [automatically]
backups up a copy of the registry before you permit it to make changes
to the registry sounds nice but that feature is only usable if you can
actually load the OS to then run that utility to restore from its
backup. You need something ELSE to ensure you can restore your OS to a
prior state so it is bootable and usable, like an image backup (full or
incremental). If you don't backup then you have deemed your data as
worthless or reproducible.

What about entries in the registry that look to be orphaned under the
current OS load instance but are used under a different OS environment?
You delete what looks orphaned only to find out that they are required
under a different environment.

Say there was an unusually high amount of orphaned entries in your
registry, like 4MB. By deleting the orphaned entries, you would speed
up how long it takes Windows to load the registry's files when it starts
up - by all of maybe 1 second. Oooh, aaah. All that risk of modifying
the registry to save maybe a second, or less, during the Windows
startup. Most folks that clean the registry end up deleting only 10KB,
or less. They are doing nothing to improve their Windows load time.
Since the registry is only read from the memory copy of it, and since
memory is random access, there is no difference to read one byte of the
registry (in memory) from the another byte in the registry (also in
memory). The extra data in memory for orphaned entries has no effect on
the time to retrieve items from the memory copy of the registry because
orphaned entries are never retrieved (if they were, they aren't
orphaned).

Cleaning the registry will NOT improve performance in reading from the
memory copy of the registry. The reduced size of the registry's .dat
files might reduce the load time of Windows by all of a second and
probably much less. And you want to risk the stability of your OS for
inconsequential changes to its registry? The same boobs that get
suckered into these registry cleanup "tools" are the same ones that get
suckered into the memory defragment "tools".

A registry cleaner should only be used if you by yourself can correctly
cleanup the registry. The cleaner is just a tool to automate the same
process but you should know every change that it intends to make and
understand each of those changes. After all, and regardless of the
stagnant expertise that is hard coded into the utility, *YOU* are the
final authority in what registry changes are performed whether you do it
manually or with a utility. If YOU do not understand the proposed
change (which requires the product actually divulge the proposed change
before committing that change), how will you know whether or not to
allow that change?

 

[Tester]

Yes it is good but you can do better by downloading a free version of
CCleaner (slim) from this link:

<http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/slim>

You should always make a habit to clear all the clutter from your system
on a monthly basis. The free version of CCleaner comes out almost every
month so it is a good idea to get an updated version before scanning
your system every month.

Ignore all the nutters who are saying you don't need and that you should
refrain from using them. The fact of the matter is they haven't used
any of them so they are not the proper people to get advise from.

Hope this helps.

 

[Drew]

Some incredibly dumb advice!

 

[Tester]

On 7/23/2011 4:06 PM, Tester wrote:

Some incredibly dumb advice!

Better than yours. You haven't given any and all you do is browse the
porn sites where children are being abused. You are are a pediphile and
we shall come after you if you don't comply with Megan's Law.

 

[VanguardLH]

Yes it is good but you can do better by downloading a free version of
CCleaner (slim) from this link:

<http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/slim>

You should always make a habit to clear all the clutter from your system
on a monthly basis. The free version of CCleaner comes out almost every
month so it is a good idea to get an updated version before scanning
your system every month.

Ignore all the nutters who are saying you don't need and that you should
refrain from using them. The fact of the matter is they haven't used
any of them so they are not the proper people to get advise from.

Ignore all the nutters who are saying there are no hazards to registry
cleaners. The fact of the matter is they haven't had to maintain anyone
else's computer than their own so they don't have the experience to
advise.

 

[Drew]

Better than yours. You haven't given any and all you do is browse the
porn sites where children are being abused. You are are a pediphile and
we shall come after you if you don't comply with Megan's Law.

Plonk! Learn how to spell!

 

[Tester]

Only a Pedo will know the correct spelling of his name. A name is a
proper noun that can be spelt in many ways. However, a Pedophile like
you should know what people call you. and how it is spelt.

 

[Tester]

Ignore all the nutters who are saying there are no hazards to registry
cleaners. The fact of the matter is they haven't had to maintain anyone
else's computer than their own so they don't have the experience to
advise.

Another pedo spending his time here rather than in the local park
abusing young boys! this pedo has also violated the Megan's law and the
authorities are looking for him now.

USERS HAVE BEEN WARNED OF THIS PEDO LURKING HERE. Your children aren't
safe when he is around.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Ken.

Have you seen the August 2011 edition of the magazine PC World? Starting on
Page 81 is an article, "Cleanup Utilities: Can They Speed Up Your PC?"
This article confirms your "snake oil" conclusion. I wasn't able to find
the article online just now (at http://www.pcworld.com/#new ), but maybe I'm
just not looking in the right place.

In summary, PCWorld said, "In most cases, the cleanup utilities we tested
scarcely made a difference in overall system performance, and in a few
instances they actually made things slower...." About their testing
process, they said, "Obviously, we couldn't use pristine PCs to test the
utilities, since they wouldn't have had any crud to clean. So we collected
five systems of different ages that had one thing in common: wear and
tear." PCWorld Labs tested four utilities: Ashampoo WinOptimizer 7 ($40),
Iolo System Mechanic 10 ($40), Piriform CCleaner (free) and 380Amigo System
Speedup (free version).

