Don't pay for software you don't need — Part 2

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Don’t pay for software you don’t need — Part 2

By Woody Leonhard

After the first article of this three-part series appeared, many of you wrote to ask: do I really not need this software?

It’s true: if you’ve moved up to Windows 7, there are all sorts of software that you just don’t need. Stop following outdated advice and get with the system!

The full text of this column is posted at WindowsSecrets.com/top-story/dont-pay-for-software-you-dont-need-part-2/[/url] (opens in a new window/tab).

Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.

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Good Article, but straight after you’ve told us we don’t need a defragger or a registry cleaner there’s two ads for….. guess what? Programs that contain registry cleaners and defraggers! (although to be fair, they do alot more than just that.)

Will we see any articles that argue the other side of the coin? (Why these programs might be useful after all?)

Cheers!

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Agreed good article however, one comment I find strange “registry cleaner” not needed. I have some none professorial experience gained since using Win3 now running Vista. However, my friends mistakenly think I’m a genus. Why? there computers are running so slow, take a age to start up. Until I run Ccleaner.
Perhaps Woody Leonhard’s article applies to Windows 7 only?

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I have been a Windows user and IT specialist for a long time, And I respectfully disagree with some of your points.

I have used Windows OS from the very beginning and currently am using Windows 7 Pro 64 bit .

Depending on the Registry cleaner used you will get different results.
The one I have been using for a long time, also backs up the registry before it does it’s magic.
My system does boot noticeably faster after it has been scanned and compressed.
I usually do this manually once a week.

Using the built in backup utility I make a monthly full backup with verify and weekly incremental backups with verify. If done to a separate hard drive that is used for backups only, I find that I have no problems recovering data. If the data restore source is a USB drive I usually get the same results if I schedule the backup to run overnight. I have lost data to overnight backups due to bad weather causing power outages which could be resolved with a good UPS setup.

Utilities used wisely with knowledge do improve a systems performance.
If they are overused, yes they can do more harm than good.

Robert

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The link to this page sent by mail to me Is Wrong

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The link to this page sent by mail to me Is Wrong

Same here.

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Agreed good article however, one comment I find strange “registry cleaner” not needed. I have some none professorial experience gained since using Win3 now running Vista. However, my friends mistakenly think I’m a genus. Why? there computers are running so slow, take a age to start up. Until I run Ccleaner.
Perhaps Woody Leonhard’s article applies to Windows 7 only?

CCleaner works its magic not by cleaning the Registry, but by cleaning out caches and Windows logs, among other performance-enhancing cleanups. Nobody is arguing that cleaning the Windows “gunk” once in awhile won’t speed up a slowing PC. It’s just that specifically targeting the Windows Registry is wasteful and sometimes harmful. It does not improve PC performance to target the Registry. Other areas of Windows “gunk up” a whole lot faster.

-- rc primak

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Good Article, but straight after you’ve told us we don’t need a defragger or a registry cleaner there’s two ads for….. guess what? Programs that contain registry cleaners and defraggers! (although to be fair, they do alot more than just that.)

Will we see any articles that argue the other side of the coin? (Why these programs might be useful after all?)

Cheers!

You bet! It should be interesting….

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And you actually get paid for publishing these opinions? Amazing! Your advice about using Windows Backup (in Windows 7 Professional x64) is deeply flawed – I have personally been on the receiving end of this service failing spectacularly, causing me to to lose all my backups (and I have over 30 years of experience as a software developer). And the undeniable advantages of partitioning disks are well known – nothing changes here simply because it’s Windows 7. I simply hope that people who might be persuaded by your public utterances are willing to seek a second opinion.

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First, I’d like to thank you folks for lots of eye-opener ‘secrets’ !
I would like to comment on the use of antivirus-firewall, registry cleaners, and defrag software in window 7, I moved up from windows XP pro to windows 7 home premium never bothering to give Vista a second look.
I use the following paid for software which I believe are worth the investment for a ease of mind computing experience.
1. Norton 360 v 5 as a total security solution
2. TuneUp utilities 2011 for keeping a clean and compact registry
3. Diskeeper pro premiere 2011 for automatic unattended defrag of the hard disk and the ocassional defrag of the MFT
In eight months since moving up from windows XP (something brought about only since microsoft announced end of life) I have a had a very safe and fast running system on a Qosmio F60 with no breakdowns or hickups even though I install and remove software as my work requires.
You do not get that sort of experience with free to use software as u will always get a nag to upgrade or find something wanting. Microsoft Security Essentials does not compare to Norton 360 in providing a rounded virus and firewall protection as well as a set of utilities and the extra tidbits of identity safe, backup, startup and safe web surfing.
You say that registry cleaners are obsolete, that may be true if you run one or two productivity suits and stick with those with no alteration, but when you install and uninstall software as frequently as once a week and if not, auto-updates move things around a reg cleaner and compactor is essential to keep the ship tight and leak proof. why wait till that first crash to start looking for a system format.
As far as defrag it may be that regular schedulled defrag may be sufficient for an idle system but active and unattended live defrag is a must for a system that is constantly in use and with files accessed and closed multiple times an hour. diskeeper does that.
So I beg to differ with your assessment of what is needded even in the new stable OS of win 7.
Thanks

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I’ve been using “Easy Cleaner” & “Reg Supreme” successfully for over five years on a winxp pro system.
There has never been an incident or problem using both of these in tandem along with built in “chkdsk”-
Microsoft is well known for it’s sloppy & unreliable code/registry issues, so it is neither responsible nor credible to take your position.
The fact that Microsoft has marginally improved the junk it’s been peddling and in fact forcing down our throats all these years, is no cause for celebration or praise.
At least pretend to help those unfortunate souls who still rely on MS to get the job done as efficiently, reliably & cheaply as possible.
We all don’t work for “the man” so we don’t have to take his junk lying down.

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First, I’d like to thank you folks for lots of eye-opener ‘secrets’ !
I would like to comment on the use of antivirus-firewall, registry cleaners, and defrag software in window 7, I moved up from windows XP pro to windows 7 home premium never bothering to give Vista a second look.
I use the following paid for software which I believe are worth the investment for a ease of mind computing experience.
1. Norton 360 v 5 as a total security solution
2. TuneUp utilities 2011 for keeping a clean and compact registry
3. Diskeeper pro premiere 2011 for automatic unattended defrag of the hard disk and the ocassional defrag of the MFT
In eight months since moving up from windows XP (something brought about only since microsoft announced end of life) I have a had a very safe and fast running system on a Qosmio F60 with no breakdowns or hickups even though I install and remove software as my work requires.
You do not get that sort of experience with free to use software as u will always get a nag to upgrade or find something wanting. Microsoft Security Essentials does not compare to Norton 360 in providing a rounded virus and firewall protection as well as a set of utilities and the extra tidbits of identity safe, backup, startup and safe web surfing.
You say that registry cleaners are obsolete, that may be true if you run one or two productivity suits and stick with those with no alteration, but when you install and uninstall software as frequently as once a week and if not, auto-updates move things around a reg cleaner and compactor is essential to keep the ship tight and leak proof. why wait till that first crash to start looking for a system format.
As far as defrag it may be that regular schedulled defrag may be sufficient for an idle system but active and unattended live defrag is a must for a system that is constantly in use and with files accessed and closed multiple times an hour. diskeeper does that.
So I beg to differ with your assessment of what is needded even in the new stable OS of win 7.
Thanks

Wrong on all points. Woody explained in the article, and other Windows Secrets contributors also demonstrate, that nothing you posted is true. Including the false statement that free Anti-virus programs all have “nags” associated with them.

-- rc primak

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Having separate partitions for OS and Data is great in theory, but unless you take steps to move the Users folder to the D: partition, most users will just continue to save all their data on the C: partition, by default. I can’t tell you how many computers I’ve seen with small, full C: drives and huge, empty D: drives.

Having Windows 7 being able to repartition on the fly is nice, but in most cases it’s easier to just set up one big C: partition and be done with it.

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Having separate partitions for OS and Data is great in theory, but unless you take steps to move the Users folder to the D: partition, most users will just continue to save all their data on the C: partition, by default. I can’t tell you how many computers I’ve seen with small, full C: drives and huge, empty D: drives.

