Are Windows XP process/registry cleaners worth the money?

Question

I am confused because there seems to be an equal amount of blog enrties for them as against them.

Sometime in the last 30 days my machine began using 100% cpu at startup for about the first 7 minutes and it is because of the svchost.exe (of whick I now have 8 listed in the task manager).

After reading a lot of blog entries, I don't know what to do?

Answer 1

I can't answer about the Process cleaners because I control the processes that are running by the programs that start at boot up. You can do this as follows.

A major cause of a slow PC is programs that are running in the background. Here's another really good Microsoft tool. Go to Start > Run > type in msconfig in the box and click OK.
This will bring up a window with several tabs at the top. Click on the “Startup” tab. It will list the programs that are running on your PC and eating up resources. Look them over carefully and turn off any that don’t absolutely have to be running. Simply click on the “check mark” in the little box beside the program name. Clicking on it will remove the check mark. Once you have edited the Startup list, click on Apply and then on OK. Once you have exited the window, reboot your PC for the settings to take effect.
WARNING: Don’t go into the other tabs and start deleting things. You will probably give yourself major headaches if you do that. Stay focused on the Startup List only.

Regarding the Registry Cleaners, yes they work and it is necessary to maintain your registry. Lot's of people don't realize that a PC requires maintainence to keep it running efficiently. The hard drive gets badly fragmented and the registry gets poluted with partial and obsolete entries simply from everyday activity on your PC. I'd recommend a reg cleaner very strongly and you should run it at least once or twice a week. There are several available for free at http://www.download.com or http://www.zdnet.com I bought Registry Mechanic and use it religiously.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Your 100% cpu usage is because of wauctl (automatic updates)
I got that problem ever since I got service pack 2 for office 2003 and updated it (13 updates)
Your pc gets hogged every time you start you pc.
Here's what you can do. (if it's wauctl... check in task manager if svchost goes crazy when wauctl is loaded)
The link that solved my problem (after 2 reboots svchost was back to normal operation):
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/12009443/m/786004271831?r=212007191831#212007191831

Short story... get these, install them and reboot
http://mysite.verizon.net/scorp508/WinXP_290365_ENU_i386_zip.exe
http://mysite.verizon.net/scorp508/Win2k3_287647_ENU_i386_zip.exe


As to registry cleaners... I don't know... I used to use them but now I don't need them anymore.
Just learn to use regedit.
For example go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\
Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Run
And you'll find the programs that run at start-up

Remember you'll never need a registry cleaner if you keep your registry clean (not installing junk, useless things. Always remember to uninstall the proper way not by deleting you game or program...)

If you really do need a registry cleaner you should know that there are free one's on the net. Some can actually do more harm then good so be carefull which one's you use.

If you want to see a more detailed process info get process explorer (it's a better task manager)
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.mspx
(link is at the bottom of the page)

You mentioned you have 8 svchost processes...
Well I had 5 and now I have 3. You should be careful as svchost can also be a virus host sometimes.

If you want to cut down on the processes you pc runs go to start menu and click on run
Type services.msc
You can enable and disable most windows processes there.

See this website for more details on what to keep and what to disable
http://majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=12

Have fun.

Answer 3

How much RAM do you have? Well you may have alot of spyware, so i would run like AdAware (http://www.adawareresource.com/co/adawareresource/?sid=M2AG0001dGS) or SpyBot (http://spywarebot.com/?hop=advanced99&p=3&gid=1072645447&oid=&aid=)
then, I would go to Start --> Run --> msconfig - go to the startup tab and uncheck anything that you don't really need to load at startup. After the first time you reboot it'll tell you you've chosen Selective startup, just tell it not to remind you and accept it (Click OK). Then I would clean your cache, by going to Start --> All Programs --> Accessories --> System Tools --> and Disk Clean up. Delete all temporary files, cookies and recycle bin items.
If none of this helps, there is a virus that came out a couple years ago, sorry at this point forgot which one it is, that causes slow startups and reboots, thinking blaster virus (could be wrong) the Windows SP2 should help with that.

Hope this helps.

Answer 4

A registry cleaner isn't going to stop those viruses you got on your machine.

Answer 5

Go to start up. Do this go to start > run > type in msconfig then go to startup and there you can choose which programs startup when your computer does.

Answer 6

back up your data grab your install cd's and make it new again...
I have been usin 'registry mechanic' with no probs....

Answer 7

registry machanic is verry good