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February 15, 2008
Dear CNET members,
Happy Friday everyone. Holy Toledo! This week's question of the week in regards to Tom's question about registry cleaners drew more than 200 answers from you folks. That is a wonderful thing. Thank you for contributing! Now before I get started, many of you may have no clue as to what a registry cleaner is, or for that matter what the Windows registry is, so for defining those items I refer you to Wikipedia to get a better sense of what we are talking about today--so here you have it: Registry cleaner and Windows registry.
Now that we've covered that, there were many helpful answers to Tom's questions--from folks recommending certain registry cleaners that worked for them, all the way to members recommending that the registry may have none or little to do with his computer being slow, and some simple house cleaning is all that is needed to get his computer back into better shape.
While more than 200 posts is a lot to read through, this is a quick summary of what some of our members had to say, and probably what was mentioned most--so here it goes. Please read all members' submissions for details.
-- If you do any registry cleaning BACKUP your data/registry.
-- Go with a trustworthy registry cleaner (CCleaner was mentioned most by our members).
-- A registry cleaner may not even be needed--some computer house cleaning is probably all you need to get your computer going again (deleting unwanted/unused programs, disk defrag, deleting temporary files, using msconfig to stop unnecessary programs from running in the background.)
-- Depending on your system, adding more RAM may do some good.
-- A reformat of your hard drive and reload of your OS will bring your PC back to life (if you do this Tom, please backup your data.)
The list doesn't end here. After you read through all our members' advice, you'll get a good sense of it all. Now from my personal experience: I have had my desktop for many years and have never touched a registry cleaner and it runs like a champ. My basic rule for computing is keeping all security utilities up to date (but don't over do it), kill clutter, defrag on occasion, and don't load a bunch of garbage on your PC just for the sake of having it. Clutter on a PC to me is what kills the machine, so keep it lean and if you don't use it get rid of it. To get you started, here are a few select answers to kick off the discussion. You'll find a lot of great info in this thread and I think once you're through reading it, you'll get a better sense if a registry cleaner is something you can benefit from. If you have additional advice for Tom or others, be my guest; the topic is open for your knowledge to be posted. Happy computing and have a great weekend!
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Member Question of the Week
My computer Windows XP Home SP2 computer for 5 years has been
getting slower and slower. I know my computer is not infected
with spyware or viruses as I run a pretty tight ship when it
comes to security. So what's next? I've always heard good
things that can result from registry cleaners, but anytime
some one mentions registry I cringe at the thought as I've
heard that tweaking the Windows registry can easily go wrong
and possibly kill my computer. Is this true? How about
registry cleaners? Ultimately what can a registry cleaner do
for me? Will I benefit from it? Is it safe? I think it time
for me to face my fears with the registry. So can you kindly
give me some pointers on the ins and outs about registry
cleaners, recommend some good ones that are free or paid,
and what should I do to prepare myself for this task to
ensure if I do decide to do some registry cleaning that I'm
prepared for the worst to happen and recover gracefully.
Thank for your advice!
Submitted by:
Tom S.
Vote for the most helpful answer
 Below are the answers we've selected for you to vote on. Click on the title to read the answer by the member.
Here are the selected submissions grouped in one post.
Time to vote! Now that you've read our members' answers, which would you consider the most helpful? Click on the button to weigh in on the decision.
(Note: Below is the section to vote, please read the individual answers above before casting your vote below.)
 Answer by jimc52
Answer by Alain Martel1
Answer by waytron
Answer by Droid
Answer by msi4mfr
For the member whose answer was voted the
most helpful by our community, we will send
this member some cool CNET branded gear.
 Previous week's Q&AThe votes are in! Below is the answer voted most helpful by our community to last week's question.
When I originally set up my new computer four years ago, I
mistakenly partitioned the C drive too small. Now, after
collecting many files, the C drive is more than 90 percent
full, making it difficult to operate. I would like to remove
the partition and use the entire hard drive as the
C drive, giving 80GB total. The computer has a second hard
drive I use for storage of 250GB. How do I remove the
partition and still keep everything intact? What are my
options? Thanks so much for your help. I am a retiree
working with genealogy and family history. I'm running
Windows XP. Thank you!
--Submitted by:
Richard J.
What you want to do may be easy or may be just about impossible, depending on how you have used the 2nd partition on your first hard drive.
First, here's a procedure for doing what you want; it's not difficult. The question, which I will address separately below, is what the implications of doing this will be. CAUTION: Be sure that you understand this procedure and what each step does and why. Your system may differ from what I assumed based on the information you supplied (which is, in at least some respects, incomplete), and if you just follow the steps blindly, without understanding what they do and why, you MIGHT destroy things that you want to keep. I strongly suggest that before you do any of this, that you back up EVERYTHING in both partitions on your...
(read more)
--Submitted by:
CNET member Watzman
Congratulations to the winner!
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Check out next week's question:
Hi, I'm running Windows XP Pro SP2 and I have developed a problem where by the CPU keeps going to 100% and either freezes the PC or slows it down to virtually standstill. I have searched on the net and found that quite a few people have this problem. I tried some of the fixes suggested, but they didn't work. I have to reboot the PC and then it's fine for awhile. What could possibly be causing this problem? Is this a problem with the operating system or is it a hardware problem? I hope you can help with this problem. Cheers!
--Submitted by:
Anthony K.
We feature a new question every Friday, and if you have the answer for our member, you can submit it above. If your submission is picked by our members as the most helpful answer, you'll receive some cool CNET branded gear.
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