Are these programs worth the money? Do they actually make
the computer run faster? Are they dangerous?

Win XP, SP2.

My machine has slowed down a lot. I defrag, chkdsk, Webroot
Spy Sweeper, BitDefender AV. 3GHz, 1 GB ram

Sanford Aranoff wrote:
And to clean up temp files, what do you do? I suggest using Crap
Cleaner, available for free at www.ccleaner.com Don't use the Issues
feature, just the clean up feature. Registry cleaners usually don't help
and can render your computer useless. Stay away from them.

Alias

"Sanford Aranoff" <aranoff@analysis-knowledge.com> wrote in message
news:483BFE0B.F486BA7C@analysis-knowledge.com...
Yes, they are, if you happen to own the company that sells
them. If you're thinking of buying them then they either have
no effect (if you're lucky) or they damage your installation.
Much better to run msconfig.exe and disable the things you
do not recognise under the startup tab. This process is fully
reversible.

You didn't say you run disk cleanup. I suggest you do.
"Sanford Aranoff" <aranoff@analysis-knowledge.com> wrote in message
news:483BFE0B.F486BA7C@analysis-knowledge.com...

MSConfig.exe is a troubleshooting TOOL, not a means to any end. It is
not meant to make permanent fixes; only to prove they will work. It
will give you headaches down the road if you try to use it as a
permanent fix for things:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310560 :

(Msconfig.exe). The System Configuration utility helps you find problems
with your Windows XP configuration. It does not manage the programs that
run when Windows starts.

For more information about disabling or permanently removing the
programs that run when Windows starts, click the following article
number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
270035 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/270035/) How to disable programs
that run when you start Windows XP Home Edition or Windows Vista

In general, NO. There are some good ones, free and pay-for, but chances
of the inexperienced user coming across them are low.
System speed decreases can be caused by many, many things, of which t
hese are only small parts. The registry is seldom if ever the root
cause of a slow performing computer system. If other things are causing
the slow down, straightening out the REgistry will almost NEVER be a fix
because the more important things overshadow it. No, RB in particular
is not worth the money IMO.

You -can- try them, as long as you're certain you have a complete
system and data backup of your drive, but otherwise avoid them. You
should do such a backup ANY time you mess around with the internals of
the OS.
There ARE some pretty decent ones out there though, and if you ask I'm
sure folks would give you a list of some of the better ones. ccleaner
is one that comes to mind; use it all the time on another machine.

However, IMO, your problem is more disk clutter, likely either spyware
or file corruption, spyware being most likely. Get, update and run, to
see if they don't help a fair bit:
= Adaware from lavasoft
= Spybot Search and Destroy
= MS Defender
Read and follow all onscreen dialog boxes or they'll do you no good.
If you don't have a firewall installed, you should. ZoneAlarm still
has an excellent freebie if you look hard enough on their site.

First, do a Disk Cleanup. Click start; programs; accessories; system
tools; disk cleanup. After which, do a disk defrag (same location to
start it). Then run the above scanning tools.

This may sound silly but then do a REstart 3 times in a row. That
optimizes, in a way, the registry structure implementations.

In many cases like this, it's going to be faster but less of a learning
experience to simpy do a backup and clean install and rebuild of your
system.
At a minimum, ALWAYS create a Restore Point before starting ANY of
these suggestions so you can go back to where you started from,
system-wise. Better yet, back up the System State; it's slightly more
inclusive.

"Twayne" <nobody@devnull.spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:%23NCExjAwIHA.576@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
The OP reports that his PC runs sluggishly. MSConfig is a good
tool to help him identify the software that causes the slow operation.
He can then uninstall it permanently.

Twayne wrote:

How about AutoRuns? I always saw that program as MSConfig on steroids.
Much more useful, but is it any better than MSConfig if a person
unchecks certain items?