Having Windows 7 being able to repartition on the fly is nice, but in most cases it’s easier to just set up one big C: partition and be done with it.

Precisely.

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Two points

1) the reason registry cleaners were required originally is that Windows only set aside a limited amount of memory for storing them and stuff left around eventually meant you ran out of space. Memory allocation today is much less of a problem, so the reason for cleaning up registries is not really needed, as the speed of modern machines and amount of memory means that the database that is the registry will not take much longer to parse.

2) Windows 7 Firewall – I believe that you are wrong on this – Windows 7 Firewall is outgoing as well as incoming. However, it is convoluted as to how you access it. You need to go to the control panel, select “administrative tools” (NOT Windows Firewall) and you will now see listed “Windows Firewall with Advanced Security”. Right click and choose “run as administrator” and you will now see that you have Inbound Rules and Outbound Rules, as well as in my case Domain Profile, Private Profile and Public Profile. I am on an SBS 2008 domain and so some of the settings are set by a group policy. By default it looks like the defaults are that “Outbound connections that do not match a rule are allowed”. This effectively means that the outbound rules have no effect.

THus Windows 7 is an outbound firewall, but by default allows everything, and the facilities are so buried that hardly anyone is aware of them.

How did I discovere them? Well I had trouble pushing out Sophos antivirus to clients and the fix is to go and enable some of the standard inbound rules, and that is how I discovered the advanced firewall security.

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While I do agree a registry cleaner is rarely needed, I have come on one instance where it is required. I spend some time as a moderator on a major game site. One big problem with several of the games we support is when a user attempts to uninstall then reinstall the game in a new location – such as in a different folder or on on a second hard drive. This is allowed by the game.

However, the uninstall leaves behind several registry entries that cause the game to fail to start in the new location. You can either go into regedit (not recommended for most gamers) and manually remove those entries, or run a registry cleaner. If you run it PROPERLY. Reboot after uninstalling the game, run the cleaner, then reboot again. It removes all of the problem entries. Allowing you to reinstall in a new location. Just about any registry cleaner will work, however In my tutorial on how to do this I recommend using the FREE Ccleaner slim which runs very quickly and does a good job with no collateral damage.

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Also @SirPaul1:

While I do agree a registry cleaner is rarely needed, I have come on one instance where it is required. I spend some time as a moderator on a major game site. One big problem with several of the games we support is when a user attempts to uninstall then reinstall the game in a new location – such as in a different folder or on on a second hard drive. This is allowed by the game.

However, the uninstall leaves behind several registry entries that cause the game to fail to start in the new location. You can either go into regedit (not recommended for most gamers) and manually remove those entries, or run a registry cleaner. If you run it PROPERLY. Reboot after uninstalling the game, run the cleaner, then reboot again. It removes all of the problem entries. Allowing you to reinstall in a new location. Just about any registry cleaner will work, however In my tutorial on how to do this I recommend using the FREE Ccleaner slim which runs very quickly and does a good job with no collateral damage.

In this situation, a super-uninstaller such as Revo Uninstaller Pro or Absolute Uninstaller, at the time of program removal, would serve the purpose better than using a Registry Cleaner after the removal. These programs track the uninstallation and target the program remnants. This is also needed when upgrading or changing some security programs, as old registration data can interfere here in the same way as with the games you cited. CCleaner is not as effective as these programs.

SirPaul1 presents a similar situation. Programs not completely removed can leave behind in the Registry keys which can really trip up Windows. These super-uninstallers can help with preventing these sorts of Registry errors as well.

-- rc primak

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Two points

2) Windows 7 Firewall – I believe that you are wrong on this – Windows 7 Firewall is outgoing as well as incoming. However, it is convoluted as to how you access it.

That’s quite correct. I even step through an example of how to use it in “Windows 7 All-In-One For Dummies,” and MAN if you ever tried to do any real blocking with it, the thing would drive you nuts. Guaranteed…

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Also @ ccotton:

Two points

1) the reason registry cleaners were required originally is that Windows only set aside a limited amount of memory for storing them and stuff left around eventually meant you ran out of space. Memory allocation today is much less of a problem, so the reason for cleaning up registries is not really needed, as the speed of modern machines and amount of memory means that the database that is the registry will not take much longer to parse.

2) Windows 7 Firewall – I believe that you are wrong on this – Windows 7 Firewall is outgoing as well as incoming. However, it is convoluted as to how you access it. You need to go to the control panel, select “administrative tools” (NOT Windows Firewall) and you will now see listed “Windows Firewall with Advanced Security”. Right click and choose “run as administrator” and you will now see that you have Inbound Rules and Outbound Rules, as well as in my case Domain Profile, Private Profile and Public Profile. I am on an SBS 2008 domain and so some of the settings are set by a group policy. By default it looks like the defaults are that “Outbound connections that do not match a rule are allowed”. This effectively means that the outbound rules have no effect.

THus Windows 7 is an outbound firewall, but by default allows everything, and the facilities are so buried that hardly anyone is aware of them.

How did I discovere them? Well I had trouble pushing out Sophos antivirus to clients and the fix is to go and enable some of the standard inbound rules, and that is how I discovered the advanced firewall security.

Regarding the Windows 7 outbound firewall, Woody references an article by Fred Langa which details the Sphinx Software Windows 7 outbound Firewall controls. There’s a free version, or a paid version. This software simplifies and eases access to the Win-7 outbound firewall controls. Haven’t seen the need for this myself, but it would offer additional protections.

By default, the Windows 7 Outbound Firewall is not set up to block anything.

-- rc primak

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Regarding the Blessing on Microsoft Security essentials. Recent testing placed Security essentials AV at 22 second to last with a score of 11.8. This is not saying the product is bad but the AV testing was not great and people can make their own decisions. The story was in Product Reviews as an update and has links to the AV testing site with all the scores
http://www.product-reviews.net/2011/05/10/microsoft-security-essentials-update-on-low-av-scores-for-latest-download/

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I read with interest the comments regarding registry cleaners. I have been using Glaxy Utilities since it was recommended by this newsletter some time ago. It includes a registry cleaner. Are you suggesting that we do not use that part of the product any more?

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Great column. I am so happy to hear a reliable source speak about the software that is advertised to “cure” all you ills. My personal decision to not use any of the programs that are listed as a cure all is simple. “If it sounds to good to be true ….” – Thanks for a great column and keep up the great work.

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Also @ garylevery:

I read with interest the comments regarding registry cleaners. I have been using Glaxy Utilities since it was recommended by this newsletter some time ago. It includes a registry cleaner. Are you suggesting that we do not use that part of the product any more?

As with CCleaner, Glary utilities does a lot more than clean the Registry. While Registry Cleaning is a waste of time, other areas cleaned by Glary JUtilities do accumulate a lot of Windows “gunk” and should be cleaned up occasionally. This is an important difference between Registry Cleaners and System Cleaners. System Cleaners like CCleaner and Glary Utilities do more than clean the Registry.

Garylevery posted about frequent uninstalls and “gunking up” the Windows Registry. This is also not necessarily strictly a Registry issue. CCleaner cleans up after uninstalls and updates in the same way I illustrated above. It cleans out a lot more than the Registry. The Windows Installer itself can also be cleaned up, and for frequent program switchers, this is a useful thing to do once in awhile.

-- rc primak

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Also @ garylevery:

As with CCleaner, Glary utilities does a lot more than clean the Registry. While Registry Cleaning is a waste of time, other areas cleaned by Glary JUtilities do accumulate a lot of Windows “gunk” and should be cleaned up occasionally. This is an important difference between Registry Cleaners and System Cleaners. System Cleaners like CCleaner and Glary Utilities do more than clean the Registry.

Garylevery posted about frequent uninstalls and “gunking up” the Windows Registry. This is also not necessarily strictly a Registry issue. CCleaner cleans up after uninstalls and updates in the same way I illustrated above. It cleans out a lot more than the Registry. The Windows Installer itself can also be cleaned up, and for frequent program switchers, this is a useful thing to do once in awhile.

