Inconsistent results - bug?

terrypin

I generally use System Mechanic to clean my registry. But I was warmly recommended to RegSupreme, so I downloaded 1.3 today. However, I did a series of 7 test scans. I deleted nothing, and did nothing else on my PC during the tests. They gave some very strange results!

#1 Loaded program, first scan, Aggressive: 1305 entries

#2 New scan, Normal: 2293 entries

Surely 'Aggressive' should find more not less?

#3 Restart, Normal: 1190 entries

Nearly double the last scan!

#4 New scan, Aggressive: 2446 entries.

Tool 272 secs, much longer than #2, and nearly twice as many.

#5 New scan, Aggressive: 2896 entries

Another 450 entries from nowhere! (Took 256 secs, i.e. faster).

#6 New scan, Aggressive: 3087 entries

More, and more, and more. I wonder if it would go up indefinitely?

#7 New scan, Normal: 3440 entries

Seems quite illogical. And the 'Help' says nothing about the definitions of Aggressive and Normal.

Must say, until I understand what's happening here, I have no faith in it.

Terry, West Sussex, UK

terrypin

Typo:

#3 Restart, Normal: 1190 entries

Nearly half the last scan!

Terry, West Sussex, UK

blackdex

I tested it a few seconds ago. And this are my findings.

Exactly the same as the first post.

#1 13 Seconds | 144 Items

#2 09 Seconds | 129 Items

#3 09 Seconds | 129 Items

#4 13 Seconds | 144 Items

#5 13 Seconds | 144 Items

#6 13 Seconds | 144 Items

#7 09 Seconds | 129 Items

I can't reproduce the problem.

The only thing i can figure is that there is some program running in the background wich creates/removes registry keys or something.

jv16

Seems rather strange. Could you tell me what programs were running during the tests?

If you have many residental programs (such as anti-virus) they do generate a lot of registry activity which could explain some difference between the number of the found items of different scans. But not that much.

I will have to get back about this issue on next Monday / Tuesday because I'm having the rest of the week off due to moving.

terrypin

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jv16

Could you do the test again, this time with as little software running on the background as possible?

terrypin

jv16 wrote
Could you do the test again, this time with as little software running on the background as possible?

Unrealistic request. Those services are the practical minimum, as far as I know. Instead, can you reproduce the problem?

Terry, West Sussex, UK

jv16

There's no need to close down the system services, but could you close:

Macecraft Software :: Post a reply - Mozilla Firefox

IrfanView

TextPad1 - TextPad -

Agent NIN (Text) -

MailWasher

Regseeker

(Plus 7 Explorer directories active.)

I have tried to reproduce this on my personal computer, my work computer and on one test computer and they all give the same results on each scan.

terrypin

OK, I did as you suggested and am pleased to report success. Here are results:

Run 1

Skipped cache clean (not sure what difference this would make?)

Chose Normal; did nothing else on PC

48 secs, 350 invalid

No action

Run 2

New scan, Normal

40 secs 350 invalid

No action

Run 3

New scan, Aggressive (It would be good to know more about what this does)

132 secs, 398 invalid.

Selected all and hit Delete

Entered backup name

But can you please explain this puzzling message when the backup finished please. I had expected to get something like "398 entries successfully deleted", but instead got "The registry fixing procedure is now completed. It was possible to correct 81 items, 343 items had to be removed in order to fix the problems. You can undo all the changes from the backups."

BTW, 343 + 81 = 424, not 398, further confusing me!

Thanks for your help.

Terry, West Sussex, UK

jv16

The puzzling message simply means that the product was able to fix some registry entries by modifying them while for the other the only option was to remove them.

Some registry cleaners can only delete the found errornous items but our products always try to fix them first and only remove them as a last option.

For example, let's say you have the great game Civilization 3 installed at D:\Games\Civ\, the game's main executable is (if I remember right) civ3.exe.

Now, you have bought a new hard drive, or for some other reason Windows has changed your drive letters. So, what once was D:\ is now E:\.

As you might guess, all this doesn't mean good for all those applications installed to D:\ before the upgrade. And of course, the Civilization doesn't start any longer either and you are sitting at work with no games to play.

But, if you at this point run our registry cleaner it will notice the change and modify all registry references still pointing to D:\Games\Civ\civ3.exe to point to the new location at E:\Games\Civ\civ3.exe.

Of course, you don't have to install a new hard drive for the registry file name and path references to get mixed up, but that was just one example scenario.

terrypin

OK, thanks, that's a clear explanation.

What about 'Aggressive'?

Terry, West Sussex, UK

jv16

Aggressive scan option means that it's more aggressive in identifying the errors. In other words, it finds more items but sometimes removing all of those items might not be safe.

The reason why some items found by the aggressive scan mode are not safe to remove is not the product's fault.

Let's take a COM component for example, COM components are basically standalone components which can be used by any applications you have.

In order for a COM object to work it must be registered to the system. This way the third party applications know that it is there and it's ok to use the services it offers.

Now, registering a COM component is a rather complex thing to do. That's why some COM components get registered in a wrong way. Not perfectly valid registration may or may not render the component useless, in other words, even if the component hasn't been properly registered to the system it might still work.

This is where the fun part kicks in. So what should a registry cleaner do when it detects a COM component registration that is not valid? Here's the options: a) ignore it, b) delete the registration entries from the registry or c) try to guess whether the COM component is in use and only remove the items if the COM component doesn't seem to be in use.

The normal scan mode of our products selects option a and the aggressive method selects option c.

The aggressive scan method is targeted to advanced users who can restore the registry backup if something goes wrong, and who are not afraid to take the risk. Normal users shouldn't use that method.

terrypin

Thanks for that thorough explanation. I took the Aggressive option, although I made backups both with RegSupreme and ERUNT. So far haven't encountered any problems.

Terry, West Sussex, UK