Get a FREE fully-working copy of Steganos Security Suite 7 (worth £49.99) when you sign up to the Practical PC Newsletter. Review: RegistryBooster 2
Does your Registry need a spring clean? Ian Waugh grabs a mop, a brush and RegistryBooster 2...
| Product | RegistryBooster 2 |
|---|---|
| Company | Uniblue |
| Web | www.uniblue.com |
| Price | £19.95 |
| We like | Quick, effective and easy to use |
| We don't like | To fully optimise your PC you need other tools, too |
| Rating | 7/10 |
| Requirements | Windows 2000/XP/Vista (32 bit) |
You know the problem – your PC seems sluggish and simply not as fast as it used to be. Oops, where have you heard that before? Yes, over at the SpeedUpMyPC 3 review.
RegistryBooster 2 is a companion program to that and helps complete the operations needed to get your PC in good shape.
After much use, your computer's registry will fill with unused settings and fragments. Over time it can get bogged down, become sluggish and conflicts can occur. It's good practise to clean it out regularly but that's not easily done manually, even by an expert.
RegistryBooster 2 checks your registry for obsolete, missing, corrupt and unnecessary entries.
It scans for 15 different types of entry including ActiveX, invalid file associations, software settings, shared DLLs, application paths, system drivers and invalid shortcuts. You can select or deselect any of the categories for scanning, although you probably wouldn't want to deselect any. It then perform a scan and reports the errors which you can opt to fix.
The program can also defrag the registry. This compacts registry entries in a similar way to disk defragging, and it should improve performance.
Before performing an action, the program takes a backup of your registry and a Restore option enables you to revert to one of several previous backups. Good safeguard.
In the Settings tab are options to start RegistryBooster 2 with Windows and to start scanning as soon as the program launches. However, it's probably not the sort of application you'll need to run every day so you can save resources by only launching it when you need it.
As in SpeedUpMyPC3, there's a PowerSuite button which takes you to the company's web site and encourages you to buy SpeedUpMyPC3 and SpyEraser 2 (free spyware scan here) for £26.62. As each program currently costs £19.95, it's a fair saving. And if you want to get your PC back up to speed, you will need an optimisation program, too, so it's worth thinking about.
Conclusion
There are many aspects of your PC that you need to keep an eye on to ensure it's running at optimum efficiency.
The Windows registry is prone to bloat and it's reassuring to have a piece of software to put it back in order. However, RegistryBooster 2 does only part of a full PC optimisation so you need to consider other options, too, such as SpeedupMyPC 3 or the PowerSuite bundle which is much better value for money.
But try RegistryBooster 2 for yourself - get a free RegistryBooster 2 scan here.
