Why is Windows registry full of errors?

These kinds of utilities want to make the user think he needed them, so they "show" all kinds of things that aren't really "errors" at all--with the aim of convincing the user how fortunate he was to have purchased this particular "registry cleaner." As well, they can cause problems, too, by incorrectly ID'ing correct entries as errors and deleting them. AV programs (some of them) do the same thing. MalwareBytes, for instance, flags partial registry text strings (usually left behind not by Windows but by program uninstallers that don't uninstall everything) as "possible viruses"... Mostly what gets left behind in the registry is exactly that--program uninstalls that were not programmed to work to remove 100% of what the program initially installed. Besides taking up a minuscule amount of space, they aren't "errors" at all and would not hurt anything--which is why software developers are so lax about removing everything when the user uninstalls their applications. Registry cleaners go way back to the Win9x era...I don't even use one today--haven't for years and have suffered no ill effects...have seen no reason to use them again.

 

If you have an errors in Windows registry, then the Windows do not work correctly or don't work at all. It happens sometimes, but very rarely.
These, what You named, are not for repairing the registry, but only for cleaning, which is not mandatory, but only sometimes recommended.
And one more thing, what You probably have not noticed, is that many things are necessary only in order to receive money from the people. Not anyone other do not needed them, only the manufacturer.
Most of the products are made exclusively for sale only, not for use.

 

@WaltC yep I agree 100%, I don't use this softwares nevermore, actually I use only Dism++ and with very caution

 

Without these cleaners, Windows is still fine. They may cause problems for Windows.

 

Most Registry "Errors" aren't actually errors, just leftover entries from deleted or upgraded apps. Harmless as far as I know, but I'll admit I don't know much I also use CCleaner and it's never caused any problems Yet.

 

I use WinASO RegOpt Portable, Glary Utilities, and CCleaner. Never a problem. I did use something about 15 years ago which made my operating system an Unoperating system. LOL

 

I've used Ccleaner for years without issue. But pretty much the only time I do use it is to scrub the registry for those specific leftover entries after I've uninstalled a given program. Over the years, I've learned not to trust MS will get all the crap out (Ccleaner was originally called Crap Cleaner hence the "CC" part), but even then I save the removed registry entries for a while just to have a recovery path.

 

I try to avoid reg cleaners, unless I have a problem I can't solve myself, nothing and no-one online knows the solution, and it's being a PITA, then I might resort to one, which happened once when weirdly I had no audio anywhere in Windows, apart from firefox, after a couple of days of trying everything, I ran reg mechanic, and it amazingly fixed it

But generally what happens is, I run them on a perfectly working install for no other reason than because it's late, I'm tried and bored, and they break something that worked fine before I ran it, so I don't touch them unless I have only a full Windows reinstall as my final option

 

I used cc cleaner in the past but I have stopped using it because it did found a lot of registry keys that were 2 important to remove ! So in the beginning I used auto clean the registry and ended up with an unusable system but that was in the past I guess. Now a days I fiddle around in the registry some times if and if only needed to correct problems. My advise woulld be stay away from registry cleaners they are to generelistic to tacle specific problems of an user

 

Those aren't "errors", those are leftovers.

In the w95 era a lot of lefrovers were a problem, because there was a noticeble increase on resource usage and a noticeable effect on the perfoemances.

Nowadays the registry is huge as is (my exported registry is around 260MB, 3x/4x the size of the whole w95 installation) so who cares if it's 1MB larger or smaller?

 

They're not. There are thousands and thousands of registry keys. The ones that registry cleaners delete on fresh install are empty keys. I.E. they're not errors in the OS, they're errors in the registry cleaners. I'm sure MS uses these empty keys for a reason, even if registry cleaning tool makers don't understand why or agree with it.

I thought the same as you did a few years back before I realized just how many registry keys there were.

I would just argue that MS needs to consolidate x86 and x64 programs and registry keys and system files and stop trying to make system double the size it needs to be for x64.

 

I don't use any reg cleaners anymore, they have messed up quite a few things in the past, i simply do my cleanup my self, searching for the names in the "user" " system" software's registry sections, i don't go or do not delete things in other registry sections.

Sometimes for big products you have officials uninstallers or cleaners.

I use Revo Uninstaller who does a really great job removing programs, never had problems, up to the last w10 build 14352, i check auto startup items too.

 

There are leftovers from previous Windows and abandon software. Registry is huge, even MS engineers can not keep track of everything. A typical findings after a clean setup are entries of NET Framework 1.0 and old IE, among other things. Empty keys are recreated when needed.

Because one tiny meaningless key can cause huge problems. I have seen several cases, where a completely un-relevant leftover prevented a software from installing or a driver from working properly, even "a mysterious" high CPU and HDD usage. People with various problems and bugs are usually those, who do not perform a maintenance. It is common saying, that people who use reg cleaners have problems, it is quite the other way around actually.

 

But why bother about it, when you just can do another clean install every 3-4 month or play back a backup if necessary ?

It's just not worth it ...

 

Obviously there are cases where a leftover can lead to annoying problems, say a shell extension badly uninstalled.

But those are problems related to a specific badly written uninstaller, or to a manual removal of a program.

It's just a different case, is better to look at it using the brain and a good registry editor rather than a stupid automated tool.

Instead the hundreds of keys found by many automate cleaners are just harmless leftovers, they just make the registry file just slightly bigger than it should.

That's all.

 

Those reason some registry cleaners will mess up your computer is many of them assume that an empty registry key is invalid. Unfortunately some programs rely on these place-holder registry keys that are created during the initial install process of that particular program.

 

You need to login to view this posts content.

 

In the case of ccleaner, after you have decided on which cookies to keep, what programs to exclude, well anything you change in ccleaner is backed up to C/Program Files/ccleaner/ccleaner configuration
files, copy this file to another HD so after you install another OS, or clean install, install ccleaner, go to where you backed ccleaner configuration and import it to the location above, saves alot of time

 

On top of allowing you to create a list of items to exclude from registry cleaning, Ccleaner also allows you to back up the registry before the cleaning process begins. Why people don't take advantage of this feature is beyond me, it's just common sense as far as I'm concerned.

Another common sense item: Take the time to read through the list of registry entries to be deleted before you click "Fix selected issues". You do have the option of unchecking any item on the list that you're unsure of.