"Daave" wrote in <news:OaL01GCwIHA.4564@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl>:

Despite what Twayne claims, msconfig.exe CAN be use to *permanently*
disable (not delete) some startup items. msconfig move the Run keys
selected to another registry key that it knows about (i.e., msconfig's
storage key). Disabling in msconfig means move the Run key to somewhere
else to hold it elsewhere. The startup item won't startup because it is
no longer under the Run key. If the user decides they want that startup
item back, they simply remove the disable and reboot. I have use
msconfig (although other tools or manual editing is also possible) the
following items:

qttask
Apple QuickTime startup utility. Automatically opens QuickTime when a
..mov file is played or downloaded. The browser plug-in doesn't need it.
The filetype association is sufficient to double-click on a .mov, .qt,
or other QT filetype to start it playing. Nobody needs this garbage
startup utility. I also have the HIPS (host intrusion protection
system) in my firewall (Comodo) block this program from loading.
Alternatively you can renamed or delete this file to prevent it from
loading. It is not required to play Quicktime files. The Alternative
QuickTime Player is incapable of playing correctly all the QT files that
I have so it is not a choice, for me.

Reader_sl
Adobe Reader Speed Launch
Adobe Acrobat. Adobe runs this to add themself to the prefetch cache
for faster startup. I could care less about a half second less load
time whenever I happen to open a PDF file which is maybe every few days.
No idea why Adobe thinks they need 2 of these processes to prefill the
prefetch cache.

CTDetect
Creative's MediaSource. Works better with my thumb drive than, say,
Windows Media Player.

J2DllCmd
eFax Messenger. I'm not interested in having it waiting for an incoming
fax to be received via e-mail and will open their Mgr when I want to
read the fax that they forwarded via e-mail.

NeroCheck
Nero's utility to check for incompatibility with other CD burning
software that may be installed.

NvMixerTray
nVidia's sound mixer utility. Can be used as a replacement for the
Sound tray icon. You can disable the NVMixer icon from showing up but
that still leaves the program to load on startup (it loads, sees it is
disabled, and unloads). There is no option to reenable this tray
utility, so having it available to reenable in msconfig lets me bring it
back should I decide to switch or include it in the system tray.

OpWare32
Part of ScanSoft's Omnipage scanner program. Don't need it running.
No, I want the software so I'm not going to uninstall all of Omnipage
just to get rid of a useless background process for which the program
provides no option to disable.

PDVDserv
Cyberlink PowerDVD process. I need a CD/DVD player. This one came with
the CD/DVD drive. I haven't noticed a problem using the program with
this process disabled.

Microsoft Office
OSA (Office Startup Assistant) utility. Nope, I'll be keeping Microsoft
Office so uninstalling it to get rid of this background process is not
an option. One function of it is to add Office prefetch cache items. I
don't need it. I do need MS Office. There is no configuration option
in MS Office to disable this background process.

Yes, you could uninstall the application but that is probably not what
the user wants to do. They want to use the app when THEY run it without
the overhead of a worthless background process for functionality they
don't want or don't care about. I *do* want each of the above
applications. I do NOT want their fluff functionality, if any, by
providing their background process.

Disabling services in msconfig is no different than disabling them in
the services applet (services.msc).

Msconfig.exe will NOT let you delete these items whereas SysInternals'
AutoRuns does let you delete them (remove by moving to another key) or
disable them (uncheck). So it is up to you whether you want to delete
them (and then later not have a clue as to how to add them back if you
find they are needed along with their correct command-line parameters)
or merely disable them so you can easily bring them back. I'm not
worried about consuming maybe 80 bytes in the registry file(s) to move
the Run key to a holding location to disable it (which isn't correct)
but I am concerned (and from experience) about having to restore them
but then I don't know what program to add back or what command-line
parameters to specify. Disabling them, well, disables them and is just
as effective as deleting them but adds convenience if you need to bring
them back.

Msconfig is NOT just a troubleshooting too. It is, as per its name, a
CONFIGURATION tool. AutoRuns is far more effective at listing ALL
startup locations whereas msconfig has a very narrow focus. Autoruns
lets me delete or disable all startup items so it is a better tool but
then msconfig comes with Windows so it is available to all users. It
all depends under which CONFIG program you want to manage your startup
items. Not everyone has AutoRuns, knows about it, or can understand it.
Like the defrag included in Windows, there are better 3rd party defrag
tools available but that doesn't eliminate the ease of availability and
use of the included tool.

