Am I being jaundiced?

Broadback · Sep 01, 2012, 16:48:06

As I wrote elsewhere I have been having problems installing Websync from Polar's website. Among the suggestions has been run AUSlogic registry cleaner. Well I tried the free version, if I thought it would solve my problems I'd buy it. However when I ran the free version logged lots of problems, but, of course, will only fix them if I pay for the full version. Now since then I have been getting various problems, and wondered if it was a clever marketing ploy by them. Could it be or am I being jaundiced?

Rik · Sep 01, 2012, 17:04:43

Registry cleaners miss things or change things that are needed. I'm not a great fan of them.

pctech · Sep 01, 2012, 18:14:34

I have to agree with Rik.

From personal experience these tend to cause more problems than they resolve as they may remove something that a process depends upon although if that particular process isn't running at the time it won't have locked the key.

If you are having lots of Windows issues and you suspect your registry is the cause it is far better in my opinion to back up your documents and other files, reach for your Windows CD or DVD and driver CDs, reformat and reinstall, that way the registry is rebuilt from scratch.

Windows installs do 'age' and corruption creeps in, particularly if you regularly uninstall and install software, the only thing registry cleaners/boosters/system mechanics do is to try and return keys to a known supposedly 'good' value or remove ones that it thinks are not used.

Every person uses different software and in a different way so the only time one system's registry exactly matches that of another is when they come off the production line of one of the big retail manufacturers like Acer or Hewlett Packard.

Broadback · Sep 01, 2012, 18:32:12

I'd love to reinstall my system, but as with most purchasers of PCs (in my case Medion) no discs are supplied, so how do I proceed?

Gary · Sep 01, 2012, 19:08:03

Did you burn a recovery ste at teh beginning? Or have you got a recovery partition? I agree with Mitch and Rik, unless you can edit the registry yourself, never use reg cleaners, tbh they are just snake oil and can do more harm than good.

pctech · Sep 01, 2012, 19:43:37

It is my understanding that OEMs like Medion have to either supply a backup or a method to create a recovery set (a utility you should find on the start menu)

I recently helped a colleague set up a new Packard Bell laptop for her non tech savvy inlaws and there was a utility that guided you through creation of a DVD backup set which would contain the factory preinstalled image together with additional programs to completely automate the reinstall process.

pctech · Sep 01, 2012, 19:48:41

Looking here http://www.medion.com/gb/service/download/software.php may help

Lance · Sep 01, 2012, 23:04:28

I use ccleaner to clear out the registry occasionally and never had a problem with it.

Simon · Sep 01, 2012, 23:57:43

Same here.

cavillas · Sep 02, 2012, 10:06:47

I use regedit and go through the registry myself and clean it out once every few months, a long process but worth the effort. As long as you knnow what you're doing.

Gary · Sep 02, 2012, 10:23:28

Quote from: cavillas on Sep 02, 2012, 10:06:47
I use regedit and go through the registry myself and clean it out once every few months, a long process but worth the effort. As long as you knnow what you're doing.

Actually you rarely get any boost in performance from editing the registry, its a myth. Ccleaner is pretty gentle but no two programs find the same registry issues which says a lot too, also the fact that MS don't make a regedit tool any more speaks volumes. Only edit if you have issues, if not leave well alone.

Broadback · Sep 02, 2012, 12:27:02

Quote from: Lance on Sep 01, 2012, 23:04:28
I use ccleaner to clear out the registry occasionally and never had a problem with it.

Thanks PCTech, but that simply tells me that there are no software downloads.

pctech · Sep 02, 2012, 16:20:12

What's available will depend on your PC model and how old it is BB

If you can post that I'm happy to do a bit more digging for you.

pctech · Sep 02, 2012, 16:31:22

Quote from: Gary on Sep 02, 2012, 10:23:28
Actually you rarely get any boost in performance from editing the registry, its a myth. Ccleaner is pretty gentle but no two programs find the same registry issues which says a lot too, also the fact that MS don't make a regedit tool any more speaks volumes. Only edit if you have issues, if not leave well alone.

Regedit still exists in Windows 7 and I'm about to install the consumer preview of Win 8 on a separate partition to specifically look at the changes in the tools I use to help customers at work and how it can be broken so will let you know if regedit is still about.

The original idea behind these tools was that they would remove redundant keys to reduce errors and loading time because Windows loads the complete registry during the boot process.

However with a modern CPU and RAM this is less of a lag than it used to be, the only real benefit is keeping an eye on what is set to run on startup and a much safer method for doing this is using Msconfig.

I'd never try and guide a novice through editing the registry using Regedit as there is no protection that prevents you from incorrectly editing or removing a key.

Broadback · Sep 02, 2012, 18:02:02

Quote from: pctech on Sep 02, 2012, 16:20:12
What's available will depend on your PC model and how old it is BB

If you can post that I'm happy to do a bit more digging for you.

