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RE: ESI Juli@ under Win XP - no digital outputs visible

>> "1. Don't run any registry cleaner software unless you really know
>> why you should. It can mess up your system very badly."

Note what I said. In particular, don't run a Registry cleaner as a regular maintenance activity.

> What makes you say that?

No registry cleaner can have a database of all the settings every piece of legitimate software places in the registry. At best, it might have a very limited list of registry entries that are known to be associated with malware. It can't even know the difference between legitimate software and malware.

So what does a registry cleaner do to be effective? It searches for entries that fit some pattern and removes them. A false positive can seriously affect your computer's operation.

As Windows is updated (weekly), it may create new registry entries or change old ones. A new or changed entry might look indistinguishable from a malware entry to a 3rd party registry cleaner.

Search on the JRiver forum for "registry cleaner" and you will find some recent posts about them. I think you might find some posts on this forum too.

> You should always back it up first,

Yes.


> and the reg is really not that hard to understand the workings of it.

The form of the Registry is not a mystery. The exact meaning of every entry is a mystery. Doing experiments to discover the meaning of Registry entries has limits.

> Cleaning and organizing it leads to a better running system.

I don't agree that "cleaning and organizing" the registry makes much difference in most cases. Windows uses the registry when it starts up. Applications use the Registry when they start up. It is not used much after the OS or an application finishes its startup process. So making it tidy and compacting it isn't going to affect normal operation much.

I never had an issue with system operation slowing down that was related to the Registry needing "cleaning."

The more important action that a registry cleaner might do is to identify and remove entries that cause some malware to be executed.

There are other ways to see what services are present, what drivers and what software is bring run in various ways at startup (startup folder, run and run once and rundll for example.)

I worked writing Windows kernel level software since before Win 95 came out. I spent time analyzing security threats from malware. I had to deal with the Registry in my work. I learned what I needed for my projects but I never had a sense that I understood the significance of every Registry entry.

I would not use a Registry Cleaner unless I had to.

Bill



my blog: http://carsmusicandnature.blogspot.com/


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