Which Registry Cleaner Is The Best At Automatically Eliminating Annoying Error Messages and Improving PC Performance?
From Tyler Blanton Senior Editor, registrycleanerstested.org	114 East John Sims Parkway, Suite #225 Niceville, FL 32578

Looking For The Best Registry Cleaner?

Hello,

My name is Tyler Blanton, Senior Editor of registrycleanerstested.org, where you will find the most in depth reviews of registry cleaner software on the Internet

We conducted the tests found on this page because there is no shortage of information or sites trying to sell you on the benefits and claims of these programs but none that we can find have actually attempted to show that any significant boost or overall improvement in PC performance is possible by using these programs.

I hope you find this information useful and at the very least will help you make a better decision about which registry cleaner, if any, is right for you.

 

Questions That Needed Answering:

There are many questions regarding registry cleaners and we attempted to find answers for some of the most common and frequently asked such as:

 

1)	How can I check that a registry cleaner is actually cleaning all invalid registry entries?
2)	What's really the best registry cleaner in effectiveness?
3)	How come different registry cleaners have found different problems with my computer?
4)	Is it really safe to use registry cleaners?
5)	Are there any registry cleaners out there that actually work?

 

Setting Up the Test:

For this test, 5 of the popular registry cleaners were selected as part of the testing. The registry cleaners selected were:  Max Registry Cleaner by Max Secure Software, ParetoLogic’s RegCure, Registry Fix, Registry Defense, and Cyber Defender.

The latest versions at the time of this study were used in the testing.

The computer used in this test was a Dell Latitude D620 laptop, with 2GB of RAM a 70GB hard drive running Windows XP SP2. This computer is a daily use computer used for common tasks like web browsing, email, word processing, games, etc.  Essentially it has been used how the average person uses their PC. 

In order to keep things as similar as possible, a copy of the computer’s contents and registry were imaged so each registry cleaner could be tested with the same exact setup and performance issues.

 

Now that a little background has given about how and why the tests were performed, let’s jump into the results of our testing.

Picking the “Best” Registry Cleaner:

Each Registry Cleaner Was judged on six different criteria.  They are in no particular order of importance:

Speed of Registry Scan:  How fast a scan is completed and whether system performance was impacted during the scan.

Number Of Errors Found: How many errors did each program find.  It is important to note that detecting more errors does not necessarily mean a registry repair program is better.  More details below.

Actual Changes Made To Registry: How many changes does a program actually make to your computer,  Is it close to the number of errors detected or is more going on “under the hood”?

Common Error Test: Each computer will have a different set of problems and issues that need to be fixed. With this test we manually created error messages and system warnings so we can compare how each program was able to handle specific types or problems and errors resulting in a more “comparable” way to judge effectiveness.

Multiple Scan Test: After a computer is scanned and cleaned, are different “errors” found after each scan?  If so, why weren’t they detected the first time and why do they suddenly appear?

PC Performance Score: The final test set was to use computer benchmarking software that assigns a “Performance Score” to a computer before and after a registry scan is performed to gauge if any noticeable performance improvements were detected.

Side-by-Side Comparisons of Top Rated Registry Cleaners
	1. Max Registry Cleaner:	2. Registry Fix:	3. RegCure	4. Reg Defense	5. Cyber Defender
Rating	9.8/10	9.1/10	8.7/10	8.3/10	7.3/10
Free Registry Scan
Go To Site	Click Here To Visit Site	Click Here To Visit Site	Click Here To Visit Site	Click Here To Visit Site	Click Here To Visit Site
Changes Made To Registry Test
Performance Score
Scan Speed Test	(Tie)				(Tie)
Error Message Test	(Tie)	(Tie)	(Tie)
Multiple Scan Test
Errors Found Test
Compatible	Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista	Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista	Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista	Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista	Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista

 

 

Test #1 – Speed Of Registry Scan:

In our first test we did a simple comparison of how fast each registry repair program could complete a full system scan (all scan options were enabled for each program). Below are the results of this test

(Shorter Bars Are Better)

What This Means:

Max Registry Cleaner and Cyber Defender came out on top, with both completing scans in under one minute, (58 seconds and 56 seconds respectively) their scan times were considerably faster that the other 3 programs with Registry Fix and RegCure bringing up the rear with each taking more them 4:30 to complete a scan.

Ultimately, while it is nice that some programs far out perform others in regards to scan time, this is not a great indicator of effectives.  Overall performance of the PC during scanning was about the same for each program with little to no noticeable decrease in PC performance or slow down.

 

The Winner:

Max Registry Cleaner and Cyber Defender tie for top honors in this test.

