Windows 7 Registry cleaner doesn't believe I am the Administrator

[KCav45]

Yesterday I installed a Registry Cleaner and when I ran it it found 260 errors. After successfully completing the registration I requested it delete the errors. It did not delete any of the items! It said I wasn't the system administrator, but I am.

I would like to know exactly where the software system gets its information. Can someone help me create a log that would record the events. The User account says I am the System Administrator. There are no other users. How can it be that the Registry Cleaner thinks otherwise?

 

[patcooke]

It may be one of the software utilities which will only complete after supplying credit card details. If you've not already done so it is worth trying Ccleaner (free download and reliable) but make sure, as in all these things, that you get it directly from the developer web site and not from one of the third party distributors who use it to carry loads of junkware. Get Ccleaner from here:

https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download

 

[Josephur]

The only registry cleaners I trust is CCleaner, and Auslogics Registry Cleaner. Have ran both for years and never had it wound a system.

 

[KCav45]

It may be one of the software utilities which will only complete after supplying credit card details. If you've not already done so it is worth trying Ccleaner (free download and reliable) but make sure, as in all these things, that you get it directly from the developer web site and not from one of the third party distributors who use it to carry loads of junkware. Get Ccleaner from here:

https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download

Hi Patcooke, I have seen you before - where was it? I appreciate the attention you have given me.

One question I have is How clean should my Registry be? I use Cclean. It runs quickly and does a nice job but should I be doing more? For security I run MSE...from time-to-time I also run Malwarebytes and SUPERantispyware. I feel safe. Should I use a similar apprach to cleaning my Registry?

Recently I uninstalled PSE 5 and after the uninstall completed successfully I rebooted and then I used the RegEdit's Find-next command to search for Photoshop Elements in my Registry It found a dozen items. Should I use a Registry cleaner in addition to Cclenn.

 

[KCav45]

The only registry cleaners I trust is CCleaner, and Auslogics Registry Cleaner. Have ran both for years and never had it wound a system.

Hi Josepher, Good to see you.

Yesterday I purchased a Reg Cleaner from Knight Utilities. It did not install correctly so it did not remove anything from my Registry. It performed a scan and found 265 items that it feels should beremoved, and it provide a log listing them. I printed the log and uninstalled the software. What should do?

I emailed their Tech Support on Friday telling them I have a license key but can not register because it thinks I am not a System Admin even though I am. Have not heard from them.

 

[jcgriff2]

I really would forget about the registry cleaners. They are a waste of money and very often do more harm than good.

The "errors" found during a registry cleaning scan are not errors at all; rather they are usually broken file associations/other associations leftover from program installations that have now been uninstalled or changed.

You run the risk of corrupting the registry every time you run a registry cleaner.

The average Windows 7 Registry consumes about 125 MB of space, which is just 0.025% of an average 500 GB HDD, so the space saving argument is less than negligible.

 

[patcooke]

There are a number of routine system maintenance procedures which most of us carry out such as antivirus protection, junk file removal and disk defragmentation. In order of importance to system health, antivirus protection is the most important of these and is essential to prevent all the problems associated with malware (access to persoanl/financial data, loss of data, hijacking etc, etc, etc). Junk file removal is also important as it reclaims storage space occupied by files which are no longer required (such as those left behing from an incomplete software uninstall, temporary files from browsing and software installation). Defragmentation is useful in keeping files stored on the disk occupying contiguos space on the disk so minimising the time take taken to access, read and write data. Registry cleaning is not in the same league as any of these three so is the least important as any registry entries associated with malware will have been dealt with by antivirus software and effects on system performane by a few superfluous registry entries is miniscule. I occasionally run a registry cleanup because I like things clean and tidy but it is at the bottom of the list in terms of essentials for system maintenance.

 

[whs]

You were lucky. That cleaner would probably have made more damage than good.