does anyone use these regestory scanners?<br>do they work?<br>will my computer still talk to me if i remove nearly 400 "errors"???<br><img src="http://uk.msnusers.com/_Secure/0SgAWAwgXvnX8gjzalpPvDB4pSfAQciVmGu00jsYa6g2Rnk3o*ii0O6duIklv4YhqrLAJGA*RA20AD!erZFEAQ56oVwi6mWVmVWYd6321TzJJlYNGNLwTSQ/registry%20mechanic.jpg?dc=4675496182857542803"><br><a href=http://www.winguides.com/regmech/?action=purchase>http://www.winguides.com/regmech/?action=purchase</a> try it<br><img src="http://uk.msnusers.com/_Secure/0RAA7AJQU2cg7iklq0dl7VADAxRbsKET*HM3anN6besU80HHQQZ7UBAcSxR9OnxyG*NupXR2lX2CW3EXZZUZ74PaRSO7mJpWHyxesmHpfUDc/error%20gaurd.jpg?dc=4675496182846480876"><br><a href=http://www.errorguard.com/>http://www.errorguard.com/</a><br>try a free scan, let me know if you find as many "errors" as i did.<br>i have all the usual security, i just want to know if these are worth the $30, or should i avoid them

Try AdAware and Spybot: Search and Destroy. Those are pretty much all you need...<br><br>I ran that program and it tried installing more crap to my registry.. dont bother! Most of the "critical" programs it found are required, deleting them would basically render your computer useless.....

Dew is right.<br><br><a href=http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html target="_blank">Spybot</a> is good enough for keeping your registry clean (and picking up malicious or annoying cookies) - the specific "Registry cleaner" programs are at best taking up unnecessary hard disk space, and at worst actually compromising your system.<br><br>Other than that, familiarise yourself with the <br>HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun<br>and<br>HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRunOnce<br>sections of your registry, and also with the programs running in your Task Manager during normal use. <br><a href=http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist.htm target="_blank">This site</a> will help you work out whether programs running in your Task Manager are needed or not.

I lost many help files and app paths due to one of these registry cleaners. Not worth the risk.

Thanx folk, i owe you all a beer, i already have spybot and adaware, plus zone alarm, i was just curious as to what the "errors" were

Ahh... so THAT explains it... heh.<br><br>Wow. Thread bottleneck. We all turned up at the same time.<br><br>Must have been the mention of "beer" that did it..

Yeah, MORE credit to jmh for implementing that!

i still love ya nancers.<br>thanks for that pearl of techinical wisdom HK, where would we be without you ?

YAY

What Dew and HK said.

i was expecting you to be the first to answer scrolbar, in fact i was going to e-mail it to you to save showing my ignorance

Did someone say BEER!?

knowing next to nothing about computers I just used SBS&D like everyone recommended and figured I was good. Well one day I did a free virus scan on line and found I had alot of stuff that had not been picked up by SB. So I got adaware to try to fix the problem. SB sucks.

<i>I just used SBS&D like everyone recommended and figured I was good. Well one day I did a free virus scan on line and found I had alot of stuff that had not been picked up by SB.</i><br><br>Well firstly, you have to run the update in SpyBot regularly, like you do with your anti-virus s/ware. Also, make sure you have the "TeaTimer" component running on the task bar as it blocks things when they come in and try to edit your registry (caution: but it will also warn you when legitimate programs edit your registry too, like when you install new software)<br><br>And as splodge says, you need decent firewall software too, to be sure.<br><br>1) Anti-virus<br>2) Firewall<br>3) Ad/pop-up blocker.<br><br>That should do ya.