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Never use any programs like these. I've learned the hard way by using almost all of them on XP systems through to Vista that they NEVER EVER give any benefit and quite frequently cause problems.

yet another useless registry cleaner

Nothing "useless" about a registry cleaner, and if you know what you're doing, they're very effective. Don't know about this particular one though and you should be leary of them, for sure.

using beta version of a registry cleaner is the definition of living on the edge

@Alsheron and jamesVault,


That is false.

5-7 years ago many registry cleaners were dangerous. Some still are, but that is only because they are not updated.
Also, you have to take into consideration the way programs was developed back then. programs back then added a lot of information to the registry. Many programs still do. Microsoft Office, SQL Server 2005, Adobe Photoshop, Premiere, you know... "heavy" programs. By "heavy" I mean it takes a little while to install the several hundreds of MB and MBs of registry keys and corresponding values. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing it for these reasons. I quite like all the above mentioned programs. Today we have a lot of portable programs and programs that save all configuration data to .INI, .DAT and .XML files. If you're using many of these, then cleaning the registry will not benefit you.

My point is, any given registry cleaner will have differences in the "rules" that it follows in order to:
- Classify a given registry key or value as valid or invalid.
- Determine whether a file extension is in use or not.
- Determine whether a shell extension is valid or invalid.
And these are just a few examples.

I am friends with the developer of JV16 PowerTools. I have been with this program off and on over the years back when it was 2005 all the way up to 2008. He's now working on 2009.

He has built-in safeguards to ensure that it does not touch critical system files/folders/registry, certain Microsoft products like Office. I know this for certain because I once uninstalled Office but JV16 did not detect it as invalid after being uninstalled because it was protected. It is given the "benefit of the doubt", if you will.

3 years ago, I swore I would never touch JV16 again because of how much of a mess it made of my registry. I've had VMware, Device Manager and other programs broken. Just recently, double-clicking on a folder in Windows Explorer prompted for which program to open it with. This is detailed here on the Macecraft Support Forum.

Yes, there was a problem I was experiencing, but did not decide to uninstall the program because of one bug.
I reported it and it was fixed in two days and a new build of the program with that fix in place was released.
Even if it had taken longer, the program has a backup and restore feature that does not require a reboot. I simply restored all the removed registry data and was instantly able to double-click folders again.

5-7 years ago, programs did not work this way... at least none which I encountered.

And the real performance gain when dealing with the registry is defragmenting it after you've removed entries. It is the same concept as disk fragmentation. You add files, you remove files, there are empty gaps where those removed files used to be, so you do a Consolidation Defrag, for example, to make everything contiguous and sequential again.

Defragmenting the registry makes a backup of the hives, and makes new hives that are contiguous.
This does require a reboot. Once you do, the performance gain differs. Your human perception may not notice the difference in some cases (hardware specs, size of registry / number of programs installed, etc), but your operating system does.

Check my post here.

So before you take 2 sentences to bash a program without taking the above into consideration, please reconsider your position on the matter in the future. Do your own testing, but remain open-minded. Just because you are not successful or do not notice a difference, does not mean that someone else with different programs installed, different hardware specs, different Windows operating system installed, will not see a difference.

I will always think of "Comodo" as that company that gave away the free virus scanner, but then failed to update it since some time in 2007.

I stopped recommending it when I realized it was 6+ months out of date, even when it said there were no updates available.

COMODO is ok. Their firewall is on par with or better than many paid offerings.

Can't beat Comodo! Cheers.

Edit:

Puts CCleaner to shame!

Not another registry "optimizer"! As if these utilities didn't get enough negative buzz, a highly-regarded company like Comodo had to jump into the fold. Well, let's all hope this thing can actually deliver what it promises.

the only reg cleaner i use is ccleaner as that is a very safe one but i use it mostly for cleaning temp files when needed,otherwise i stay away from reg cleaners.

Much as I like COMODO, I'll steer clear of this until it goes final.

I recommend Eusing Free Registry Cleaner. Have been using it for over a year, on multiple computers, and have never had a problem. It also does a more thorough job than ccleaner (with I also use).

Using any safe Registry Cleaner is a matter of good house-keeping; dont just expect performance improvements as such.

As fas as using a Beta of any one, well I'd be a little circumspect. But must agree this one appears to have a lot more options !