Glary Utilities really messed up my PC when I was still running XP, had to reformat and reinstall Windows, wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot barge pole, reviews I’ve read bear that out as well.

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I read with interest the comments regarding registry cleaners. I have been using Glaxy Utilities since it was recommended by this newsletter some time ago. It includes a registry cleaner. Are you suggesting that we do not use that part of the product any more?

Yep. If you’re using Windows 7, you don’t need it.

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I have been using Windows Firewall for several months now. I changed from the suite that came bundled with my new Sony VAIO Windows 7 x64 laptop (Norton Internet Security 2010) because I don’t trust Symantec and I had heard a lot of good things about the Windows 7 firewall.

I decided to not employ the standard outbound behavior of the Windows 7 firewall which is to allow outbound connections, unless there is a rule that expressly prohibits such a connection for a program/port range/IP address range.

Instead, I configured the Windows 7 firewall to block all outgoing traffic by default. In this case, the only outbound connections that are permitted are those for which I have created an outbound rule allowing the connection for specific ports, IP addresses and/or programs.

I did have to spend several hours at first creating the rules to allow the programs I wanted to be able to make outbound connections, like my email client and web browser just to name two of the most obvious examples. Creating a rule to allow a program to make an outbound connection is a snap and takes just a minute.

Where I had to spend the hours (due only to my inexperience with Windows 7 firewall), was for the things like allowing the computer to print to the network printer which meant creating a rule allowing a port range outgoing connection. It is not at all hard to create such a rule. I just stumbled over it, due to my inexperience.

A second good example of a rule that threw me at first and took some time was the rule needed to allow Windows Update to work which also is used by Windows Security Essentials to update its definitions file every day. To get windows update to work, I had to create a rule to allow a windows service to make an outbound connection, in this case the service ‘wuauserv’ and the program svchost.exe. Using this technique, one can create a rule to allow just a single service to make an outbound connection.

Yes, I spent a bunch of hours setting this up, but am glad that I did.

The reason I felt that controlling outbound connections was so important is that I have no idea what programs exist on my machine. I should, but I don’t! The windows 7 OS footprint, out of the box, with all of Sony’s augmentations, is HUGE!

By taking the precaution of preventing any program from making an outbound connection, unless I have given it express permission, I have increased my level of confidence in the security of my machine, which level of confidence was quite low when Norton Internet Security 2010 was is control of the security.

I would like to add, even though it is unrelated to this thread’s topic, that I use EFS (the windows Encrypting File System) to encrypt my sensitive files all of which I keep in just two folders and only connect to the internet while logged into a non-elevated windows user account which DOES NOT have the required certificate to decypher the contents of these two EFS encrypted folders. My experience with EFS is very satisfactory. EFS is both easy to set up and totally transparent to use with no noticeable performance hit, whatsoever.

In conclusion, as you can see, Windows 7 firewall does not work only one way.

I feel almost like writing an article about this. If only I were more qualified.

I really appreciate Woody’s article and only intend this post to provide some additional information regarding the capabilities of Windows 7 firewall which DOES allow default outgoing blocking as an option. The only reason I am not showing the Thanks button is because I don’t know how to get the ‘Thanks’ button to show.

Thank you, Woody, for your article!

Charles.

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You write: “I’m ready to change my tune if Fred can find a Registry cleaner that reduces the size of a typical Registry by, oh, 15 percent to 20 percent (that’s the point where I assume a decrease in size could improve system performance), or if he can find a slick way to speed up a system by 10 percent to 15 percent. Failing that, it’s hard for me to imagine paying any money — or wasting any of my time — cleaning my Registry.”

=> Reducing the size of the registry is really not the point of using a registry cleaner… neither is defragging the registry… These are side effects of registry cleaners that may help marginally if at all.

The true point of using a registry cleaner is to get rid of outdated Keys, Values, and Data that prevent software conflicts and abnormal behavior within the operating system as it operates “today”… I can’t count the number of times that cleaning the registry after uninstalling a malicious or unwanted program has saved me from being unable to install, reinstall, or fix a valuable software component on my system.

I agree that the Windows Firewall and Partition Management capabilities provided within windows are sufficient for the average user, but advanced tools used properly can enhance browsing and security in a world where threats are lurking almost every place that we travel to in the “Ether”. I assume you may have had a bad experience with ZoneAlarm :rolleyes: which asks you something everytime you type a key or click the mouse… Comodo Firewall has a training mode that is much more transparent and after the first week or two after installation it rarely makes a fuss.

True, not creating a restore point in advance of cleaning the registry is a big gamble and certainly not recommended. However, many of the best registry cleaners allow the user to review and rollback the changes should something untoward occur – Registry Mechanic, Advanced System Care, RegGenie, CCleaner, WinUtilities just to name a few. In the hands of the inexperienced user, cleaning the registry may be a bad idea, but for those who are more experienced, registry cleaners and scanners can easily save hours of wasted time dealing with malware, viruses and software issues.

Ken Niebling

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True, not creating a restore point in advance of cleaning the registry is a big gamble and certainly not recommended. However, many of the best registry cleaners allow the user to review and rollback the changes should something untoward occur – Registry Mechanic, Advanced System Care, RegGenie, CCleaner, WinUtilities just to name a few. In the hands of the inexperienced user, cleaning the registry may be a bad idea, but for those who are more experienced, registry cleaners and scanners can easily save hours of wasted time dealing with malware, viruses and software issues.

Ken Niebling

Most competent Registry Cleaners will offer a dialog box before changing anything, allowing you to back up your current Registry to a .REG File, which allows undoing any harmful changes. Not much help if the computer won’t launch Windows, however. I’ve seen this happen when people used overly aggressive Registry Cleaners.

-- rc primak

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Here’s an easier way to get to the disk management applet: Click Start, then right-click Computer, and select Manage. Then delect Disk Management from the left pane.

ttarvin

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Last October because of of some confusion and a slick payload tricking me to click on what I thought was a geniune MSE dialog box I got infected with a nasty virus, and I couldn’t used system restore or other method to try to rememdy this. During the intital infection, Zone alarm starting popping up several messages asking me if I wanted to allow such and such program to access the internet. Durring this time I had realised I was being attacked and choose no which very likely prevented crucial data from being transmitted. So, I see your point in certain features being overkill, but in this instance it was a blessing.

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I use MSE on my 2 laptops and a desktop system and even though I use CCleaner to remove old temp files, I’ve not used it for cleaning registry. I scanned it once to see the files, but they were too confusing to even look at, so I didn’t bother. My Win 7 System works fine and I’ve not seen any decrease in speed since I first got the system, and therefore didn’t see a need to delete registry items that I did not understand.
I partitioned my 1TB hard drive so that I would have a smaller C drive using the Win 7 built in Partition tool. This way I store music files/photo files on D Drive, separate from the operating system files, and I can restore my smaller C drive.
Now I do have to confess that I don’t use the built in backup software, but only because I find the Windows Home Server more useful.

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Can we add WinZip to the list? This was a great program in its day, but ZIP functionality has been built into Windows since XP, and the free 7-Zip program is superior in every way. I’m not sure why people still buy WinZip, aside from inertia.

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@Flaminio –

Ah, you’re stealing my thunder for Part 3!

Seriously, you’re absolutely right.

I have several other, smaller for-pay utilities stuck in my bag o’ tricks for the next installment, but it would be interesting to hear from anyone who has a specific obsolete – but still sold – utility they’d like to highlight.

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“Finding Windows 7’s partition manager takes a little digging. Running in an administrator-level account, click Start, Control Panel, System and Security, and Administrative Tools. Next, double-click Computer Management”

It’s Windows 7 – just click the Start and type “Disk Management”

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Okay, for me the jury is out on whether registry cleaners really are of any use with Windows 7, although I found them useful enough in XP – and soon found that some of them can cause major problems (cue complete reformat and reinstall of Windows, sigh, registry backup the program made didn’t work properly, nor did system restore). However, if you do want to use a registry cleaner and stay safe, I can’t recommend CCleaner highly enough (its free as well), its recommended by all my PC magazines and computing forums as being suitable for anyone (although in my opinion novices shouldn’t be going anywhere near this type of software) and its never let me down once. The default settings only remove “safe” obsolete entries and there are other options that can be selected for those of us who are a little more tech-savvy, and naturally its best to have a look through the entries it finds before pressing the Clean button.

