Article index
Author
Conclusion
Positive
- Very straight forward to download, install and activate after purchasing.
- User-friendly interface. Very simple to carry out a scan, automatic on first use.
- Noticeable performance improvement on our high end PC, which already has plenty of RAM and a fast SSD.
- Scan process takes just a few minutes, even on older hardware.
- Scanning report broken down into categories and full in-depth report shown in web browser.
- History kept of previous repairs, including the option to restore to a backup point.
- Ignore list, useful for ignoring locked registry entries in scans.
- Scheduling option to scan daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly.
- Registration includes a year subscription of updates and support.
- Money-back guarantee for performance improvement.
- Does not install toolbars or 3rd party software/advertising.
Negative
- System/user damage level meters are far too sensitive. Maxed out in all our tests and medium damage for a fresh OS installation in Virtual PC.
- Very little overall performance improvement in our tests, especially for multitasking after the repair & defrag processes.
- Rather naggy before registration, but no worse than some unregistered Antivirus suites.
- In four common registry errors we introduced, it only found and fixed two of them.
- Registry paths pointing to an empty memory card slot causes Registry Booster to display “No Disk” messages for each such entry.
- Purchasing includes automatic annual renewal. The buyer needs to opt-out after purchase if they don’t want it.
Conclusion
Registry Booster is a very straight forward to use application and appears to be targeted at complete novices. When we first installed, it automatically carries out a scan and shows a summary. If the repair causes an issue, restoring a backup is also a very simple process.
From our hands on review, it is quite surprising the amount of registry errors that build up over time. The vast majority of them appear to cause little harm, but eventually one will run into registry problems that are enough to cause something to crash out or to slow down. For example, many software products make use of plug-ins for added functionality and if the registry information is still present for plug-ins that have been removed, this software will still try looking for these non-existent plug-ins, potentially causing it to slow down, stutter or complain about missing files.
Despite how bad state our four test PCs appear to have been in from the registry error reports, we never noticed any unusual crashing or anything we suspected as being a registry problem. Interestingly, the high end PC we were expecting it to have a negligible effect on actually gave the most significant improvement, especially when launching the web browser after logging on. However, for the two PCs and Netbook we were expecting a change on, we did not notice anything after the repair and defragmentation apart from the web browser loading up quicker on one of the PCs and two of them giving reduced shutdown times.
On the other hand, as we already mentioned, it is quite possible these registry repairs will potentially prevent a future issue or improve the performance of something we were not testing for, since the registry affects pretty much everything running in Windows, not just when booting up and launching applications.
The only main issue we encountered is that its “Damage level” meter is far too sensitive. It showed maximum level on all our scans, which does not make it useful for telling how serious the damage really is. Even a totally clean Windows XP installation without third party drivers or software installed showed medium damage. So we would suggest going by the error counts, unless Uniblue improves the damage level meters or replaces them with something that gives a better indication of damage. The main PC we noticed an improvement after repair had nearly 2,000 registry errors, most of them system related, so if a scan shows around 1,000 or more system related registry errors, then an improvement can be expected with a clean-up.
Just like anti-virus packages, no cleaning or repair tool picks up everything and this is something we noticed when we introduced four of our own registry errors, which includes a bad uninstallation entry, file extension association with a missing application, an invalid run entry and recently opened files from an external memory card that was removed. Of these errors, it found and repaired the invalid run entry and recently opened file entries. However, it did not catch the false uninstallation entry or the file extension issue.
Finally, even though our tests did not show a great deal of improvement, we would say not to rule out registry cleaning altogether for improving performance apart from those who regularly reinstall their OS. First, carry out all the main tasks that will improve performance such as making sure the PC has adequate RAM, HDD is defragged, unnecessary start-up processes are removed and unnecessary software is uninstalled and so on. If all these tasks have already been carried out and a clean install is to be avoided or not an option, then it’s worth carrying out a registry clean.
To sum it up, this is what we would say:
“Registry booster is a useful tool to find out how much damage is in the registry, effectively repairs these errors and is potentially a way of improving performance when a clean installation needs to be avoided or is not an option. But do remember that the registry is just one of the many factors that affect system performance, so don’t rely on registry cleaning/defragmentation alone to restore PC performance.”
10 Comments on Uniblue Registry Booster 2010 Review
http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?id=15&sort=25
Would also have liked a couple of freeware cleaners to compare as well.
I do find it funny that a lot of these shareware cleaners find ,000's of errors and think 'the more found the better' but seem to perform no better than freeware.
Creative marketing perhaps???
With this review, the real-world testing took a lot longer than I was expecting, with each PC taking one to two evenings of testing, which included installing any software updates for the products I timed the launches of, carrying out test runs and then the timings before and after each stage. If this went much quicker, I would have included a few freeware products to compare timing results against.
Registry Booster will reveal a breakdown of its error counts in its trial mode, so you can compare it against other products without paying for it and then uninstall it afterwords. However, the reason I did not run others to compare error counts is that comparing errors accounts alone is not really all that useful. For example, a registry cleaner that finds and repairs only 10 errors with one serious error causing a software product to crash out or slow down is better than a registry cleaner that finds and repairs 1,000 errors and misses the serious error.
However, I do agree with the marketing, as like I mentioned on the advanced tests page, the "Damage level" meter is far too sensitive, reporting maximum level damage on every single PC I tested it on and medium level damage on a fresh Windows XP installation.
I'm amused that the program didn't fix the broken file association, and broekn uninstall entry.
Apart from imaging entire HDD's (before cleanup) and restoring (which is time consuming), then running a different registry cleaner, there's not really any thing you can do for comparisons sake, and the whole registry thing is over-hyped regardless.
A good defrag will fix it every time. And you can do a pagedefrag which will stick all your swap file, registry files & other important files back together (SystemInternals / freeware) and then a proper full defrag & improve access times on your HDD which will be better regardless - or just upgrade to an SSD
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Originally Posted by Seán
However, I do agree with the marketing, as like I mentioned on the advanced tests page, the "Damage level" meter is far too sensitive, reporting maximum level damage on every single PC I tested it on and medium level damage on a fresh Windows XP installation.
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I'm very curious about how the programmers defined the damage levels. Is there some sort of reasoning, or is it based on the error count and a few arbitrary numbers?
The fact that a new install has a medium damage level .... seriously?
A clean/fresh install of the Operating System is already seriously messed up?
Either Microsoft is composed of several thousand sub-par programmers ... or the damage levels are heavily exagerrated
Since I'm highly sceptical, I'm going to assume a little from column A, a little from column B
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Originally Posted by debro
The fact that a new install has a medium damage level .... seriously?
A clean/fresh install of the Operating System is already seriously messed up? |
This puts that software into the scammy Scareware corner. 
Michael
Drive images are necessary for a lot of reasons, this is just one. Unless you like spending days rebuilding your hard drive that is....
Thank you - and please continue your pursuit of excellence, you are certainly on your way.
A simple command : gpupdate /force will re-enforce some of the registry settings.
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