 

 

Test #2 - Number of Errors Found:

Next up, we tested each program on the exact same PC configuration (to ensure each was scanning the same files and registry entries) to determine how many errors each program detected on our test machine. Here are the results:

(The Length Of the Bars Does Not Matter…More Below)

What This Means:

RegCure far outpaced all the other programs when it came to total number of “problems” detected with 776 issues found, while Cyber Defender came in “last” with only 106.

This is where we really began to realize that you can’t really judge a registry repair program based on the errors found.  As we dug deeper, we discovered that the way each program reported and listed the errors was quite different.

For instance, a registry entry may have several different values. So one program would list the registry entry and count that as “1 error” while another program may count each value in the entry as an error and report the same registry issue having “5 errors”

As you can see this kind of difference in reporting could quickly add up to one program appearing to find far more errors than another.

Comparing each and every reported error across all programs was far beyond the scope of this test, it did lead us to introduce a new test to better gauge what these program were finding and removing. (details in next section)

 

The Winner:

No clear winner in this test as simply comparing the number of errors found is just too vague and inaccurate.

 

 

 

Test #3 - Actual Changes Made To Registry:

Because the results of our second test were not satisfactory, we devised our third test to help give us a better idea about how accurate the reported number of errors found actually was.

For this test we used a simple program called RegShot that allows you to see the specific changes made to a computer after a registry scan.  Here’s a screenshot just for references sake:

 

 

The idea being that the closer the number of reported errors is to the number of actual changes made to your PC, the more trustworthy and reliable the results of a particular registry cleaner can be considered.

 

(The Lower The PERCENTAGE The Better) 

What This Means:

Next to each bar in the graph above are two numbers: the number of changes made to the computer and the percentage difference to the number of errors reported by each registry cleaner.

Confusing I know, so let’s take an example.

May Registry Cleaner found a total of 351 errors, when we had the program clean our PC it made a total of 398 changes to our PC or 15% more than what they reported.

On the flip side, Cyber Defender found only 105 errors but made 270 changes to our system resulting in an amazing 157% more items than their scanner listed.

More than anything, this test established which programs report with most accuracy the changes that will be made to your computer behind the scenes.

 

The Winner:

Max Registry Cleaner, slightly edges out RegCure as the winner in this test.

 

 

 

Test #4 – The Common Error Test:

Let’s face it, trying to compare thousands of different entries in the registry to try and determine the specific problems found would take perhaps a month or two and no two computers will have the same registry issues or PC problems, so for our 4^th test we manually introduced errors on our test PC so we would know specifically which errors should be detected and removed by each program.

In total, we created 5 errors/problems that are pretty common on many PC’s and are actually very simple issues that any registry repair should detect with ease…(we were wrong but more on that later).

Here are screenshots of the 5 errors we introduced onto the PC, they are all pretty similar.

 

 

Each registry cleaner was tested to see if it could remove these error messages from the system here are the results:

(Longer Bars Are Better)

What This Means:

We were pleased to see that 3 out of 5 of the programs we tested were able to detect and remove 100% of the errors, but even more disappointing was the fact that Registry Defense only removed 1 or just 20% of the errors while Cyber Defender failed to remove any.

The results we so troubling for the bottom two that we ran the tests numerous time to confirm our results and they held up each time.

Keep in mind these are common and relatively harmless (but very annoying messages) that should have been detected by all 5 programs.

Below is a video that demonstrates the removal of these error messages:

 

The Winner:

Max Registry Cleaner, Registry Fix and RegCure tie for top honors in this test.

 

 

 

Test #5 - Multiple Scan Test:

For our next to last test, we wanted to see if any of the programs had problems removing errors that were reported or even worse issued false positives (these are errors that are listed but are not actually a problem or even exist) which can sometimes be used to trick people into thinking they have more problems than they really do so you will buy their software.

To do this we simply ran multiple scans (rebooting after each) to see if any of the registry cleaners reported new errors or failed to remove any errors.

Here are the results:

What This Means:

In this test, Registry Defense and Cyber Defender completely removed and then reported no additional errors after the first scan (a total of 5 scans were performed for each of the 5 programs we tested), while Registry Fix reported only 1 error after the second scan and none for the remaining 3 scans.  While Max Registry Cleaner reported 6 errors.

For Registry Fix and Max Registry Cleaner, the issues that were found appeared to be changes to the registry that each program made to the registry after finalizing a scan so we have no concern for their results at this time.

