I don't know what I should believe any more

i_am_confused

I don't know what I should believe any more :?

I happen to have the free scanning tool from Uniblue "Registry Booster 2010" which happens to present me with approx 265 registry errors on my system.

After much research and a recommendation of a friend I found the Maecraft jv16 Powertools 2010.

Installed OK, did a scan run and removed all the errors that were found.

Then I thought "let's see what the Uniblue Registry Booster says now", so I did another scan with this tool. Well, now, after jv16 PowerTools has allegedly removed all the registry problems, Uniblue still shows about 250 problems ???????

How can that be?

In the http://www.macecraft.com/registry_cleaner_comparison2/ Uniblue apparently only found 17 out of 1000 problems. In my own test Uniblue finds more problems than jv16 ??????

Does anyone here have experienced something similar?

On a side note

People, I have to tell you I'm so pissed off with this stuff.

Yesterday I nearly fell for the Registry Patrol scam, then you've got all these marketers out there who have sites with fake product reviews (where coincidentally the product they are an affiliate for is the one that is the best one tested). Now I am here and after reading the above mentioned "cleaner comparison" I was so happy to have found the product that I could trust.

But after conducting that above mentioned test with the Uniblue product, I'm not so sure what to believe any more...

jv16

i_am_confused wrote

Then I thought "let's see what the Uniblue Registry Booster says now", so I did another scan with this tool. Well, now, after jv16 PowerTools has allegedly removed all the registry problems, Uniblue still shows about 250 problems ???????

How can that be?

It's very common and something that one can get confused about. Basically, it boils down to a fact that it's very difficult to define a "registry error" or "registry problem". And, since people usually think "more is better", all the registry cleaner products attempt to list as much registry errors as possible to convince people that this product is the best (as it lists the most errors). Some products even go too far and show fake errors in order to attempt the user to buy the product.

Another thing is that some products show all items that they consider as registry errors, PowerTools contains a vast list of items it will not show to the user as that kind of registry data is not safe to remove or modify. For example, with the default settings PowerTools does not scan for many parts of the registry that contain information about Windows itself, just to be extra safe.

But, to give you a short answer: jv16 PowerTools and Uniblue Registry Booster consider different things as registry errors. That's the reason they show a different number of errors. Basically it's up to decide which product you trust the most.

bobh.

jv16 wrote
i_am_confused wrote

Then I thought "let's see what the Uniblue Registry Booster says now", so I did another scan with this tool. Well, now, after jv16 PowerTools has allegedly removed all the registry problems, Uniblue still shows about 250 problems ???????

How can that be?

It's very common and something that one can get confused about. Basically, it boils down to a fact that it's very difficult to define a "registry error" or "registry problem". And, since people usually think "more is better", all the registry cleaner products attempt to list as much registry errors as possible to convince people that this product is the best (as it lists the most errors). Some products even go too far and show fake errors in order to attempt the user to buy the product.

Another thing is that some products show all items that they consider as registry errors, PowerTools contains a vast list of items it will not show to the user as that kind of registry data is not safe to remove or modify. For example, with the default settings PowerTools does not scan for many parts of the registry that contain information about Windows itself, just to be extra safe.

But, to give you a short answer: jv16 PowerTools and Uniblue Registry Booster consider different things as registry errors. That's the reason they show a different number of errors. Basically it's up to decide which product you trust the most.

I bolded the last line in the reply above because it is the portion that I am responding to. If it is basically up to each of us to decide for ourself just what is an error, and what is not an error in the system registry, then isn't that a lot like throwing darts into the ocean in order to score a fish so that we might eat. I am a long term registered user of JV16 and am becoming more and more convinced that the program does nothing for me, and in fact is only a step above a scam itself. I suppose that this forum is a group of users that are trying to help others and I commend each and everyone of you for your efforts, I am really not convinced, but am ready to be convinced if someone would just tell me what I am missing. As for cleaning out the registry, is it even necessary? I have been involved in/with computers since 1968, and I have never cleaned out any registry on any computer.

jv16

Bob H. wrote

I bolded the last line in the reply above because it is the portion that I am responding to. If it is basically up to each of us to decide for ourself just what is an error, and what is not an error in the system registry, then isn't that a lot like throwing darts into the ocean in order to score a fish so that we might eat. I am a long term registered user of JV16 and am becoming more and more convinced that the program does nothing for me, and in fact is only a step above a scam itself.

Well, I think the matter is rather similar to car maintenance - if you take your car to different repair shops they can come up with very different number of things that needs to be fixed. But does that make the entire concept of car maintenance, or system maintenance for that matter, a lot like throwing darts into the ocean in order to score a fish so that we might eat?

I don't think so, it just means that there are different kinds of repair shops, some are able to find more issues. And of course, there can be those who make up problems in order to scam you. And I'm afraid there are such bad apples in the field of computer maintenance as well, lots of them. It's so much easier to create or re-brand your own registry cleaner product than to open one's own car repair shop. And the first one is much more attractive scam than the latter, I would imagine.

Bob H. wrote

As for cleaning out the registry, is it even necessary? I have been involved in/with computers since 1968, and I have never cleaned out any registry on any computer.

Cleaning one's computer and its registry is not necessary in a sense of any maintenance or cleaning - one can buy a computer, or a car, never do any maintenance and when the first problems start to occur just switch to another. But if one wants a smoothly running computer, one needs to do some maintenance every now and then.

A very concrete example of this is how people usually tell you that when they bought the computer it used to work well, but after a while it started to slow down and problems started to occur. There is no such mechanical wear and tear in computers, so what could cause this? It's all the junk and errors that cumulate to one's system.

(Of course, that example nowdays only apply to people who build their own computers and don't buy those branded PC's which come with tons of junk already pre-installed.)