Auslogics Free Registry Cleaner & Registry Defrag

This post was written by admin on August 31, 2009
Posted Under: Defrag, Technology

Registry errors can slow down your computer and also make it unstable, leading to unexplained crashes, but the registry is also a fragile area that many users keep away from.

Generally, I don’t advocate the use of registry cleaners as many that I have tried over the years do more harm than good. One wrong removal from the registry can leave a computer useless.

So, before using ANY registry cleaner, backup your system, ideally create an image using a simple program such as Macrium Reflect.

Over time, the registry becomes cluttered with entries that are of no use and are merely taking up space, and the bigger the registry the more RAM is used as programs access hundreds of entries every second.

There are many registry cleaners available on the internet, but few are totally free. Auslogics now offers one of the most popular free registry cleaners for Windows users. No cost, no registration, no catches

Auslogics released this registry cleaner on August 1, and I usually clean my registry manually, but I thought that I would give this a shot and see how it performed and I paired this with their registry defrag. The two go hand in hand.

The registry cleaner is not as intrusive as many others are and when the scan has completed you can see a full report of every Key, Value and Data to be removed. Most cleaners only show you either the key or the data, so this was a definite bonus as it is easier to follow through and check each key.

For more advanced users there are extra settings to scan the registry for Classes and Active X, Shared DLL’s, Software and Virtual Devices.

For the average user I would recommend that you stick with the quick registry scan as recommended by the program. Simply click ‘Next‘ and let it run.

Once the scan has completed users can preview all keys marked for removal and untick any that they may be unsure of. Click ‘Fix’ and the program will remove all of the unnecessary keys from your registry, many of which will be remnants after installing and uninstalling programs, history etc.

Should you find a program has stopped working, simply open the user interface and click the ‘Restore changes’ option, click ‘Next’ and then pick the backup that you wish to restore. That’s it, nice and simple.

Once the registry had been cleaned I followed up with Auslogics Registry Defrag, another free utility, although there is an updated version which is trialware. I used the free version to defrag and optimize the registry.

Simply install, run the program and when you get the results you have the option to click ‘Yes’ for an instant reboot or ‘No’ to reboot later. When you reboot the registry will be defragmented and progress will be shown on your screen.

When complete, your computer will reboot normally and show the reduced size and improved access speed of your registry.

With both the cleaner and defrag, a report can be viewed in a browser window. No information is sent to Auslogics or anyone else, it is purely for your information.