It's my nature to be skeptical. I don't jump on the band wagon with new fads, and I especially don't believe in quick fixes. For this reason when websites starting hyping all the benefits of registry cleaners I couldn't believe they were capable of improving computer performance.

The majority of sites I found during research only talked about the pros of registry repair software. Of all the sites not one explained why one was better then another or what potential down falls some registry programs might have had. If I wanted to learn about how these programs could improve performance I was going to have to test it myself. That is exactly what I did I setup a comparison of Registry Repair software on my own test PC to decide if these programs really worked. My results? Well they were actually surprising.

The Scan Speed Meant Nothing

I timed all of the registry cleaners I tested to see how long they took to do a complete scan. The time varied from under a minute to almost ten minutes. With most programs a second scan, which I performed each time to double check the number of errors found, seemed to be faster then the first scan.

The fastest scanner didn't mean the best performance though. My conclusion was that the speed of the scan had nothing to do with the best registry cleaner.

Errors Found Doesn't Mean Errors Repaired

This really surprised me. The number of repairs done to the registry on my computer was not the same as the number of errors found, it was less. The top registry utility completed 60-70% of the changes found in the full scan. I can only assume that registry cleaners find as many errors as possible so it looks like your computer really needs a cleaning.

Bonus Features Made the Difference

This was the test that really started to make me more of a believer in registry repair software. At this point I had found tiny improvements in performance after repairing all errors found in a complete scan. Once I started running the file cleaners, start-up folder optimizers and other features of each program I began getting some great results.

The start up time for windows® was reduced, also several of my most used applications opened faster. I measured the performance improvement by timing the start up with a computer start up timer so everything was equal.

Final Results

While my test PC wasn't that infected with junk files and registry errors I was able to squeeze out some performance. How ever it wasn't really from the registry repair portion of each program. The improvement came from running the additional programs that came with the software.

From my testing you can improve the performance of your computer using a registry cleaner. How ever ensure the one you buy has a guarantee, not everyone gets the same results so it's a good idea to be able to get a refund if you're not happy.

 

Olan Butler – Technology Specialist – Computer Services