All I can say on the wider registry cleaning debate is that surely some obsolete entries removed is better than none? I install and delete a LOT of games and other software which leaves behind rubbish sometimes (even using Revo Uninstaller on its highest setting, some of that software is major sneaky), its not always possible or practical to use the uninstaller either

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A good article, but with some debate…

I still use a registry repair tool in Windows 7 on occasion, but not nearly as much as previous operating systems, and that may be sheer force of habbit too on my part.
Registry errors do happen and on occasion they do need to be delt with, although Windows 7 may prove to be the turning point in the whole regisrty debate issue, it has as of yet not come to pass.

I do believe that the Windows 7 firewall is actually bidirectional as TonyGore points out, but it’s anything but a simple process to configure . Perhaps they will make it a bit more user friendly in Windows 8.
As it stands in Windows 7 right now, it’s not half bad at all for a free offering and I have found no need whatsoever to augment it.

MSE is a decent solution for some of us that hate AV software period, especially full suits. It’s unobtrusive in my setup and I don’t care if it is not rated number one. Most of my antivirus/antimalware software is hardwired-intrinsic-behavioral [me] anyway.
MS does deserve some credit for getting their security act together, albeit late in the game, but better late than never.

Windows Backup and Restore is a good start, but the imaging program provided by MS is a very basic app imo which could use some refinement. Advanced users will find it feature lacking, but it is more than sufficient for novices.

The Windows Live Photo Gallery in WLE 2011 is a very decent free photo manipulation tool for the novice. It integrates nicely into Windows 7 and is very easy to use. If your a professional photographer then you will want a more advanced application, but for a freebe, it’s not bad at all.
There are many free tools out there and everyone will have their own preferences and needs.

I am by no means a Microsoft fanboy, but I don’t come to the table with preconceived prejudices against them either.

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I am in the unique position of having two identical laptops that I use. Both have or had the same software installed. In january of this year, my admin rights were removed from my work laptop, a Lenovo T500. As this restriction was not placed on my home laptop, I was able to gage boot up speed and problems on two identical laptops as a function of time. I use a program called Advanced system care 3, which is the paid version. This program does all of those tasks which are no longer needed on Windows 7 pcs. Both of my laptops run Windows 7 professional, and Office 2007. My home laptop is used just as much as my work laptop as I also have a consulting business (I’m a metallurgical engineer). Ever since Advanced system care 3 no longer worked on my work laptop, as I had no admin rights, it takes twice as long for it to boot up as my home T500, which is regularly scanned. Also I have about one crash a month on my work laptop, and none on my home laptop. I think this comparison is not subjective, and refutes your statement that registry cleaners serve no purpose, as I have both the control and experimental pcs running the same software. Recently I updated to advanced system care 4 on my home laptop, and now the difference is even more noticeable. My work laptop is so slow, I have started bring in my CR-48 laptop, in order to get to websites, that take forever to load on my work laptop, if they load at all, thanks to the internet filtering software on the company servers.

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“Why doesn’t Microsoft just come out and say you don’t need a Registry cleaner?”

I don’t know that Microsoft owes us an opinion about this. And if they give us one, many would ignore it or disagree.

On a similar note, MS sometimes does drop software. (e.g. MS Money) I am sure there are a variety of reasons software is dropped. It’s not always “that function is no longer needed.”

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Woody wrote:

Finding Windows 7′s partition manager takes a little digging. Running in an administrator-level account, click Start, Control Panel, System and Security, and Administrative Tools. Next, double-click Computer Management. In the left panel, under Storage, click Disk Management.

Doesn’t anyone else use right-click menus anymore? You’ll still need to use an Administrator-level account, but getting there isn’t as convoluted as going through the Control Panel.

To get to the same place faster right-click on the My Computer icon on your desktop or, if you do not have that icon on your desktop, click the Start orb and right-click on Computer in the right-hand pane of the Start menu. Once you’ve right-clicked select Manage from the menu that pops up and then select the Storage and Disk Management options as Woody describes.

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If you use Windows Add/Remove to remove programs, you will need a registry cleaner. Preferably one that backs up the changes in case you get a little over-aggressive.

Not so much for size or speed, but to eliminate errors along the lines of: ” Cannot find – C:WindowsSystem32program i removed in the past.dll – Press any button/key to eventually see this message again”.

Of course, you could also do it manually or use a better uninstaller in the first place.

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A great article Woody. About time someone called out these often unneeded extras. Note that Woody specifically says “if you’ve moved up to Windows 7, there are all sorts of software that you just don’t need.” A bit later Woody notes they’re running some tests to see if registry cleaners actually do any quantifiable good. But the notion of measurements and quantifying benefits doesn’t click with most people. Well, that’s why we have a zillion religions in the world, every one fervently believed in with no measurement of usefulness.

And the undeniable advantages of partitioning disks are well known – nothing changes here simply because it’s Windows 7.

What are those undeniable advantages…are they measured? Until it’s measured, it’s BS. And maybe it does change with Win 7…can you show, in your measurements, that it doesn’t?

one comment I find strange “registry cleaner” not needed. I have some none professorial experience gained since using Win3 now running Vista. However, my friends mistakenly think I’m a genus. Why? there computers are running so slow, take a age to start up. Until I run Ccleaner.
Perhaps Woody Leonhard’s article applies to Windows 7 only?

Yes, that’s exactly what Woody is saying.

My system does boot noticeably faster after it has been scanned and compressed. I usually do this manually once a week.

Again, got any measurements? Even if a registry clean does result in boot speed improvement…every week? Do you notice the faster boot every week?

1. Norton 360 v 5 as a total security solution
2. TuneUp utilities 2011 for keeping a clean and compact registry
3. Diskeeper pro premiere 2011 for automatic unattended defrag of the hard disk and the ocassional defrag of the MFT
In eight months since moving up from windows XP (something brought about only since microsoft announced end of life) I have a had a very safe and fast running system on a Qosmio F60 with no breakdowns or hickups even though I install and remove software as my work requires.

Great, glad to hear about your safe and fast system. I also have fast and safe Win 7×32/64 systems, installing and removing programs, and never run any 3rd party defrag or registry cleaner on any of them. At work they have Trend Micro for AV, at home I use MSE on two laptops and ESET NOD for a desktop. I’ve installed MSE for friends’ XP machines and no problems either.

Remember the joke about the guy who kept blowing a whistle, a friend asked why, the guy said “It keeps the elephants away.” Friend said, “they’re aren’t any elephants around here!” “See, it works!”

I’ve been using “Easy Cleaner” & “Reg Supreme” successfully for over five years on a winxp pro system.

WinXP Win7 says Woody.

If you use Windows Add/Remove to remove programs, you will need a registry cleaner…Not so much for size or speed, but to eliminate errors along the lines of: ” Cannot find – C:WindowsSystem32program i removed in the past.dll – Press any button/key to eventually see this message again”.

Can’t recall any of those messages with Win7. Am I just lucky, or does the Win7 remove finally work right?

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I can tell you Registry Cleaners POSITIVELY can “speed up” the system.
I’m an avid software “tester”. IE: I love to download, try & determine whether to keep any given software utility for future use.
I literally have hundreds (all neatly organized BTW).
I’m also a passionate “portable apps” guy. I never keep any software that cannot be made portable (most can).
All the downloading, installing, uninstalling (even though I use via Revo Uninstaller) takes its toll.
About once a year I run 4 specific cleaners, in a specific order using specific options (including Easy Cleaner).
The “speed up” involves both boot time & menu selection. Even Revo does not get rid of everything. So Windows is chasing down a lot of dead ends when it boots and as you start navigating the program menus.
None of my software gets borked from running cleaners although worse case is 1 or 2 settings may have to be redone.
I run WinXP SP3 on a Dell Inspiron 9400 (circa 2006) which includes Office 2003. I’ve never had to reinstall XP (although I did upgrade the HD).
It runs like lightning after the cleaners do their job.
Cleaners are useful…although I don’t doubt the safety issue for the average user.