And, for what it's worth, I fully agree with PCWorld's conclusion - and with
the opinion that you and so many other experienced PC users have posted here
and elsewhere many times over the past several years.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010)
Windows Live Mail 2011 (Build 15.4.3538.0513) in Win7 Ultimate x64 SP1


"Ken Blake" wrote in message

Is this any good?

<http://www.avg.com/gb-en/avg-pctuneup.tpl-mcr8>

No!

Registry cleaning programs are *all* snake oil. Cleaning of the
registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone and
don't use any registry cleaner. Despite what many people think, and
what vendors of registry cleaning software try to convince you of,
having unused registry entries doesn't really hurt you.

The risk of a serious problem caused by a registry cleaner erroneously
removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit
it may have.

Read http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html

and http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=28099

and also
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussin.../02/registry-junk-a-windows-fact-of-life.aspx

Let me point out that neither I nor anyone else who warns against the
use of registry cleaners has ever said that they always cause
problems. If they always caused problems, they would disappear from
the market almost immediately. Many people have used a registry
cleaner and never had a problem with it.

Rather, the problem with a registry cleaner is that it carries with it
the substantial *risk* of having a problem. And since there is no
benefit to using a registry cleaner, running that risk is a very bad
bargain.

 

[VanguardLH]

Another pedo spending his time here rather than in the local park
abusing young boys! this pedo has also violated the Megan's law and the
authorities are looking for him now.

USERS HAVE BEEN WARNED OF THIS PEDO LURKING HERE. Your children aren't
safe when he is around.

And, as the OP and others can see, Tester shows you just how expert he
is in computer and software technologies. He often shoots himself in
his own foot with his replies. Guess he doesn't like his own
generalizations without evidence.

 

[Ken Blake]

Hi, Ken.

Have you seen the August 2011 edition of the magazine PC World? Starting on
Page 81 is an article, "Cleanup Utilities: Can They Speed Up Your PC?"
This article confirms your "snake oil" conclusion. I wasn't able to find
the article online just now (at http://www.pcworld.com/#new ), but maybe I'm
just not looking in the right place.

Thanks, RC. No, I hadn't seen it. I'm glad to hear that they agree
with me, but I also have to say that I generally distrust whatever any
of the PC magazines say. A lot of their opinions are based on their
advertising revenues.

Also, a number of years ago, I had a young woman working for me whose
previous job was as a reviewer for PC Magazine (I didn't hire her; I
inherited her). She was terrible, and knew next to nothing. She could
barely spell "PC," let alone have good opinions about software.

And I'm also glad that you agree with me.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

And, as the OP and others can see, Tester shows you just how expert he
is in computer and software technologies. He often shoots himself in
his own foot with his replies. Guess he doesn't like his own
generalizations without evidence.

You read Tester's posts?

 

[Bob Henson]

No!

Registry cleaning programs are *all* snake oil. Cleaning of the
registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone and
don't use any registry cleaner. Despite what many people think, and
what vendors of registry cleaning software try to convince you of,
having unused registry entries doesn't really hurt you.

There is (at least) one situation where they are very useful. You have a
faulty/misinstalled/corrupted program which needs re-installing. If you
just remove it, many programs have inadequate un-installers and leave
junk all over the place - or it may not un-install at all, for some
reason. If you just re-install, the remnants in the registry (commonly
pointing to the junk still on the disk) may cause problems - indeed they
often do. One good example is Pinnacle Studio - in even of a re-install
being necessary Avid actually supply a (specific) registry cleaner to
remove the rubbish left behind before a re-install will work.

However, with this and many other programs removing the program, going
through the directories and removing every trace of the program, then
running a registry cleaner like Ccleaner to delete all the entries
pointing to files which are (now) not there will often enable successful
re-installation.

I've tried it many times, and it often helps.

 

[Roy Smith]

There is (at least) one situation where they are very useful. You have a
faulty/misinstalled/corrupted program which needs re-installing. If you
just remove it, many programs have inadequate un-installers and leave
junk all over the place - or it may not un-install at all, for some
reason. If you just re-install, the remnants in the registry (commonly
pointing to the junk still on the disk) may cause problems - indeed they
often do. One good example is Pinnacle Studio - in even of a re-install
being necessary Avid actually supply a (specific) registry cleaner to
remove the rubbish left behind before a re-install will work.

However, with this and many other programs removing the program, going
through the directories and removing every trace of the program, then
running a registry cleaner like Ccleaner to delete all the entries
pointing to files which are (now) not there will often enable successful
re-installation.

I've tried it many times, and it often helps.

That's why I prefer to use Revo Uninstaller to remove programs. First
it makes a restore point, then it runs the program's uninstaller. When
the uninstaller is finished Revo then scans your PC for any leftover
files and registry entries and then it displays them so you can decide
if they need to be deleted or not. You can get it here:

http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html


--

Roy Smith
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
Thunderbird 5.0
Tuesday, August 02, 2011 2:36:06 PM