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Do Registry Cleaners offer value for money or are they just another scam?

We challenge the wide spread conception that "Registry Cleaners" are beneficial for Windows based operating systems. This article is different. Reviews and recommendations for "Registry Cleaners", type "Registry" into a search engine and you will find countless testimonials.

Background

Search engines are flooded with sites and advertisements trying to persuade people to buy these products. Software manufacturers or affiliate marketers). Almost all have a commercial interest in doing so (e.g. There are many web sites that promote registry cleaner software and the benefits.

And prompted further investigation, the lack of technical data concerned me. It is very difficult to find objective and substantiated information on-line regarding the true technical benefits or registry cleaners.

In this article I offer an alternative view (based on my preliminary research) on the real implications of buying and running registry cleaner software for Microsoft Windows.

About the registry

) to a non-technical Windows user but it has attracted a reputation over the years as being responsible for computer crashes and slow downs. It is a mystery (being totally invisible! The registry is a large file in Microsoft Windows that is responsible for keeping track of your installed software and internal operations of Windows.

Promotion and the financial opportunities

Let's look at a typical affiliate based commission structure as follows: to better understand why there is heavy promotion of these products,

Not bad! And you make $310, ). Sell 10 (quite possible in a day! A typical affiliate commission for a successful sale of one of the popular on-line products is around $31.

No technical knowledge of Windows or of the registry is needed to start promotion and selling. Apply to an affiliate program and start promoting and selling these products on-line, anyone can set up a website.

Marketing product claims

There are generally two benefits used to generate customer interest in these products:

Error message boxes or pop-ups) 1) "Fix" (e.g.

And

2) "Speed up" your computer

Assessment of the claims

Here are my high level views on the benefits used to sell Registry Cleaners: as a Microsoft Certified Professional,

Do Registry Cleaners "Fix" your computer?

Then the answer is probably "No", if you mean "Fix" where there is an underlying hardware problem such as a failing Hard Disk Drive (HDD). Then the answer is probably "Yes", remove error pop-ups, for example, if you mean. It depends what you mean by "Fix".

Do Registry Cleaners "Speed up" your computer?

I would suggest that the performance benefits of cleaning the registry are insignificant and would not be perceivable to an average user.

Any gains would be small particularly when comparing to other options for improving Windows performance such as optimizing virtual memory or by defragmenting the HDD, however. Slight performance gains may be possible by removing redundant registry keys or by defragmenting the registry file itself.

Constant blue/black screens) and other corruption of the underlying operating system. There is more than anecdotal evidence available on-line that the frequent use of registry cleaner software can cause problems with Windows such as boot up problems (e.g, furthermore.

Dubious messages and conflicts of interest conclusion - Too many question marks,

) . (interesting. Has anyone complained of not seeing performance gains from registry cleaners? This opens up a whole other can of worms around the legalities of selling products that do not solve the problems that they claim to fix, if registry cleaners don't deliver what they say. I have some specific technical questions around the area of the suggested performance gains with registry cleaners, as a "Windows Professional". These products simply don't deliver what they promise to customers, in many cases, could it be that, until that time? Testing and independent validation is needed to establish the marketing benefit claims of registry cleaners.

Are the marketing claims used to secure software sales, it seems, anyone can do it) and so. Selling and promoting of registry cleaner software is unregulated (i.e.

Do research and have a data backup strategy in place before running registry cleaners, i would suggest that customers ask questions. That customers should always have the opportunity to make informed decisions before buying, ethically, i have put my findings so far on the Registry Cleaner market into the public domain as I believe.