Digeus Registry Cleaner is a great program that cleans out all the little bits and pieces of useless information from your computer’s registry.  A registry is like a closet, with information stored in it. It’s not really like a closet, but let’s just say it is so I can continue with the next line. As is common with most Windows machines, it’s a closet that has been long overdue for its spring cleaning.  Many computers that run slow have massive registries, and because careless programs running in Windows frequently forget to clean up after themselves and the operating system needs more time to scan and interpret all the information.

Along the side, you’ll find a checklist of options to scan for, such as missing shared DLLs and unused file extensions. Options are given to backup and restore the registry, just in case anything goes wrong. I compared the Digeus cleaner with CCleaner, a pretty well known application.

Registry Scan Times:

• Digeus Registry Cleaner- 2:04.94
  • 1197 problems
• CCleaner-7 Seconds
  • 63 problems

It seems like Digeus’s Registry Cleaner can find many more problems than CCleaner, but in turn it takes longer to complete.

The Good:

• In-depth search
• Deletes all invalid file types, extensions, obsolete software, and etc.
• Small program- 1.2 MB
• No Adware/Spyware bundled

The Bad:

• Costs $17.99 for unrestricted version
• Trial only has 5 entries per scan until nag screen

As you can see, my only complaint here is its price – for some, though, the larger number of problems that the  Digeus Registry Cleaner can find may make it worth the cost. So before you go and get a new computer to replace your bogged-down machine, be sure to try this exceptional software and hopefully it saves you some money, time, and effort.

Trial download available from CNET.

Product page here.

Don’t you hate it when it does that? Especially when you’re playing a game and it gets you killed. When you leave your computer on overnight to download a big file and it reboots on you.  Well, no more!

Go to Start->Run->gpedit.msc

Go to Local Computer Policy-> Computer Configuration->Administrative Templates->Windows Components->Windows Update

Find “No auto-restart with logged on users for scheduled automatic upd…”->Right Click->Properties->Click Enables->Ok

(Click for bigger image)

No more auto-restarts! This was tested on Windows XP SP3.

CCleaner-  This is one of the best PC unclogging utilities out there.  It cleans all of your cookies, garbage in your recycle bin, unused registry keys, and much much more.

1. Download it
2. Install it
3. Run the program.

The default settings usually are perfectly fine for beginners, but if not, tweak them to your desired settings.

Now to begin the process,

1. Click “Analyze”.  After its done scanning, it will point out the amount of space that it will clean out and what it will clean.
2. Hit “Run Cleaner” and it will work its magic.

It is now time to clean the registry

1. Go to the “Registry” tab on the left.
2. Click “Scan for Issues”-wait for it to scan
3. Click “Fix Selected Issues”
4. Answer yes or no (personally I don’t back up but that’s not necessarily the right thing to do.  I’ll leave that up to you)
5. “Fix All Selected Issues”.

Voila, you’re done.

A bonus feature to this program is their Uninstaller feature (Click “Tools” on the left).  It is a easy-peasy way of uninstalling useless programs.  Another plus, is the ability to tweak your computer’s start up programs which is located underneath the Uninstall button.  Look up the program in Process Library, and determine if you really want that program to start up.   Please don’t disable any anti virus programs and/or firewall.

CCleaner makes PC cleaning easy and painless.  If you like it, consider donating.

This little 630 kb file is a life saver for people with OCD.  It allows you to drag and drop the programs that are running on your taskbar for quick reorganization.

Before:

After:

Reorganized in a few seconds.  Doesn’t this look more appealing?

This type of functionality should be defaulted with every version of Windows.  The only downside is that it does not work on my second monitor’s taskbar, which is power by Ultramon.  The makers of Taskbar shuffle wrote in their 2.5 release notes that Taskbar Shuffle does function with Ultramon, but that is not the case for me.  Oh well.

Download Taskbar Shuffle