Registry Booster

Registry cleaners have been around for a long time now, and some of us can remember when we used Microsoft's RegClean on Win95 and Win98. That is still available on some websites but even then it had a very limited function. It did not fix a corrupt registry and was limited to fixing problems with normal Windows Registry entries located in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. Besides that it had severe incompatibilities with Win XP. RegClean is now no longer supported and has been removed from all Microsoft download sites. But there are almost countless others.
Registry Booster has recently been released by Uniblue Systems Limited and is a serious contender in the market. In committing to write this review I disclosed that I have been using Jv16 Power Tools for some years as my registry cleaner. I am sure Uniblue will accept my drawing comparisons with this utility and one other, RegCleaner, which is a subset of Jv16 Power Tools and is free. The first comparison must be that Jv16 Power Tools is a multi-purpose utility that I have found invaluable for functions other than cleaning the registry, whereas Registry Booster is dedicated to that one task only. Jv16 Power Tools should probably be considered as a power-user utility. It requires learning and understanding that many PC users are not prepared to devote. And rightly so, most users don't want to delve into the bowels of their operating system. Registry Booster is very safe and very easy to use.

What is the Windows registry?

The registry is a large database that is used by Windows for general settings and preferences, storage of hardware and software configurations, and hardware drivers and devices. Whenever you make any changes in your preferences or settings, installed software or hardware, these changes are stored in the Windows registry.
Keeping your registry in a good state of repair and conducting regular maintenance is imperative, because the registry contains important data that is used all the time during system operation. When you install, uninstall, and reinstall programs on your computer, registry keys are created, modified, or deleted. Many of these entries are not removed when they are no longer needed and the registry grows and becomes more complex. The registry also becomes fragmented, like a hard disk, creating gaps and wasted space that may lead to problems.

What do regcleaners clean?

To some degree all regcleaners scan for errors in your registry and effect repairs. Each utility has its own preferences but many obviously overlap. Registry Booster has an extensive list including, but not restricted to:

Registry integrity and shell folder entries.
Software locations including missing, orphaned, broken or bad application paths.
Unwanted browser objects.
Corrupt Active X/COM Objects.
Redundant Startup applications and uninstalled application schedulers.
Obsolete shared DLLs and folders.
Uninstalled software remnants.
Unused and unwanted drivers.
File extensions and associations.
Unnecessary fonts and recent files list.

Commensurate with all Uniblue products the layout is clear and the information is obvious.
The help file, which I recommend you all to read, is complete and easily followed.

This is the Navigation panel before any activity has been carried out.

Configuration Settings refers to various startup options and creating backups before repairing - the same information that is available by selecting the Settings tab.

Defrag Registry can take a few minutes and requires a system restart to take effect, as is the norm with a Windows System Restore and some program updates that need to read in the new registry.

Start Scan opens the dialog below.

Here we get a better appreciation of just what is scanned for correction in the registry, and this is in the very early stage of scanning.

There were 338 errors found in this scan, which was the first I had done on this PC. We should expect to see 150 or more on the average PC's first scan.

By comparison Jv16 Power Tools found only 6 errors.
But its free subset, RegCleaner, found 17.

These scans were all done on the same registry in turn. I did not repair the registry until after doing the comparisons.

The question arises, therefore, of what is the definition of an Error or a Problem. Overwhelmingly the majority of my problems were Missing or Invalid Path, which I show as one of three common problems on this PC.
To see if this could really be a problem I Googled it, and quote from the answer to a user's problem.
"If any of these keys point to an invalid path, the installation will fail to properly install.These registry entries need to be fixed in order for the installation to complete successfully."
Very recently I had a serious problem with a Firefox display. It grew an broad grey bar along the bottom edge that I could not remove by changing options and removing extension add-ins. Uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox twice only increased the size of this bar to two, then three times its original size. Only when I manually removed all Firefox entries from the registry did the problem go away on the next installation. At that time I was not running Registry Booster, but I now wonder if that might have detected and solved the problem.

When changes are made to the registry it is always advisable to make a backup first, and clicking on Repair Registry will bring up a dialog box offering this choice before proceeding if you have not already created a backup. Remember, if you do not create a backup you cannot return to that configuration.
I know there are those who say the registry needs no maintenance, but I prefer to err on the side of safety. I credit my years of regularly cleaning the registry with having as much input into my PC peace of mind as does my antispyware running continuously in the background.

For users who want more control than that provided by the default settings, the Registry Scan tab allows any section within the scan to be unticked, whereas the Start Scan button on the Navigation panel immediately starts the scan on the current settings.

If you intend to do a partial rather than a full scan you should read the details of each of these items in the comprehensive help directory.
Details are succinct but informative, and are an excellent tutorial for gaining a good background knowledge and understanding of the registry and its functions.

Registry Booster creates an undo file whenever it makes any changes to the registry.
If you are not satisfied with the changes made, you can select from a list of backup files shown on the Restore tab on the Navigation panel. Click on the Restore button and your system will be taken back to that previous configuration.

Be aware that restoring an old configuration will restore all errors within that configuration and, if you have affected changes in your registry after the file was backed up, the restore function may undo these changes.

Backup files are limited to a maximum of five, so older files should be selected and then removed by clicking on the Delete button.
(Obviously my too-frequent backups are made in the course of writing this review, not out of necessity.Ed)

While I do not see defraging the registry as important as repairing it, it is something I do regularly as part of PC housekeeping. A normal figure would see a recovery of 3% of space, but I have had up to 9%.
I would recommend that you run the Defrag Registry function of Registry Booster as a normal routine. Every little help we can give our operating system in working more efficiently is worthwhile.

Registry Booster is available for download from http://www.liutilities.com/products/registrybooster/

Enjoy your computing.

Terry Bibo

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