EMAIL THE WATCHDOG If you feel you’ve gotten a raw deal and need assistance
setting a vendor straight, email the Dog at [email protected]. Please
include a detailed explanation of your problem as well as any correspondence you
have sent concerning the issue.that launch when Windows
fires up.”
The Vancouver Island
branch of the Better Business
Bureau also gives ParetoLogic
a thumbs up and notes that
the company has been in
business since 2004 and is
an accredited BBB member.
The BBB says that although
the company has logged 47
complaints within the last
three years (with 26 of those
coming in the last 12 months),
the company has satisfactorily
addressed all of the issues. If it
didn’t, the company wouldn’t
be accredited by the BBB.
So everything’s fine,
right? The Dog isn’t sure. A
search for user experiences
on the Internet reveals some
pretty pissed-off customers.
At Complaintsboard.com,
the overwhelming opinion is
that RegCure has a tendency
to break things rather than
fix them, with many people
reporting that they had to per-
form a system restore to get
their machines working after
using the software. RegCure
itself claims to fix corruption
problems with registry keys
and classes, remove invalid
DLL entries, and clear empty
registry keys. It also says that
it fixes program shortcuts, lets
you manage Windows startup
items, and backs up the regis-
try for you.
The Dog decided to give
RegCure a spin, so he installed
it on a clean copy of Windows
XP Professional with the
newly released Service Pack
3 integrated. The version was
newly created in Virtual PC
- Could there possibly be
problems with a clean install
of XP? According to RegCure,
yes. The software found 335
problems related to COM/
ActiveX entries, application
paths, and file/path refer-
ences, and 199 empty registry
keys. Curious to see if another
registry repair utility would
find as many problems, theDog reverted to the original
install and gave the freeware
Crap Cleaner a spin. Although
more of a decrufter, Crap
Cleaner also features a reg-
istry scanner. On the clean
install, Crap Cleaner found
12 problems and, of course,
offered to fix them for free.
Thinking the issue might
possibly be with Service
Pack 3, the Dog created a
new virtual machine using a
Windows XP CD provided by
Microsoft. The disc holds the
original 2001 version of XP
Pro and does not feature any
patches or service packs and
is limited to the native driver
support that XP uses. Crap
Cleaner again found 12 issues
with the original XP. RegCure
found 318. So you do have
to wonder what exactly the
program is finding.
The Dog asked ParetoLogic
about the complaints and
problems that RegCure found.
“RegCure is a logic-based
program that looks for specific
registry inconsistencies. Each
check box applies a different
type of logic to identify issues.
Without seeing the results of
your scan, our best guess is
that the majority of the results
are related to empty registry
keys. Since the registry is just
a database and a program
can use it in any fashion it
chooses, occasionally our logicdetects false positives. We do
have a whitelist to mitigate
and avoid such issues, and we
regularly update it to include
any false positives that wehave found,” said Amanda
Cooper, a spokeswoman for
ParetoLogic. She said the com-
pany is waiting for SP3 to be
released before doing a full
round of tests with it. Cooper
said she understands the Dog’s
concerns regarding the large
number of negative com-
ments and said the company
has been going to forums to
answer questions and offer
support if required.
“I regret the frustration
and difficulties that consum-
ers experience with their
registries, and while I respect
the feedback in online posts
about registry cleaners in
general and RegCure in par-
ticular, I am fortunate to see
all the testimonials that come
in daily from our customers,
so I do know that it is a prod-
uct that computer users are
finding effective and useful,”
Cooper said
What’s the Dog’s take? At
this point, the Dog isn’t con-
vinced that any registry clean-
ers actually work, as he has
never known them to actually
improve performance. This
isn’t just RegCure, but registry
scanners going back through
the years. Though some of the
marketing for RegCure may
be questionable, ParetoLogic
is certainly real. What’s your
take? The Dog would like to
hear. Woof.EMAIL THE WATCHDOG If you feel you’ve gotten a raw deal and need assistance
setting a vendor straight, email the Dog at [email protected]. Please
include a detailed explanation of your problem as well as any correspondence you
have sent concerning the issue.Could there possibly be
problems with a Clean
install of Xp? aCCording
to regCure, yes.