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A friend just brought me her laptop which has slowed to a crawl. I ran a free registry analysis program (XP Medic) and it came up with tons of errors. I'm wondering which registry repair program is best. There are zillions of them and most cost around $30. Which are the best ones? Better yet, which are the best free ones?
Also, she has Virusscan, which I just updated, but I'm wondering what the best anti-spyware programs are.
Any thoughts?
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No registry "repair" program works worth a damn, if her registry is damaged then the best course of action is a Nuke n Pave®.
I like and use AVG free Antivirus, SpyBot Search & Destroy, Spyware Blaster, CrapCleaner, Ad-Aware & NT Registry Optomizer.
You need to run these tools on a regular basis ( at least once a month) to keep a windows machine running smoothly!
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Nuke and Pave. She has a decent back-up, right?
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I agree with HarbourMaster to have a set of tools to run on regular basis to keep system running smoothly. I use McAfee from AOL, it is free with AOL account. I would be curious to hear opinions on using McAfee. I work for a big company, that is their software of choice for Virus checking. If good enough for them, its good enough for me -- and free from AOL.
However, once the machine is infected and coming to a crawl, I agree with RacerX -- Nuke-n-Pave! When friends come to me for help on their troubled PCs, I tell them that I won't waste my time trying to rid the machine of toxic software. I tell them that I will help them backup data files and then we Nuke-n-Pave. Much easier on me anyway.
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We don't have an intimate enough relationship (though she's jaw-dropping cute) for me to be privy to such personal details as her backup strategy, let alone asking her permission to nuke and pave. I'm guessing her backup strategy is typical of most people's backup strategy (i.e. nothing at all). Even with a backup I'm not sure how to go about a Windows nuke and pave that will restore all of her files. Right now I'm running Wise Disk Cleaner to get rid of temporary files...there are thousands of them. I might follow that up with Wise Registry Cleaner. Both of those products are recommended by PC World. I figure that's at least worth trying before going any further.
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There are programs that claim to repair the registry, but they often do more damage than good. If you choose to use a Registry repair tool make sure you have a back up of any data that is important to the CUTE girl who is coming to you for help. If the registry gets hosed, you're pretty much done for in regards to that Windows installation. You'll be able to get the files off, but you'll have to mount the drive to another system and fight with permissions and ownership and well, it would definitely be wiser to back them up before you hose the system.
I'll give you some advice though. I've tried to win this battle in the past. You can't win. If the user is using Windows and does not already know about housekeeping and antivirus then he/she will end up in the same position in a few short months, maybe a year. The next time though he/she will blame YOU for the problem. Unless you can convince them to use Linux or get a Mac you just can't win.
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another great program to run is AdAware from Lavasoft It's free, and will probably find lots of spyware stuff..
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[quote The UnDoug]another great program to run is AdAware from Lavasoft It's free, and will probably find lots of spyware stuff..
Please see my previously posted list...
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She likely has many things trying to autoload at once upon startup. Cleaning that up will probably show a huge increase in speed.
Start the machine in Safe Mode (press F8...or rather 'tap it' about once every second...upon starting the computer - if you press and hold onto it the whole time, the BIOS may not recognize a keyboard attached). Once you come to a menu with many options...choose "Safe Mode" to boot with (no network option needed).
Once you are in XP...go to the Start Menu and choose "Run..." (or press the Windows key and "R" together). Type in msconfig...once that opens up, go to the StartUp items tab and start unchecking programs that are loading. You will be able to tell, by the folder paths, just what is what typically. You can actually disable everything and the Windows will still run okay...so no worries if you end up doing that.
Another way to clean out Startup Items is to manually go into the Registry...go to the "Run..." prompt (like above), and type regedit....once that opens up, navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run...in there you can delete those keys (paths to startup items) freely. Also make sure to check here to and delete items in there too: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
Once you are done...restart the computer normally and see if there is a huge speed difference or not (there should be, and definitely will load faster).
After that...run a Disk Defragmenter, which ma help too since it likely has never been done: (Start menu\Programs\Accessories\System Tools
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It all depends on how much time you want to spend on it. If you have an external NTFS backup disk, I would make a complete backup before trying any registry repair tools.