Many thanks for that offer Pctech.
There is an awful lot of information on the label, however it says
Product Name: Akoya A10 P40200
Model Name: A103B
Type Name: MED MT 657G
MD No.: 8870
PLU: 42965
YC: 05/10
EAN: 25203790
MSN 10013778
S/n 1477901D010932
4779 01 MED GB
Manufactured Medion AG 45307 EssenGermany

Must have been a bureaucrat with Diarrhea that wrote all that!

pctech · Sep 02, 2012, 18:24:19

Ok.

Putting 10013778 into the MSN field of that page I linked to earlier does bring up drivers for your system and a hard drive test program but does not bring up a utility for creating backup disks unfortunately.

Have a look under Medion on All Programs to see if there is anything there, I can't really be more specific than that as different manufacturers do different things, if there's a recovery partition you might see a prompt for this when you boot your system.

Alternatively you could try dropping them a mail https://www.medion.com/gb/service/contact/

Gary · Sep 02, 2012, 20:05:12

Quote from: pctech on Sep 02, 2012, 16:31:22
Regedit still exists in Windows 7 and I'm about to install the consumer preview of Win 8 on a separate partition to specifically look at the changes in the tools I use to help customers at work and how it can be broken so will let you know if regedit is still about.

The original idea behind these tools was that they would remove redundant keys to reduce errors and loading time because Windows loads the complete registry during the boot process.

However with a modern CPU and RAM this is less of a lag than it used to be, the only real benefit is keeping an eye on what is set to run on startup and a much safer method for doing this is using Msconfig.

I'd never try and guide a novice through editing the registry using Regedit as there is no protection that prevents you from incorrectly editing or removing a key.

I meant a regedit tool thats automated where it does it for you like Ccleaners, not 'the' regedit tool...Surely if you make a backup of your registry from within regedit though you could replace keys that have been removed by just restoring the registy?

pctech · Sep 02, 2012, 21:36:49

Ah, apologies Gary.

You can.

In theory If Win 7 becomes unbootable it fails over into Windows Recovery Environment and will repair itself (It didn't like a DRM driver from a game I tried to install so whacked itself into RE and purged it), I believe Vista did something similar so technically it should not be possible to get into an unbootable state.

When Windows then starts you could in theory then just double click on the .reg file and import the lot but then again I've never done this for a complete registry (though I have copied one back in using the recovery console on XP) so I've no idea how Win Vista/7 would react.

Gary · Sep 03, 2012, 10:41:01

Cheers Mitch

pctech · Sep 03, 2012, 11:15:08

I do miss the Windows installer cleanup tool MS used to make available as it helped me sort out a few complex issues for customers with Windows Installer based installs on some stuff I support but as you say they removed this as it also caused some issues.

Bring back ini files.

I have to say when I went for the Macintosh training that was one thing that I was impressed by, the fact that applications seemed to generate their own plist config files and that in theory at least you could reset the application by just deleting the plist file.

The guy did neatly gloss over the fact that some applications such as Office are a little more complex than that.

Gary · Sep 03, 2012, 11:23:11

Quote from: pctech on Sep 03, 2012, 11:15:08
I do miss the Windows installer cleanup tool MS used to make available as it helped me sort out a few complex issues for customers with Windows Installer based installs on some stuff I support but as you say they removed this as it also caused some issues.

Bring back ini files.

The guy did neatly gloss over the fact that some applications such as Office are a little more complex than that.

Office is Microsoft though, it puts things in odd places and duplicates fonts, Office 2011 for Mac didnt even clean itself up after shutdown and lest wkresources in the trash on reboot <sigh>Pages which I use (Apples word processor) is simply plist based again, also you can go back using time machine and grab a non corrupt plist and replace it so not loosing customisations if needed. Most handy.

cavillas · Sep 03, 2012, 13:26:10

Quote from: Broadback on Sep 02, 2012, 12:27:02
Thanks PCTech, but that simply tells me that there are no software downloads.

Nothing to do with a performance boost, just a wy of getting rid of entries no longer needed. I like to keep things as tidy as possible.

Gary · Sep 03, 2012, 16:10:35

Quote from: cavillas on Sep 03, 2012, 13:26:10
Nothing to do with a performance boost, just a wy of getting rid of entries no longer needed. I like to keep things as tidy as possible.

How do you know you are actually removing the ones that are needed to be removed though

I have a friend who works for MS as a Architect for Windows and the xbox and even he avoids the registry and that man happily plays with complex algorithms.

cavillas · Sep 03, 2012, 19:40:11

Been dealing with windows since windows 1-2 and never had any problems yet. I did a bit of windows development just after DOS but didn't like MS setup very much, that was many years ago when I used to be young and happy.

Broadback · Sep 04, 2012, 09:36:56

Thanks for all the help and tips here. I have now recovered my PC to "factory settings, that was the easy part. Recovering my email addresses etc was the laborious bit, I a, almost there now though. Incidentally now I have a "clean lean" machine I am able to load and run Polar Web Sync that I could not before.