3rd party windows utilities are they worth it?

hello everyone and Ian thanks for the warm welcome.
I just downloaded registry mechanic latest version for windows 7 and ran it and my PC is slower (even with a warm reboot by about 22 seconds tha a cold boot before it?
I also downloaded today defragger, speccy, ccleaner and glary utilities. My aim is to make bootup time for my new windows 7 home premium as fast as possible. I am not new to computers having got my first back in 1995 with windows 3.1 which came on 6 floppy disks 3 widows, 3 for dos and I've had every windows operating system except vista. and a great deal of software too.
But back to my point is this type of software worth it to accomplish speed and stability whether freeware or not or should you rely on what is with widows, your own knowledge and experience i.e backing up a clean install to restore to and incremental backups with what you change in widows.

Regards Steve

Welcome to the forum elcid! Personally I've never liked registry cleaners, I don't trust them. I think many of them have done more harm than good. Generally speaking, I'd steer clear of all those miricle registry cleaners.

There are some who use and like ccleaner, and there are a couple different defraggers like Defraggler that are mentioned favorably by several here.

One thing I believe is helpful is a good uninstaller. Nibiru put me onto "My Uninstaller Pro" and I like it. It does a good job of not leaving garbage in the registry when you uninstall programs.

Here's a thread that lists a lot of W7 member's "Favorite Utilities".....
Favorite Utilities?

DD is on the money as usual.

You mentioned Glary Utilities. My 2 cents.....I've used the free and pro versions multiple times on multiple computers. I like what it has to offer and have never had any adverse consequences with it. I find the computer seems a little peppier after running 1 click maintenance. It also has decent individual modules. It works for me and I have never heard of anyone that has blamed it for problems.
Having said that, I can't reiterate enough on the importance of backing up your registry before making changes to it.

Welcome to the forum!

My biggest concern of the ones you mentioned is "registry mechanic". I have never used it personally but I have seen several posts where "oh I just ran registry mechanic and now I'm having" such & such problem.

CCleaner does registry cleaning and I use that but I generally know what I'm deleting before I allow it.

If you want to "PLAY" with the registry then back it up first: Run regedit. Select Computer so it is highlighted in the window. Select File - Export. This is the complete registry. Another method to back-up the registry, which may seem easier, is a program called ERUNT, which I haven't used but is recommended by several regulars here including Digerati & yodap.

Note that CCleaner offers to make backups of the entries it proposes to delete - this is a much smaller file because it isn't the complete registry, so if you use that product you don't need to do the complete reg above.

I also recommend a system checkpoint (now called system restart point) before running any reg cleaner and before installing strange software. In Start Menu -Search type "restore point" (no quotes) ... choose Create a Restore Point ... at the bottom of the window is "Create a restore point right now". (Also accessable via Start Menu\Control Panel\System ... then pick System Protection)

If you are looking for ways to make Windows 7 faster, take a look at some of these tips...

http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/2...-up-windows-7/

Now personally I like Aero and Search Indexing so it's worth it to me but there are some SERVICES I just don't need (page 3) and do you have dual cores or better? If so then tell startup to use them all!

DO NOT USE THE DOWNLOAD OF THE FREE SCAN ON THE ABOVE LINK. It is another one of those programs that scans the computer and finds hundreds of problems, and then want you to pay money to correct them.

Thanks andsome, I personally hardly notice that crap any more, but yes I was talking about the articles suggestions, I don't mean to recommend clicking on any of the other links.

I used to mess with registry cleaners and such. However, like the rest here, I had issues.

ALL I use to do any registry cleaning now is CCleaner and that's it.

My advice would be to run CCleaner once a day to get rid of junk files, temp files and folders, etc. Run the registry cleaner section once and see how things go.

Get a good third-party disk defragmenting program and use it. I personally like PerfectDisk, others here like the free ones such as Defraggler, etc., some like Diskeeper. The point is, once you defrag your hard drive, it will speed up the boot times, as I know from experience.

A weekly defrag is one of the best ways to keep your system running smooth and slick.

There may be some that feels differently, but Glary Utilities screwed up one of my XP Pro installs with some of the "tools" that comes with the program. Like the memory & registry "defraggler", I used the memory tool, afterwards, I was using more RAM than ever, actually got a few warnings that I was running "low" on RAM.

The registry defrag was no better, although they claimed it alone could boost performance by up to 300%. Bull! I could see no difference at all.

Finally, their one click maintenance, that they claimed could make your computer like new again. Well it made it like new alright, because I had to pull out my XP Pro reinstall disc afterwards (that must have been what they were talking about), and reinstall everything. Nothing makes a computer run better than a fresh install.

If you haven't caught on by now, you probably won't, so I'll tell you. Stay away from Glary Utilities, and stick to safer programs, such as CCleaner. It has never broken my system, one thing to keep in mind, if you do scan the registry for problems and find some, backup before proceeding. CCleaner gives you this option.

And another to steer clear from is Advanced System Care Pro (by IObit, whom I don't like). Their one click maintenance almost screwed up my XP install again, but this time, I learned to create a restore point before doing anything such as this. It screwed up my screen resolution, changed my home page from MSN to Ask.

So I've learned that everyone's "free" solutions don't always work. But if you feel the need to use them despite my warning, at least create a restore point first. That way, no damage is done.

Cat

I use Diskeeper 2010. It is set to defrag as and when the hard drive needs it, I never need to set a defrag to run. It runs in the background. It will also defrag the boot files, which I do once a month. That really does speed things up.