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Sorry to disagree about Windows 7’s partitioning capabilities, but I have found them to be limited to the point of uselessness every time I have tried to use them. Since Windows will not move files to allocate free space, I can’t shrink the Windows partition by much more than a third, even on a machine straight from the factory. If you want a small partition for OS and software and a larger one for data, you’re going to need outside help. That said, there are plenty of free partitioning utilities out there – G-parted has worked fine for me, though I would never use it without some serious backups.

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Woody:
I’m confused by your statement: “I personally hate disk partitioning. I’ve railed against it for years.” Most everybody on the forums
seem to recommend separating the OS and user data into separate partitions. In the interest of my learning from someone with your tech. knowledge, would you be so kind as to lay out your reasons in a “Why I hate disk partitoning . . . for dummies”; or point me to some articles you may have written that lay out your reasons.
Thank you,
Dick (who is retired, and an avid learner)

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Dick,

From my standpoint, the relevance of partitioning a Data drive away from the OS drive gets more appropriate from an Imaging standpoint as the amounts of data increases. If, like me, you data is limited (I have about 15 GB of music, pics, documents, app data, etc), then leaving the data on the C drive does not seem to affect time of Imaging much. However, if you only reimage when changes take place in your OS, i.e. add an app, delete an app, upgrades, etc, then your data (if kept on the OS drive) could get pretty out of data. If it is not backed up by other means, you might have problems. If the data is segregated from the OS drive, then reimaging the OS has no affect on the data drive. I do however still advocate backing up data by other means as to prevent the necessity of recreating this data if disaster strikes.

Just my 2 cents. You may very well know all this but the next person reading this post may not.

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Ted:
I know and believe what you said, and that’s why I’ve set up my system with partitions. I also agree that your always-helpful comments are good to be stated for follow-on readers.

However, your logic makes so much sense to me that that’s why I posted my question to Woody. I’m dying to hear why he “personally hates disk partitioning.”

Curious minds want to know.

Best,
Dick

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Yeah, I’m kind of curious about that as well. I’ve always used partitions to good effect.
I currently don’t have any partitions due to the many internal dives I have added over time.

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Yeah, I’m kind of curious about that as well. I’ve always used partitions to good effect.
I currently don’t have any partitions due to the many internal dives I have added over time.

Extra drives are a popular alternative to extra partitions. In the long run, this is actually a safer way to go, because if one drive fails, the others are still available. I do wonder what Woody’s take on separating data from programs under Windows 7 might be, as well as the points of view offered by his Windows secrets colleagues like Fred Langa.

Personally, I do separate data from System and Programs. I do this because I only use Windows Copy/Paste to back up my data (No large media or database files on my laptops!) as opposed to my System. System Backups are done with Acronis True Image Home, just because I like the features of Acronis. I could just as easily use Windows 7 Backup for that. But since I do not like large backup archives, I do not include my data in my system Backups. I would like Woody’s and Fred’s takes on this practice under Windows 7 — does it still make sense? And why or why not? Please be specific.

-- rc primak

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Extra drives are a popular alternative to extra partitions. In the long run, this is actually a safer way to go, because if one drive fails, the others are still available. I do wonder what Woody’s take on separating data from programs under Windows 7 might be, as well as the points of view offered by his Windows secrets colleagues like Fred Langa.

Personally, I do separate data from System and Programs. I do this because I only use Windows Copy/Paste to back up my data (No large media or database files on my laptops!) as opposed to my System. System Backups are done with Acronis True Image Home, just because I like the features of Acronis. I could just as easily use Windows 7 Backup for that. But since I do not like large backup archives, I do not include my data in my system Backups. I would like Woody’s and Fred’s takes on this practice under Windows 7 — does it still make sense? And why or why not? Please be specific.

I used to do that, too, until I got used to having Windows 7 backup (and Windows Home Server) to all the heavy lifting for me. With backup, including shadow copies, covered, I see no reason to hassle with partitions. None at all.

There are super-users who can make good use of partitions, I’m sure, and my hat’s off to them. But for people who just want to get their stuff done and let the computer take care of the hard parts, partitions are just one more obfuscating waste of time.

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Thanks for the positive comments Dick.

I would think that none of us will agree with everything an “expert” tells us. We will read what that person has to say, read what others have to say, and then based on our own experiences create the system that works best for us. I am totally self taught on these contraptions we call PCes. So I spent “a lot” of time reading what other “experts” wrote and took some of those “experts” advice and incorporated it into my thinking and practices. If a PC novice thinks my advice will help them with their system, then I guess that makes me an “expert” to that person. I will continue plugging away with advice whenever I think I have a good idea or can provide an answer to a question. And I do appreciate the positive reinforcement when I have been able to help someone. Thank you all!

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Thanks for that article. I’ve not worked with hundreds of Windows 7 machines – but I agree with what you say from my experience with my own.

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I, too, have been a heavy third-party utilities user, ever since the days of DOS 3.0 and the old Central Point Software PC Tools. When I ordered my Windows 7 Pro x64 system last year, I even began accumulating new copies of my favorites (or new apps to replace a few that had recently fallen out of favor). To my surprise, though, I began seeing praise for Win7’s stock utilities from multiple print and online sources that I respect. Despite my initial hesitancy (based on long experience), I’ve jumped into the deep end of the pool to see what life is like trying to minimize the use of third-party stuff. I’ll relate my experience in the context of earlier posts, as follows.

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Your advice about using Windows Backup (in Windows 7 Professional x64) is deeply flawed – I have personally been on the receiving end of this service failing spectacularly, causing me to to lose all my backups (and I have over 30 years of experience as a software developer).

It’s a shame that you’ve had that experience–was it the Windows 7 version that failed, or something earlier? I must admit that I never would have considered relying on the backup utility in XP or earlier (and never used Vista at all), but my experience with Win7 Backup has been nothing but positive, both for image backups and file-by-file backups.

As a former user of Acronis True Image Home (under XP), I will admit that Win7’s imaging utility is like driving with a stick shift instead of an automatic transmission. That’s not all bad, though–I’m finding that it allows me to organize/maintain historical disk images the way I want to, rather than having to do it the way TIH thinks is best. It’s actually made things more transparent for me. I’d say similar things about the file-by-file backups under Win7 Backup. And best of all, I’ve not had a restore failure after 8 months of use.

This isn’t to slam TIH–I have the copy I bought last year standing by just in case I change my mind. But at this point, I don’t feel the need for the extra hand-holding, and I really am glad to be clear of TIH’s sometimes-arcane process for setting up and restoring backups.

If you’d be interested in reading more about my combination image and file backup scheme, see my Lounge post on the subject (“Libraries, Partitions, and User Accounts” – just scroll down or search the page for “bethel95”).

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It’s a shame that you’ve had that experience–was it the Windows 7 version that failed, or something earlier? I must admit that I never would have considered relying on the backup utility in XP or earlier (and never used Vista at all), but my experience with Win7 Backup has been nothing but positive, both for image backups and file-by-file backups.

On the first day of one month I did my first full backup to an external drive (which I switch off when not in use) using the Windows 7 backup utility, not realizing that it also created a scheduled weekly task to add to this backup. I validated the backup, and all was fine.
When the scheduled task first ran (one week later, I think), the external drive was switched off, so the backup failed.
Several weeks later, I tried to restore some files from the backup after switching the external drive back on. Although I could clearly see tat the backup files were present and correct, the backup utility was unable to locate them or their catalogue – and I tried various “solutions” for around an hour with absolutely no success.

My theory is that when the scheduled task first ran and failed, it then corrupted or destroyed the catalogue, and there was subsequently no way to recreate or replace it. If I’m right, this alone renders the software completely unreliable and untrustworthy – neither of these attributes is acceptable in backup software.