In msconfig, disabling an item moves it to another key (which is not
read during Windows or session startup). AutoRuns does the same thing
when you uncheck an item to disable it. Windows won't see the key
anymore so it won't be running that command when it starts up. AutoRuns
adds the option of permanently deleting the startup item. Be sure you
really want to delete it. If later you find you want or need it, you'll
probably find that you won't know what program got ran and also won't
know what, if any, command-line parameters should be specified to that
program. There is no reason to delete since disabling works just as
effectively as deletion. If you move an 80-byte sized key from one
place to another in the registry to disable a startup item, you haven't
lost any more bytes than you lost before. Worrying about gaining that
80 bytes by deleting the key to reduce the size of your registry will do
nothing to speed up the registry lookups (which are performed on the
memory copy of the registry and not from the files on the hard disk) and
would be extremely insignificant to the load time to get the registry
files into memory when you start Windows.

This is good to know. I think you're the first to come out and state it's
not such a horrible thing to use msconfig to permanently disable something!
(it seems most like to say if you're doing it in msconfig, you should be
disabling it elsewhere, and not relying on msconfig to do it for you, since
"it's only for troubleshooting")

VanguardLH wrote:

Sanford Aranoff wrote:
For so-called "registry booster programs"?
No, no, and yes (potentially).

On Tue, 27 May 2008 08:26:51 -0400, Sanford Aranoff
<aranoff@analysis-knowledge.com> wrote:


No.



No.



Yes, very much so.

Registry cleaning programs are *all* snake oil. Cleaning of the
registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone and
don't use any registry cleaner. Despite what many people think, and
what vendors of registry cleaning software try to convince you of,
having unused registry entries doesn't really hurt you.

The risk of a serious problem caused by a registry cleaner erroneously
removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit
it may have.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

On Tue, 27 May 2008 13:47:18 -0400, "Daave"
<dcwashNOSPAM@myrealboxXYZ.invalid> wrote:


No, not really. Although MSConfig was *meant* to be a troubleshooting
tool, it also works fine for permanent changes.


--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

VanguardLH wrote:

I believe there may be exceptions. In the past (then again, this may
have been a 98SE issue!), I've disabled items, but some would come back!
So there would be duplicate entries: one disabled and one enabled. This
is why I got into the habit of going into the preferences of the
programs I would rather not run automatically at startup.

"Daave" <dcwashNOSPAM@myrealboxXYZ.invalid> wrote in message
news:elptMuQwIHA.3780@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
Deleted registry entries wouldn't "come back", as you put it -
they were restored by the respective program that was not
completely disabled. For example: If a program such as a
virus scanner has a "Service" component and a "Program"
component then it's not to hard for the service component to
restore the Program component in case it gets removed from
the registry. ZoneAlarm is a fine example - it used to be very
difficult to completely disable it.

Pegasus (MVP) wrote:
Yes, that is what I was referring to; you did a fine job explaining the
phenomenon!

"Daave" wrote in <news:elptMuQwIHA.3780@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl>:

They come back because you ran the application that wants that
background process. It checks if its Run key exists; if not, it adds
it. So the program is rude in shoving in startup entries that you don't
want, have removed, and with no option to NOT install/load their startup
program. I think QuickTime might be one of those. That's why I also
use HIPS (host intrusion protection system) programs to dictate what is
allowed to change the registry. Even Windows Defender can help with
that in blocking the change of startup items.

Not all programs give you the luxury of a configurable option to not
install and load their startup program. They figure if you installed
their program then you want all of their program (and, unfortunately,
that is why many uninstalls are dirty because they're so enamored with
their product that they figure you only uninstall it to fix a problem
and will be reinstalling it).

For these rude and non-configurable programs, disabling or deleting
their startup item won't work because they'll shove it back when you
next run their program. That's why you need security software that can
alert and restrict what startup changes are made and by what program.