Horror Story with Auslogics Registry Defrag

[MaddHawk]

Posting my horror story with Auslogics Registry Defragmenter. I do want to declare before I start that the OS I ran it on was already unstable to begin with and I suspect contributed strongly to my results.

Two days ago, after reviewing all the responses to my question on a good disk defragmenting program, I decided to check out Auslogics software. I found and downloaded their disk defragmenter and ran it without issue. I also noticed they had a registry defragmenter. Now I know the registry is an excellant way to FUBAR a system if your clueless, fumble fingered, or worse both. :D I figured that is Auslogics knew what it was doing with its disk defragmenter to have it so highly recommended, then its registry defragmenter should be good too. I downloaded the program, its free too, and installed and ran it.

There was no configuration of the program at all. It started up and asked me if I wanted to schedule the registry defragmenter to run after next reboot. I said yes seeing no other options. It then asked me if I wanted to reboot now. Again, I said yes. It rebooted my mother's PC and then proceeded to run the registry defragmenter after POSTing. Once it was finished it said it had to reboot again and started a counter for auto reboot. I let the counter count down and auto reboot the machine. When it booted up again into the OS, as soon as it reached the login screen the machine suddenly rebooted again. It continued this reboot on login cycle indefinitly until I shut it down. It has not recovered since and has forced me to wipe a spare HDD clean and install it as a new system and convert the old FUBAR'd HDD to a spare once I finish recovering key files from it. :mad:

The morale of this story is two things. Firstly Auslogics may not have a totaly reliable product in their registry defragmenter and secondly, even with a product from those who do know, you still need to be extremely cautious when doing anything with the registry.

[SoulsCollective]

If you didn't back up the registry before making changes, I'm sorry, but you're a very large part of the problem. You knew how dangerous it could be, but made no effort to plan for the worst and mitigate it. Any registry cleaner will operate on heuristics and a known-bad list, and there's always a potential for unintentional errors.

Also, you probably didn't need to do a clean install, a repair install may have worked, and I think you mean "moral", not "morale".

[Speederlander]

Horror Story with Auslogics Registry Defrag

Registry defrag? Why would anyone trust someone to do that? I just automatically assume all registry defrag is either spyware or incompetently programmed or more likely both. If you need a "registry defrag" just take a couple hours and do a clean OS install. That's the best way of all to clean out the gunk. Never use a registry defrag. If it doesn't ruin your OS, it will more likely cause strange hard to solve problems. Not even remotely worth it.

[Corsa]

CCleaner, can run registry clean.
Reg Cleaner 4.3 by Jouni Vuorio, cleans registry too.
NTREGOPT does registry optimisation.
Registry Booster 2, cleans and also defrags registry... so where am I going with this? ohh thats it, I use them all, and never had an issue :cool:

..i also use and recommend Defraggler

[khamsin]

I never use registry cleaners/optimizers/whateveryoucallits. I think these are a bit too risky..and them reward is not worth the risk. A windows install can be easily hosed if important keys are deleted. In fact I rarely mess with the registry unless it's a specific tweak that I really need to apply; and then I do it manually. And I back up the registry before doing anything.


BTW, Corsa, nice avatar:D:up:

[belmontrich]

I never use registry cleaners/optimizers/whateveryoucallits. I think these are a bit too risky..and them reward is not worth the risk. A windows install can be easily hosed if important keys are deleted. In fact I rarely mess with the registry unless it's a specific tweak that I really need to apply; and then I do it manually. And I back up the registry before doing anything.


BTW, Corsa, nice avatar:D:up:

me too i would just let it stay the way it is.. or have to do it myself

btw Corsa's avatar i think is denise milani..

[MaddHawk]

If you didn't back up the registry before making changes, I'm sorry, but you're a very large part of the problem. You knew how dangerous it could be, but made no effort to plan for the worst and mitigate it. Any registry cleaner will operate on heuristics and a known-bad list, and there's always a potential for unintentional errors.

Also, you probably didn't need to do a clean install, a repair install may have worked, and I think you mean "moral", not "morale".


Good catch on the spelling. :up:

Ya, I didn't backup the registry :shakes:. I knew it was dangerous but, with all the problems the PC was having and the lack of response to my request for troubleshooting help, I figured "why not?".

I didn't want to repair the install as this PC is the one my mother used for her book keeping and after messing up with the registry defrag, I didn't want to further compound the issue by mistake. See, the thing is I have never actualy tried to repair an install before, so I know I wouldn't really know what I was doing. I do know what I am doing with a clean install though, and I had a spare HDD of my own that I could do it on. The old HDD with all of my mother's information is now in an external USB case for retrievel of important information. Plan is once all her important stuff is off is to wipe it clean and use it as an external backup. :up:

[Corsa]

btw Corsa's avatar i think is denise milani..


BTW, Corsa, nice avatar:D:up:

Yup, Denise she is :up: The Scantily Clad Hot Women (Part 2) (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3569118&postcount=1337)