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On the first day of one month I did my first full backup to an external drive (which I switch off when not in use) using the Windows 7 backup utility, not realizing that it also created a scheduled weekly task to add to this backup. I validated the backup, and all was fine.
When the scheduled task first ran (one week later, I think), the external drive was switched off, so the backup failed.
Several weeks later, I tried to restore some files from the backup after switching the external drive back on. Although I could clearly see tat the backup files were present and correct, the backup utility was unable to locate them or their catalogue – and I tried various “solutions” for around an hour with absolutely no success.

My theory is that when the scheduled task first ran and failed, it then corrupted or destroyed the catalogue, and there was subsequently no way to recreate or replace it. If I’m right, this alone renders the software completely unreliable and untrustworthy – neither of these attributes is acceptable in backup software.

Without running some tests, it’s a tough call as to what the failure mode was, but I’ll grant that your hypothesis would be a reasonable starting point for investigating. If this did turn out to be the problem, then the core issue isn’t that Win7 Backup is “completely” unreliable–it’s just incapable of recovering from this particular (correctable) job setup error. I’d grant that this would qualify it as being less capable than a backup utility that didn’t have the same failure mode, but that’s a relative measure. Any evaluation of reliability and value would need to be balanced out by comparing the cost of the alternative app and the degree of data security improvement from having an app that could handle that scenario.

Personally, I wouldn’t worry too much about a backup app that has trouble with running a backup to a hard drive that isn’t there. Even if the root cause was a failure of the backup hard drive, what happened to the catalog would be a moot point once the backup data is no longer accessible.

That said, why not just cancel the scheduled task and continue on with your plan to manually backup to your external HDD?

For that matter, why turn off the external HDD and take away the convenience (and possible increased data security) of an automatic, scheduled backup? Unless you’re buying cheap junk for an external HDD, you’re not going to put more wear and tear on it than you would by starting and stopping it every day (and if you’re backing up your data less often than that…well, that’s a different discussion).

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Without running some tests, it’s a tough call as to what the failure mode was, but I’ll grant that your hypothesis would be a reasonable starting point for investigating. If this did turn out to be the problem, then the core issue isn’t that Win7 Backup is “completely” unreliable–it’s just incapable of recovering from this particular (correctable) job setup error. I’d grant that this would qualify it as being less capable than a backup utility that didn’t have the same failure mode, but that’s a relative measure. Any evaluation of reliability and value would need to be balanced out by comparing the cost of the alternative app and the degree of data security improvement from having an app that could handle that scenario.

I must respectfully disagree with you. A backup utility that is anything less than 100% reliable in all scenarios is useless: I really don’t want to discover I’m the victim of some “particular (correctable) job setup error” when I come to attempt recovery, even if I’m in a tiny minority of 1! It’s like having an operation – less than 100% is no good.

Personally, I wouldn’t worry too much about a backup app that has trouble with running a backup to a hard drive that isn’t there. Even if the root cause was a failure of the backup hard drive, what happened to the catalog would be a moot point once the backup data is no longer accessible.

That said, why not just cancel the scheduled task and continue on with your plan to manually backup to your external HDD?

The clue lies in my response to your first message “not realizing that it also created a scheduled weekly task to add to this backup.” I did not know of the new scheduled task – I was not informed, so naturally was unable to delete or cancel it as it did not occur to me that there was a scheduled task to consider.

For that matter, why turn off the external HDD and take away the convenience (and possible increased data security) of an automatic, scheduled backup? Unless you’re buying cheap junk for an external HDD, you’re not going to put more wear and tear on it than you would by starting and stopping it every day (and if you’re backing up your data less often than that…well, that’s a different discussion).

Again I disagree. External drives are not built to the same standards as internal drives and do wear out far more quickly than their internal counterparts. Since my external drives are used only for backups (which, generally, I perform weekly or on demand), then I see absolutely no reason why the drives need be on all the time.

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I moved up from windows XP pro to windows 7 home premium…I use the following paid for software which I believe are worth the investment for a ease of mind computing experience…[Talks about Norton 360, TuneUp utilities, and Diskeeper Pro]…In eight months…I have a had a very safe and fast running system on a Qosmio F60 with no breakdowns or hickups even though I install and remove software as my work requires. You do not get that sort of experience with free to use software as u will always get a nag to upgrade or find something wanting.

None of MS’s free utilities nag me about anything, let alone upgrades. As for free third-party utilities that I’ve used regularly in the past couple of years, the only ones that have paid versions (that I’m aware of) are Revo Uninstaller and WinPatrol–neither one uses any nag screens that I’ve ever seen. In fact, I was unaware of their paid versions until I was offered free “paid” licenses in promotional deals. I’ve no doubt that there’s nagware out there (I’ve seen the reports in user reviews on freeware/shareware sites), I’m just saying that it’s a bit unfair to paint all free utilities with the same deprecatory brush.

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As far as defrag it may be that regular schedulled defrag may be sufficient for an idle system but active and unattended live defrag is a must for a system that is constantly in use and with files accessed and closed multiple times an hour. diskeeper does that.

Perhaps. Defragmentation, it would seem, is in the eye of the beholder, and there is no single functional defintion used by all utility developers for what that means. For example, Win7 Disk Defragmenter tells me right now that my C:, D:, E:, W:, and Y: drives are 2%, 22%, 1%, 0%, and 0% fragmented, respectively. Defraggler (from Piriform, makers of CCleaner) reports the same drives as 28%, 27% 5%, 13%, and 0% fragmented.

What’s that even mean? I’m using the Win7 utility, but I suspect that if I used Defraggler, its numbers would go down, but Win7 DD’s would go up. It’s hard to say which is better when it appears we’re talking, if not apples and oranges, at least Red Delicious and Granny Smith. It may just be a matter of taste (in other words, what do you find the most convenient to use?).

As for daily (overnight, by default) defragmentation not being enough: I’ve been using my system for 14 hours straight since my last defrag (just 2 hours in breaks), and only the D: drive (where I keep my data) is showing any appreciable fragmentation. More to the point, I’ve not noticed any performance hit from that fragmentation, nor am I likely to on a partition that has 254 GB free out of 292 GB–there’s just too much contiguous free space to play with for fragmentation to have a major impact on read performance. If my D: was much closer to being full (>80%? >90%?), then perhaps Windows would be breaking up new file saves into much smaller pieces and scattering them more widely, but if anything, that would be a clue that I need a bigger partition/HDD, not a an “always on” defragmentation app.

Diskeeper had its day when HDDs were expensive and space was tight, but I’m inclined to believe that its day has now passed.

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Earlier in this thread, I wrote:

Defragmentation, it would seem, is in the eye of the beholder, and there is no single functional defintion used by all utility developers for what that means. For example, Win7 Disk Defragmenter tells me right now that my C:, D:, E:, W:, and Y: drives are 2%, 22%, 1%, 0%, and 0% fragmented, respectively. Defraggler (from Piriform, makers of CCleaner) reports the same drives as 28%, 27% 5%, 13%, and 0% fragmented.

I just discovered an enlightening online tutorial that explains what Win7’s Disk Defragmenter utility is doing: http://sourcedaddy.com/windows-7/file-system-fragmentation.html

Scroll down to the section titled “Defragmentation Algorithm Improvements.”

There’s also a helpful command line switch explanation for defrag.exe later on the same page.

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Microsoft Security Essentials does not compare to Norton 360 in providing a rounded virus and firewall protection as well as a set of utilities and the extra tidbits of identity safe, backup, startup and safe web surfing.

True statement–but then, MSE never purported to be as well-rounded as Norton 360. (FYI, I own a copy of Norton 360–it’s one of the paid utilities that I currently choosing to not use just to see how things go.) The question is whether you need everything that 360 provides. I, for one, see no value in storing things on my desktop in an “identity safe”–I prefer to keep such things in a specialized app on my smartphone, so I’ll have it with me always (all encrypted and password-protected, of course).

As for “safe web surfing,” I’ve never felt the need for it–I much prefer a system that warns me to stay away from hinky sites (like WOT or the newly-free BitDefender TrafficLight), rather than trusting in something to keep me safe after I’ve gone there. I’m also a bit leery of the performance overhead such safe-surf addons impose (yes, I’ve tried). If that’s what you need, though, then 360 or something like it would be good for you–it’s really a matter of the degree of risk in your standard usage pattern.

