registry cleaner, reccommendations please

debitcardmayhem

fishybusiness wrote: »

I used to run a PC repair company, cleaning temp files/ folders, dealing with the often many additional startup items and a defrag ALWAYS made a difference.

The defrag is an integral part of the process. OP didn't specify machine spec, OS or anything particularly important when diagnosing a slow PC.

Agreed, registry cleaner is very rarely the answer, caveat being a partially uninstalled program such as AV software.

The biggest thing I find is when all the work has been done, and PC is speeded up again, it only takes weeks to start to see a speed degradation again.

I have found SSD's all but remove the speed degradation issues on both PC's and MAC's, all other things being equal.

Defrag will have no effect on a modern machine, with a recent version of Windows, the O/S takes care of that most times , and defrag will NOT ALWAYS work if its an SSD. The OP has not told us what programs/services are running , nor whether it is slow just using the internet, or slow in general.
I would suggest that the culprit is either Malware or her network (and/or it's settings).

closed

fishybusiness wrote: »

I used to run a PC repair company, cleaning temp files/ folders, and a defrag ALWAYS made a difference.

The defrag is an integral part of the process. OP didn't specify machine spec, OS or anything particularly important when diagnosing a slow PC.

.

Ok, why would deleting a temp file speed up a machine, and why would defragging a 6 month old machine with an OS that defrags automatically make any difference.

the defrag and delete temp files to magically speedup your machine nonsense has been (and still is) trotted out for decades on every website, every publication, every speedup guide, but it would take one seriously full and screwed up hard disk to change anything, if it works, it works on 1 in every >10000 machines, not 1 in 1.

There are many threads on this forum, where people have said it makes no difference, so to say that it always does is clearly not the case.

fishybusiness

Defrag will have no effect on a modern machine, with a recent version of Windows, the O/S takes care of that most times , and defrag will NOT ALWAYS work if its an SSD. The OP has not told us what programs/services are running , nor whether it is slow just using the internet, or slow in general.

More or less agree, and have never felt the need to run a defrag over an SSD. Regarding mechanical hard drives, I've always found a third party defrag tool useful, moreso on older OS's of the XP generation, but still useful on Vista and 7, haven't got a clue about Win 8 though.

Ok, why would deleting a temp file speed up a machine, and why would defragging a 6 month old machine with an OS that defrags automatically make any difference.

Deleting a temp file will not speed up a machine, deleting a couple of gig's of temp files from various locations does contribute to general useability, and responsiveness. Why? I don't know the full technical reason, only that working on maybe four or five a week for five years gave me a certain insight in to the pro's and con's.

Regarding the defrag, if you are interested, have a look at the before and after of using a third party defrag tool, with respect the the file distribution. Contiguous O/S files do reduce access time, in turn increasing response time. That's my take anyway.

closed

software is the main cause of slowness on machines that started off fast, not a file, and not a fragmented file. A crap piece of software, a windows bug, startup bloat, toolbars, a virus, a corrupt registry entry are far more likely grind a machine to a halt.

I've tried countless defraggers, over many many years, none changed a thing, they look pretty though, and are a great way to waste an afternoon if you have nothing else to do.

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?complete=0#complete=0&site=webhp&q=defrag+%22made+no+difference%22+site:forums.moneysavingexpert.com



maybe the op will come back and tell us what the problem is, then we can stop speculating.

Daz2009

For non computer experts the problem I often see is they install all kinds of crap unknowingly,the kind of crap that runs from startup and then looks for updates and installs these updates in the background.This slows you computer down and you don't even realise they are running....and of course you could have unwittingly installed a virus.
Ccleaner is a good program for removing this bloatware,if you know what you're doing,you could be deleting something you shouldn't if you don't.
Install Ccleaner,go to the start up list and come back on here and show us what you've got.
That would be a good place to begin.