RegCure is a different matter, up to this point in our testing, it had been one of our favorite programs but after each scan RegCure continued to find more and more mistakes.  (776, 177, 114, 106, and finally 92 errors respectively for each of the 5 scans).

The behavior seems to suggest there might be some issues with removing and optimizing the registry as this behavior was not observable with any of the other programs tested.

This is complete speculation and further testing is needed to confirm with certainty if this is the reason for this behavior. 

Testing such as performing an exhaustive comparison of the computer's registry from scan to scan by someone who knows the intricacies of the computer's registry on a much deeper level than we do.

Also, as a further clarifying point that I think all visiting this site can benefit from, some have contacted us with more than a bit of disagreement with the possible reasons for RegCure's behavior, suggesting (perhaps correctly or perhaps not) that the makings of a good registry cleaner is one that continually finds new problems and constantly refines your registry's performance.

Because this appears to be a hot button issue to some and to make it easier for you to make your own judgment call on this matter, we produced this unedited and uninterrupted video of the behavior observed when running numerous scans with RegCure:

 

The Winner:

Registry Defense and Cyber Defender tie for the top spot with Registry Fix and Max Registry Cleaner performing very favorably.

 

 

 

Test #6 - PC Performance Testing:

Our sixth and final test was to attempt to determine if there was any measurable improvement in PC performance as a result of using a registry cleaner.

To measure this we used PC benchmarking software PassMark, to first establish a performance baseline for our test PC and then measure the performance of the PC after running a registry scan with each program. 

(Note: after each scan was completed and performance measurement taken, the PC was restored back to it’s original state to ensure each performance measurement was based on the same settings and registry issues/problems.)

Here is the baseline score of our test PC:

And below is a screenshot of the testing results from the benchmarking software.  The overall scores for each registry cleaner are in the top section titled “PassMark Rating” Because things may be a little difficult to read we have added a graph further below explaining the results.

 

 

Performance improvements after running a registry scan:

 

(Longer Bars Are Better)

 

What This Means:

After running a registry scan then performing a new performance test we were indeed able to measure a difference in overall PC performance.  Based on these tests, Max Registry Cleaner recorded the highest score of 511.0 translating into 11.5% performance improvement. 

One thing that may have possibly attributed to Max Registry Cleaners success in this test is that they are the only registry cleaner tested that includes a stand alone registry defrag option that streamlines and restructures the registry for improved performance.

Registry Defense rounded out the bottom with only a .02% change in performance which is pretty negligible.

Here is a video demonstrating the procedure used for running the performance benchmarking:

The Winner:

Based on the performance boost, Max Registry Cleaner had the biggest improvement in PC performance according to the benchmarking software.

!IMPORTANT! - This test was devised in an attempt to show in some manner the difference in a computer's performance before and after using a registry cleaner.  That said it is very important to note that the results presented here are specific to the test computers we used and not meant to imply that every computer will experience the same results as every computer is different in hardware, software installed, software and processes running in the background, age of computer, and how a PC is used.

 

Conclusions:

It's clear that some programs are better at detecting and removing errors and not all registry cleaners report what is being done to your computer the same while others seem to function in a way that is different from most programs tested all together.

At the very least you should know that relying strictly on the number of errors found to determine the "best" registry cleaner is not accurate or reliable based on how each program counts and categorizes errors differently.

We should also point out that any performance improvements will differ from computer to computer, and certainly older computers would seem to benefit more than newer ones in that they tend to have more clutter, "junk" files and old useless registry entries.

If you computer hardware is very old it is doubtful your computer’s performance will be significantly increased.  Software no matter how good can’t make old hardware perform like hardware of newer PCs

From this testing it seems that registry cleaners might improve PC performance to some degree and eliminate some common and annoying error messages while being safe and reliable to use.

 

 

Registry Cleaner Recommendation:

Based on the results of our in depth testing and analysis, Max Secure’s Max Registry Cleaner is awarded top honors and our highest recommendation.  Max Registry Cleaner finished in first place in 3 of our tests and tied for first in another making it the clear standout in this round of testing.

To run a free system scan you can download a copy of Max Registry Cleaner here, or to learn more about the software you can visit Max Secure Software's site.

I hope you have found this information helpful and useful.  Please take a moment to leave your thoughts and comments below.

Thanks for visiting!

Editor's Top Pick	Overall Max Registry Cleaner is the most effective of the registry cleaners in these tests. It improved PC performance by 11.5% on our test computer and eliminated 100% of the problems we created in our error test. Max Registry Cleaner is fast, effective, and will help you finally eliminate annoying error messages and improve sluggish PC performance.
(Click here to Visit Max Registry Cleaner)