There’s also the matter of the performance overhead of a security suite. Having used both the Norton and Zone Alarm suites since about 2002, I’ve experienced the system slowdown and RAM-gobbling tendencies of such suites. Granted, Norton 360 represents a full rewrite and is substantially less egregious in this regard than its predecessors (that’s why I bought it instead of renewing ZA last year), but I’m finding MSE to have no impact at all–I don’t even notice when it’s doing a scan while I’m working.

Regarding the Blessing on Microsoft Security essentials. Recent testing placed Security essentials AV at 22 second to last with a score of 11.8. This is not saying the product is bad but the AV testing was not great and people can make their own decisions.

The final issue (when it comes to an anti-malware utility) is how well it does its job, of course. There’s a corollary to that, however, based on risk assessment: How much protection you need depends on your degree of exposure. If you never visit high-risk sites (file sharing, torrent, porn, etc.), don’t exchange removable media, and have a good email spam filter (and refuse to open the rare spam that slip through), then you probably don’t need as much protection as someone who does any or all of those things.

As for MSE’s proficiency, the above-referenced report pointed out (as have others) that MSE’s weakness is in dealing with “day zero” attacks (as compared to, say, BitDefender or Norton 360)–you know, the kind of malware that spreads through high-risk activities. :rolleyes: One thing that this same report showed (though didn’t discuss) is that any anti-malware’s performance against day-zero threats will tend to vary over time, depending on how quickly the developer updates his app to take into account new threat vectors. Personally, I prefer to use PC Tool’s free Threatfire app to manage this threat vector due to the efficacy of its approach in detecting and blocking the day-zero baddies. Combined with MSE (and the fact that I’m a low-risk user), I’m confident that I’m getting ample protection from malware, and getting it for free.

YMMV.

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Windows 7 Firewall is outgoing as well as incoming. However, it is convoluted as to how you access it. You need to go to the control panel, select “administrative tools” (NOT Windows Firewall) and you will now see listed “Windows Firewall with Advanced Security”. Right click and choose “run as administrator” and you will now see that you have Inbound Rules and Outbound Rules, as well as in my case Domain Profile, Private Profile and Public Profile…By default it looks like the defaults are that “Outbound connections that do not match a rule are allowed”…THus Windows 7 is an outbound firewall, but by default allows everything, and the facilities are so buried that hardly anyone is aware of them.

All true, which is why I use the free Windows 7 Firewall Control that others (including Woody) have mentioned. After some initial “training,” I find that it rarely pops up (usually in response to an installer or freshly-installed update that’s checking in with the mother ship). For heaven’s sake, don’t waste your time manually entering outbound rules in Win7 Firewall’s admin panel!

Woody’s probably right that outbound blocking rarely saves me from anything, but Windows 7 Firewall Control is fairly quiet (much less noise than Zone Alarm used to make) and has once or twice over the past six months brought an attempt to phone home to my attention that I’ve decided to block. I’m happy with that.

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Okay, I’ll chime in on the free anti-virus/malware debate as well (I’m a pretty new member) – I use Windows Defender with Threatfire free version (behavioural heuristics scanner) as a backup (it can run alongside any traditional AV or security suite in real-time) and also run a monthly on-demand scan (more often if I’ve been doing anything potentially dubious) with Malwarebytes (also free) and I haven’t had one single problem in the 12 months I’ve been using Windows 7. As I’m not the most careful user when it comes to surfing (I only take serious care when it comes to shopping or banking) I’d say this is a testament to the efficacy of my setup. I really do subscribe to the school of thought that it is possible to get all the software I need for free (legitimately, I equate illegal downloading with shoplifting personally, no difference at all), there are some truly excellent programs out there that cost nothing, although I do try to donate a few dollars via Paypal for software I find particularly useful.

Just a word on Norton, I’ve detested them for years because of the way their software proliferates and spreads into every area of the PC, its a pain and a half to remove and needs either a high level of technical knowledge or a lot of help from the internet to do so, so many manufacturers install the trial of this piece of rubbish on new PCs (I’m not saying it doesn’t work by the way) – I told my manufacturer that installing ANY software other than Windows was a deal-breaker and I got a nice clean PC delivered just as I specificed (Cyberpower, can’t recommend them highly enough), might be worth bearing in mind for anyone thinking of buying a new machine ;o)

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While I do agree a registry cleaner is rarely needed, I have come on one instance where it is required. I spend some time as a moderator on a major game site. One big problem with several of the games we support is when a user attempts to uninstall then reinstall the game in a new location – such as in a different folder or on on a second hard drive…However, the uninstall leaves behind several registry entries that cause the game to fail to start in the new location. You can either go into regedit (not recommended for most gamers) and manually remove those entries, or run a registry cleaner.

I’ve got to agree with bobprimak on this one–what you really need is to use a better uninstaller. I’d recommend Revo Uninstaller (freeware), run using it’s “advanced” mode (which looks for both leftover registry entries and leftover files). If you really want to go for it, kick in for Revo Uninstaller Pro (though at $39, it’s a bit pricey for most needs). The Pro version includes an installation monitor that keeps a record of everything the installer does so that even non-obvious files and registry entries are removed upon uninstalling (and still works with the previously-mentioned post-uninstall scan function of advanced mode, too, to pick up on anything that’s been added subsequent to installation).

This may not entirely solve your problem in a heavy install-uninstall environment, but it will cut down on things so much that I suspect that you’ll find the need to run your registry cleaner far less often.

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Sorry to disagree about Windows 7’s partitioning capabilities, but I have found them to be limited to the point of uselessness every time I have tried to use them. Since Windows will not move files to allocate free space, I can’t shrink the Windows partition by much more than a third, even on a machine straight from the factory. If you want a small partition for OS and software and a larger one for data, you’re going to need outside help.

Ah, Partition Magic, how I loved thee back in the day…

But truthfully, I found that I could manage partitions quite well (if not quite as magically) within Acronis True Image Home when I was using it. Now that I’m using Win7 Backup instead of TIH, I’ve gotten inspired to check out the Win7 Disk Management app, and while I have found that using it to manage partitions isn’t as straightfoward as a third-party partitioning app, it stack ups fairly well against TIH’s capabilities and process. I started using it right after I received my new system last year to partition the main drive into C: and D: partitions (so that I could move my user folder to D:–sorry, Woody!). I had no problem shrinking the original C: to about 40% of its original size or in creating D: on the remaining space, so I’m puzzled as to why kgiov had such trouble. Perhaps running a defragger first would clear up the problem?

From my standpoint, the relevance of partitioning a Data drive away from the OS drive gets more appropriate from an Imaging standpoint as the amounts of data increases. If, like me, you data is limited (I have about 15 GB of music, pics, documents, app data, etc), then leaving the data on the C drive does not seem to affect time of Imaging much. However, if you only reimage when changes take place in your OS, i.e. add an app, delete an app, upgrades, etc, then your data (if kept on the OS drive) could get pretty out of data. If it is not backed up by other means, you might have problems. If the data is segregated from the OS drive, then reimaging the OS has no affect on the data drive.

Personally, I just don’t like the amount of fragmentation that keeping and adding to data on my system drive adds to that drive–anyway, that’s one motivation for moving the data (in my case, the full user folder) off to a D: partition, even on the same drive. Once that’s done, it also makes it easier to justify retaining multiple system disk images over time, as restoring any C: image won’t wipe out my data (which I prefer to back up using a file-by-file method, anyway).

Having separate partitions for OS and Data is great in theory, but unless you take steps to move the Users folder to the D: partition, most users will just continue to save all their data on the C: partition, by default. I can’t tell you how many computers I’ve seen with small, full C: drives and huge, empty D: drives. Having Windows 7 being able to repartition on the fly is nice, but in most cases it’s easier to just set up one big C: partition and be done with it.

The default is always easiest for the newbie, but since it’s the default, there’s nothing to “set up,” right? If you’re going to be the expert friend to a newb, it’s just not that hard to partition a hard drive into C: and D: and relocate his My Documents folder to D: (which then being the default, he’ll always use) using just Windows 7’s own tools. It’s only slightly more difficult to move the entire user folder to D: (requiring use of a third-party utility; search LifeHacker.com for “Profile Relocator”).

