Be very sceptical before you buy a Windows 8 registry cleaner. My
advice is to research your specific symptoms, rather than hoping that the act
of paying for program is going to cure your problem. Think carefully about the
motive of people selling; could it be they are seeking to make money out of
people who are at their most vulnerable, desperate and frustrated?
The situation: your computer is running slowly and behaving strangely.
You also experience at least one of these symptoms, erratic mouse movement,
screen shakes or programs hang. Your browser may have been
hi-jacked, furthermore, you cannot gain access to the Control Panel or the
Task Manager.
In desperation you buy a registry cleaning program; the up-front cost seems reasonable,
and they provide a free technical support phone line. WOW, what
service. But alarm bells should ring because nobody can afford to give
great phone service these days, there must be a big hidden charge.
Registry Cleaner Scam in Action What happens next is that the person on the registry cleaner hot-line,
asks you a few questions
then tells you it's going to cost another $200 to fix your machine. If
you are unconvinced then they will offer to install software like: 'Someplace Control',
or 'GoToHelp', which enables them to take over your machine.
The next thing you know the support guy is demonstrating what seems to be terrible
problems as recorded in your event log. This is a sure bet for
the scam artist, because everybody's system or application eventlog has at
least 10 red dots.
The smooth operator then takes you to websites with scary articles on
malware. On closer inspection there is no evidence that your machine
is infected with any of the viruses, but under pressure and with his smoke
and mirror patter, only a very cool user would spot the crucial missing link
in the evidence trail. There is no connection between your event log
entries and these tales of genuine viscous viruses. Don't buy their
Windows 8 scareware programs, instead
try the registry techniques free
techniques, or the free root cause analysis below.
There are two occasions when you are tempted to buy a registry cleaner,
the one I concentrate on in this article is when you suspect the
computer has been infected. The other is when you get tempted by the
idea that a registry cleaner will not only tidy up your registry, but also
will leave
your machine running faster.
My advice is if it isn't broke, don't fix it. I accept that all registries have
unnecessary or unused settings, but I also accept that this extra baggage
does not matter. These extraneous values have negligible effect on the
computer's speed. If you try and find ALL the unwanted values, it will
drive you mad. Worse still, sooner or later you will get carried away,
you will make a mistake and remove a setting that the operating system
needed. My point is there is no need to buy a Windows 8 registry
cleaner.
Have you ever thought about how registry cleaners work? They have
numerous logic routines that look for registry settings that are no longer
needed. But what if they are out-of-date, or your machine has a
combination of programs not covered by its scripts? The result could be it
deletes registry keys that are actually needed by your programs, the result
your applications now run slowly!
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If a registry cleaner won't solve your computer problem, then
what will? Here are my 8 for Windows 8 troubleshooting techniques.
Don't run more than one anti-virus program, installing a second
anti-virus program is a prime cause of a machine running slowly.
The oldest troubleshooting tip is to uninstall any programs that you added just
prior to the onset of the problem.
What news of your Windows Update? Sometimes an update does not
complete, or just needs a reboot. Check Control Panel, System and
Security, Windows Updates, look for any items with Status: 'Failed', and
retry.
Secunia is also a great free
utility for
detecting missing security patches on your computer.
Check the event logs yourself, could it be that a hard disk is
failing? Search for Event Viewer, and use it to examine the Windows logs:
System, I prefer to filter for Error and Critical. Repeat for
Application log.
Another of my favorite troubleshooting tools is the Task Manager.
My technique is two-fold; sort on CPU so you can observe which process
is hogging the processor. Examine the list of processes, does any
appear to be malware? I know it's difficult to know good
processes from
rogues, but if you research any that look suspicious on the internet then you
may be able to identify the problem.
One underused troubleshooting technique is to compare the stricken
machine with a similar Windows 8 machine that is working properly.
A second machine can also provide a lifeline if you need remote registry editing.
While I would not by a Windows 8 registry cleaner, that does not
mean that I would not use other tools to troubleshoot. It's become
unfashionable to use Microsoft's own free tools such as Security
Essentials, but I have seen the company change from seeming not to care
about malware, to being like a protective mother wanting to care for the
baby Window 8.
Malicious Software Removal Tool.
If there is a rogue registry setting then it will leave a signature,
symptoms or clues how to fix. Someone somewhere will have seen it
before, and blogged removal instructions. Under these circumstances you
need to have a progression, try regedit as normal, boot into safe mode -
use regedit. As a last chance I would try remote registry editing.
Monitor Your Network with the Real-time Traffic Analyzer
The main reason to monitor your network is to check that
your all your servers are available. If there is a network problem you
want an interface to show the scope of the problem at a glance.
Even when all servers and routers are available, sooner or later you will be curious to
know who, or what, is hogging your precious network's bandwidth. A GUI
showing the top 10 users makes interesting reading.
Another reason to monitor network traffic is to learn more about your
server's response times and the use of resources. To take the pain out of
capturing frames and analysing the raw data, Guy recommends that you download a copy of
the SolarWinds
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If there is a serious new virus that infects registries, then even a
respectable
virus cleaner won't have a fix for about it for a week. Thus the answer is
always to research blogs and leave questions in forums such as SuperUser, the answer will be
out there for free. Resist the idea that if you throw enough money at
the problem, then you will solve it, such a belief invariably leads to tears
and a waste of good money. This is a time when you have to use
your own wits. If you have little aptitude for computing, then phone a
friend who has those computer skills - repay them with a kindness.
There have been infamous scareware programs in the past, for example,
WinFixer, ErrorSafe, LisaMoon and XP Antivirus, therefore, beware of a new
wave of Windows 8 registry cleaning scareware. One tactic is to
falsely claim that your computer is infected with p*rn, thus discouraging
you from contacting professional help.
Guy's Hard Lesson
To digress, one of my formative learning experiences was a three card
school at a racetrack. The card mechanic challenged us to 'Find the
lady'. It was a foul day and the queen of spades slipped through his
fingers and fell to the ground, it came up with a fleck of mud. Many
of us in the crowd notice this, and there was a stampede to bet on the muddy
card - I even bet a fin myself.
I was shocked when he turned over the two of diamonds, and took all our
money. But on reflection I
have to say, 'what an artist'. I admired the unseen way he cleaned the queen, and
moving the mud on to the two of diamonds me noticing. As for the stampeding crowd,
it was only later that I realized half of them were his accomplices!
I had a lesson
in life that day. I hope that this day you have developed at least a healthy
suspicion of registry cleaners. Be wary of these Windows 8
registry cleaners that wheedle their way to the top of any problem solving search
query.
My advice is beware of scareware, especially when it comes to people
telling you a registry cleaner will solve all your computer ills. Instead of throwing money
at the problem, research the symptoms that your particular Windows 8 computer is
experiencing.
Believe that someone has seen your problem before, and they have posted
detailed instructions to return your registry settings to their former
working condition. It is better to research on the internet, using a
second machine if necessary, than to throw
money at scareware applications.
If you like this page then please share it with your friends
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