Re: [Gimp-user] Error.

[Steve Kinney <admin pilobilus net>]

On 11/03/2012 09:02 PM, Jernej Simončič wrote:
> On Sat, 03 Nov 2012 13:22:52 -0400, Steve Kinney wrote:
>
> > I would run a "registry cleaner"
>
> Don't. Just don't. At best, they do nothing, and at worst they screw up the
> machine (had to fix too many machines that "registry cleaners" and
> "optimizers" left in unusable state).

The first thing a registry cleaner does - if it's a decent one like
the Wise cleaner - is back up the existing registry files to a
location where they won't be overwritten during the OS-native
registry backup rotation.  Then it conducts a scan and removes
orphaned keys that point to non-existent files and directories,
redundant keys, etc.  In some cases, I have seen processes that
access the registry frequently, i.e. complex application start-up
routines - run 2x faster after cleaning.  Usually the result is not
quite that impressive.

In a hypothetical worst case where damage is done by the cleaning
process - something I have never seen happen in a few hundred
practical cases - the saved registry can be restored with a single
command and, in effect, "nothing happened at all."  Any problems
that need repair are the same ones that were there before the
registry cleaner was tried.

Progressive registry bloat is a feature, not a bug.  It makes a
computer with a Microsoft operating system appear to be "getting old
and slowing down," which is a Good Thing if you are selling
computers or operating systems.  Not so good if you are the user who
owns the machine in question.

The best repair for any Microsoft operating system is to replace it
with an operating system that works, or, failing that, reinstall the
one that came with the machine.  But sometimes that's not an option,
alas.

:o/

Steve