I’m not saying that it should be done, only that it’s not at all difficult.

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A lot of great points have been made since I posed the question, but I’d still like to hear from Woody as to why he hates partitioning in Windows 7.

Dick

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A lot of great points have been made since I posed the question, but I’d still like to hear from Woody as to why he hates partitioning in Windows 7.

Dick

Dick –

It isn’t that I hate partitioning. It’s just unnecessary, for the vast majority of people. (Yes, I know you have to partition for dual booting, but I’m talking about normal people.)

I get a lot of requests for help from people who have C: and D: drives set up – usually by the PC’s OEM – and they’ve run out of space on one or the other. I always ask myself why people put themselves through the pain – what advantage do they have in multiple partitions? There’s no performance improvement that I can see. Keeping data separate from programs is nice, but backups now are smart enough to back up data without backing up programs – and the fact that settings can be scattered all over the place can turn a dual-partition backup scheme on its head.

Shadow copies add yet another dimension to the partitioning problem: do you back up shadow copies? How?

In the end, I don’t see anything that multiple partitions can do that can’t be done easier and better – and with much less hassle – with multiple folders.

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One thing not mentioned by Woody is the need to remove corrupt software that will not uninstall.

An example I encountered recently involved Java.

In attempting to install a program, I received a message that java could not be found. nothing I tried could locate it successfully. I attempted to install the latest version and received a message that it could not find the msi program to uninstall the previous version. I was not able to find this version on the internet.

None of my restore points helped the problem.

I eventually deleted entries referring to JAVA from the registry. I am fairly sure that a good registry cleaner might have done a better job of eliminating this problem.

WarwickW

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I think Fred and Woody are deliberately poke the sleeping dog. Nothing works better than controversy. You see it in news, politics, religion, reality shows, and talks shows. What we have gotten here with these articles is controversy. And big time response from readers. More web page hits. More advertising dollars.

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I think Fred and Woody are deliberately poke the sleeping dog. Nothing works better than controversy. You see it in news, politics, religion, reality shows, and talks shows. What we have gotten here with these articles is controversy. And big time response from readers. More web page hits. More advertising dollars.

I can find lots of deserving, sleeping dogs to poke. This one just felt particularly ripe.

Seriously, I finally sat down and outlined these three columns when yet another person asked me which Registry Cleaner they should run. I cover some of the points in “Windows 7 All-In-One For Dummies” but most of them are the distillation of a LOT of experience with Win7.

I think it’s GREAT that the subject’s controversial – lots of people stepping up to the plate, chiming in with their experiences. I don’t agree with all of them, but that’s what makes a horse race. If everybody had the same opinions, we could all just run out and buy Macs.

Troll alert….

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“poke” –> “poking”

My bad

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Woody:
Thanks for responding to my partitioning question, and giving the reasons for your statement about not needing them.
Dick

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Woody ~

Interesting article you wrote.

My take on buying software versus using some of the built in utilities provided by Microsoft, is that third party software is engineered to do a better job than the built in utilities. They are more robust, user friendly and have dedicated customer and technical support for free.

In regards to partitioning, it is my firm opinion that partitioning disks is absolutely essential and should be a rule of thumb for managing data. Partitioning disks is not unlike having drawers of a file cabinet. Even if computer savvy people buy additional and larger / super-sized hard drives for their computers, partitioning them only makes good sense.

In any case, it is essential to have an additional place other than the system drive, i.e. the drive C where windows and programs are usually located, is to keep personal data off of it. The reason being is that if the event comes when the system drive is inaccessible or attacked by an infection or needs to be reformatted, personal files will not be forfeited because they are not stored on the system drive. I wrote an article on the subject: http://pcsmarties.wordpress.com/spare-partition/

In regards to registry cleaners, I have been using them since Microsoft first invented them. Admittedly, i have been burned by malware posing as registry cleaners. But life as it is, it is also a process of learning from ones mistakes. But some people that have been burned or admit they have been a victim, will prefer to simply dismiss the viability of registry cleaners as a whole.

Part of the problem with dirty registries is due to third party software that is poorly written and inadvertently add bad or illogical keys when installing “or” leaving behind orphaned keys when they are uninstalled.

Therefore, removing unnecessary keys is as essential as removing bad entries from our credit reports at the credit bureaus. Further, the rule of thumb for databases is to remove bad or useless data or archive outdated data altogether. Therefore, it is unclear if people think the registry is a database, why the database is exempt from the rule of thumb. As a former database programmer, the registry is not exempt. But admittedly, most people prefer to ignore it instead. In my view, the ultimate reason why the registry should be lean and mean, is to keep it from crashing and making windows un-startable.

Like all files on the disk, the registry hive also lives in a state of fragmentation. If by chance, one of the dozens of fragments comprising the registry hive becomes corrupted, the entire registry hive crashes. What is not realized by many is the insult added to injury if that one itty-bitty corrupted fragment was storing a dirty key – a key which could have been removed by a registry cleaner.

So while many believe that leaving the registry dirty is ok and not consequential, then one wonders how they will feel when the the infamous error screen pop-up at boot time citing:

“Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: WINDOWSSYSTEM32CONFIGSYSTEM ”

or

“Windows Vista could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: WINDOWSSYSTEM32CONFIGSYSTEM ”

Although the above message pertains to XP and Vista, it is likely there is one for Win7 as well, since Microsoft hasn’t re-engineered the registry hive and its sub-system.

In any case, interesting article Woody. Looking forward to Part 3.

~db

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I haven’t seen much need for partitioning in the sense of subdividing a drive. However, the one need I do have every couple of years is imaging a system to a new drive to expand space, which involves the tiny little trick of relocating the recovery partition and increasing the size of the main partition. I’ve used Adonis tools for this so far, especially the Seagate-branded free version that is available if you’ve purchased a Seagate drive. (Surprise – I’ve mostly purchased Seagate drives over the past few years.)

A secondary reason to image to a new, larger drive is reliability. After five years, a new hard drive is a good, inexpensive idea to protect data and it results in one’s having a extra drive to use for backup or just archiving.

I don’t have much hope that Microsoft will integrate this type of imaging and repartitioning feature because it’s something that gets used “rarely.” Still…

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It is because of articles like this that I support the paid version of Windows Secrets. I just used this information to search out and find a solutiuon to my DVD burner because of registry problems. I used the Fixit utility and was up and running with in minutes. Thanks Woody.

Doug Thrasher

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I totally agree with you. While everyone obviously should do what they feel is necessary for their own circumstances, it seems like there is a whole culture built around playing full time system admin with your home systems. One can easily spend hours per week (day) following all the “best” practices to ensure nothing bad ever happens to your machine; that it runs a 1% faster because you did this or that; and no bad person driving by on your street will crack your wpa2 environment because you daily change your passwords to something so complex you probably write them down to remember them. I have personally been guilty of this to some extent – and in reality the obsession was more focused on the computer becoming an end in itself and not a tool for having fun or accomplishing work.

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An easier way to get to Disk Management is simply to press the Windows/Start key (or click on the start obe) and immediately type(the focus is already in the correct text box) without the quotes, “disk ma”. Almost immediately “Create and format hard disk partitions” will appear as a link to disk management. This built in search of Windows 7 is awesome! It searches both system components and user files, both file names and contents. Why bother to remember exactly where each version of windows puts it?
It’s also accessable, along with the whole system management package, by pressing the start button and right clicking on “Computer” and choosing “Manage”. Another easier way to get there.
A more direct way, for those who care to remember the technical stuff is to press that same key along with the letter “R” to bring up the Run dialog box.
diskmgmt.msc is for disk management, devmgmt.msc is for device management eventvwr.msc is for event viewer.

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Rather than using a registry cleaner for complete uninstalls, try the free version of Revo Uninstaller. After installing it, choose to uninstall a program from it’s menu.
It monitors the uninstallation process of the program and then offers to find and clean relevant registry and left over files. And it creates a restore point before initiating the uninstall.

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