Software Forum

I had a problem and found a possible answer with RegCure. That found some 920 errors on my XP machine. The free version only offered to fix 1. I let it then ran Ace Utilities and it fixed a number of problems but RegCure now reports 826 errors.

I wonder why the large discrepancies between two utilities that seem to do the same job?

Different registry cleaning programs employ different scanning algorithms/logic and hence differ in their opinion about the validity of an key/entry/data/value.

For safety reasons, Ace Utilities employ a set of 'ignore-lists' so that our users don't accidentally remove entries which *may* cause errors later. We also have periodically added new entries to this ignore-list as per the feedback from our users. To live on the dangerous side, a user can choose to override these restrictions. You can go to 'Options > Clean System Registry' and make these changes, though they are only meant for advanced users with good knowledge about Windows, registry and troubleshooting. Running the 'Clean System Registry' tool in such an unrestricted fashion will show more entries.

To catch more results:
Go to Options > Clean System Registry:
* Set scanning method to 'Thorough'
* Enable 'Include all references to removable media'
* Enable 'Include all references to CD-drives
* Disbale 'Use Ignore list'

Note: If run in this fashion, users are strongly encouraged to go through the list presented after the scan and make sure that the entries to be deleted are not required. Even though users can always use the 'Restore' tool to undo the changes made, it may not help with every software which gets into trouble.

About 'Regcure' you mentioned, 98% of the difference is due to it stating 'empty' registry keys as invalid. Empty does not always mean invalid. Other than that, both programs yield fairly consistent numbers.

Thank you for your answer.

I will ignore RegCure as my system now seems ok.