Free Windows Registry Cleaner?

Ye' old general discussion board. Basically, for everything that isn't covered elsewhere. Come here to shoot the breeze, shoot your mouth off, or whatever suits your fancy.
This forum is not for asking programming related questions.

Moderator: General Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
Chris Corbyn
Breakbeat Nuttzer
Posts: 13098
Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2004 7:57 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Free Windows Registry Cleaner?

Post by Chris Corbyn »

I acquired an old server (Dual MP, 512MB DDR) and turned it into a desktop system for my housemate last year. Being totally unbothered about trying out anything new, she just wanted Windows installed on it so she has the XP SP2 which came with my Dell laptop on it. It's been completely re-installed once due to virus/spyware problems I was past caring trying to fix.

It's had AVG (free) antivirus running on for the past 8 months or so but it's been getting slower and slower as windows does. However, I tried Panda antivirus' online scan and it found a worrying amount of problems (2 viruses and about 400 spyware items) so I've ditched AVG and now run Panda's 30 day trial which I'll probably end up buying at the end of trial. I also run Ad-aware on it and scan it regularly.

Basically... according to the Panda and Ad-aware, the PC is clean. The resources information doesn't reveal anything is using loads of memory or CPU but the PC is seriosuly getting slower and slower to the point that it's almost becoming impossible for her to run Photoshop on it. It was never like this as a fresh install.

I've defragged the drive (7,200 rpm NTFS), inccreased the pagefile size to 750MB.

I'm running out of ideas and I really don't believe the only way to solve this is to do a fresh install. What else can I try? I know there are registry cleaner apps but there are loada and I'm not sure which are better than others? And in all seriousness, is cleaning the registry going to give it a 100% speed boost?

I'm curious how the system can be so slow when it appears to have most of its resources free. Very weird.

The hard disk is partitioned so that 10GB is given to the OS, with 3GB currently free and 70GB used as storage drive (with over 30GB still free). Both partitions use NTFS.

I'd love any advice on things to try without a re-install :)

EDIt | I've also checked the obvious places in the registry "LOCAL/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run" "CurrentUser/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVerson/Run" and the startup folder.
User avatar
Jenk
DevNet Master
Posts: 3587
Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:24 am
Location: London

Post by Jenk »

Check your (her) services for anything dubious. You may find svchost.exe has been infected, (which is a tough one to fix sometimes, you can grab a clean version from the i386 folder on the cd, when in safe mode) thus it kick starts a naughty service and/or background process.

Use hijackthis to create a report of *everything* and go through it with a nitcomb, if you don't recognise the name associated with the item, kick it.

Usually I just submit to reinstalling.. by the time I've finished messing around in the registry, I'd have 2 systems built. (I also divide partition for the OS) :)
User avatar
Chris Corbyn
Breakbeat Nuttzer
Posts: 13098
Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2004 7:57 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Post by Chris Corbyn »

There are a good handful of svchost.exe processes running. I'm no at the PC now but it caught my attention before you mentioned it and I'd say there are 5 or 6 at any one time. Some run as SYSTEM and other's under different user ids. Can antivirus software not detect an infected svchost.exe? :( I'll try pulling one from the CD and see if it helps :)

Thanks for the advice.
User avatar
Jenk
DevNet Master
Posts: 3587
Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:24 am
Location: London

Post by Jenk »

There is always multiple instances of svchost.exe, it's the service management exe - i.e. what monitors the list of services, and kick starts those that should be running. They have varying access levels, all dependant on what access level is needed for the actual service (e.g network services are started by the svchost.exe with the "NETWORK SERVICE" profile etc.) :)

Because of their position in the system, i.e. can run just about anything, and are common on every windows platform since NT, they are a favorable target for virus attacks. Not always, as they are also often the first place to get checked by anti-virus - also due to their appealing position on the system. However, an antivirus program can, of course, only look for what it knows to look for.
User avatar
seodevhead
Forum Regular
Posts: 705
Joined: Sat Oct 08, 2005 8:18 pm
Location: Windermere, FL

Post by seodevhead »

I consider myself a kind of 'pro' at fixing up slow windows machines. I've had plenty of them in the years past and started tinkering with just about everything to find out 'why the hell windows pc's get slower over time'.

It is almost always because of virus/spyware problems (another area I have much experience in). Generally speaking, any "free" virus or spyware application is absolutely horrible at detecting and/or removing spyware or viruses. Apps like AVG don't even come close to cutting the mustard compared to apps like Spyware Doctor/PC Tools AntiVirus (as you will see, I love PC Tools products). These apps (including panda), tend to overlook some of the more obscure viruses and spyware out there, such as those made in china (especially), that happen to infect a lot of people unknowingly.

Here is my quick run throught of the process I take to "fix up" a slow and old windows computer:

1) Windows Disk Cleanup - just shake the dust off a little.
2) Schedule a file system check on next boot. - make sure you ain't got any sector problems.. usually don't.
3) Defrag the drives.
4) Purchase and Run Spyware Doctor - get rid of anything it reports.
5) Purchase and Run PC Tools AntiVirus
6) Download and Run Spybot Search & Destroy
7) Purchase and Run PC Tools Registry Mechanic
8) Download and Run CCleaner - perform both trash maintenance and registry maintenance.
9) Run any other virus/spyware apps you may have already installed - though if the above can't find it, most likely nothing else will.. but still worth the effort.
10) Finally, run hijackthis and just make sure there isn't any processes that are suspect.

11) Here is the kicker... reboot and repeat once more in SAFE MODE. You would be amazed at the amount of spyware/viruses that you can detect and remove ONLY in safe mode. Also, a lot of spyware and viruses just won't go away after one removal. For some reason, you need to reboot and scan again, because they will pop up again (parts that the scanner didn't remove completely) and you will need to delete again. Repeating again in safemode is a huge part to cleaning the system.

So what about my Norton, AVG, AdAware, etc?

I think these apps are so worthless in comparison to the above scanners that they don't even warrant running. I have cleaned up so many systems in the past using the technique above, and never once was I able to 'find' problems with Norton, AVG, AdAware, etc. You know why? Because these are the applications that everyone runs when their computers get slow... and they call me up and say 'my computer is slow as crap, but I don't have any virus or spyware, my scanners say i'm all clean'... in which my response is, "your scanners are not saying you're clean, they are simply saying "sorry we can't find what's on your machine".'

And don't be afraid to clean out your Windows PreFetch folder (can be done in CCleaner). This will make your computer slower at first as it needs to rebuild the prefetch files for your applications, but after that is done, I have seen huge increases in performance. I guess those prefetch files get icky after a long time.
User avatar
Chris Corbyn
Breakbeat Nuttzer
Posts: 13098
Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2004 7:57 am
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Post by Chris Corbyn »

Wow 8O Thank you :)

I'll try rebooting into safe mode and doing my usual scans then rather than buy Panda I'll buy PC Tools Antivirus. I looked on the PC Tools website but I guess the free version isn't quite the same?

I just ran CCCleaner and it got rid of 188MB of crap.

Just running Spybot now. I can't reboot until madam here has finished doing whatever it is she's doing.

HiJackthis. I've seen that everywhere but I've run it since I wouldn't know what I'm looking at.

Thanks for the concise reply :D
matthijs
DevNet Master
Posts: 3360
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 3:57 pm

Post by matthijs »

That's a concise reply. If I ever need to clean up my windows box, I'll remember your post.
Post Reply