Archive for the ‘Windows’ tag
Registry Cleaners are they Scams? A Look at how they can Improve Computer Performance
I’m a pretty skeptical guy. I’m not a big believer in quick fixes, and avoid hype and fads like the plague. This is why when all the buzz around registry repair utilities started to build I didn’t believe that they could be a one fix all solution of PC problems.
I did some research but most websites only raved about the big benefits. None presented any of the cons to these computer programs or what they were actually capable of doing to improve PC performance. I decided that if I wanted to find out the real answer I was going to have to do my own testing. That is exactly what I did I created a registry cleaner test on my own test PC to decide if these programs really worked. The Results? The results were rather unexpected.
Speed Means Nothing
I timed all of the registry cleaners I tested to see how long they took to do a complete scan. Time for the scan varied between one and ten minutes. I did notice that a second scan with the same program was faster then the first, I can only presume they cached some of the data they found on the first scan.
The faster the full scan took meant nothing about the performance. Based on all the tests I ran the speed of a scan had no bearing on how well a registry cleaner actually performed.
Number of Errors found Didn’t Equal Repairs Done
This really surprised me. The number of errors found during the full scan of my computer wasn’t the same number of repairs, or better stated changes made to my registry. The top registry repair software made about 60% of the changes found in the full scan. I can only assume that registry cleaners find as many errors as possible so it looks like your computer really needs a cleaning.
Performance Came from Add-on Features
This was the test that really started to make me more of a believer in registry repair software. Up to this point there had been small improvements in the performance of my test PC from the scans and repairs down by each utility. Once I started running the file cleaners, start-up folder optimizers and other features of each program I began getting some great results.
My boot time of Windows was reduced, as well as the startup time for many of my programs. I measured the performance improvement by timing the start up with a computer start up timer so everything was equal.
In the End
While my test PC wasn’t that infected with junk files and registry errors I was able to squeeze out some performance. It wasn’t really caused from the registry repair part of the software. The improvement came from running the additional programs that came with the software.
From my testing you can improve the performance of your computer using a registry cleaner. How ever ensure the one you buy has a guarantee, not everyone gets the same results so it’s a good idea to be able to get a refund if you’re not happy.