Core Dump

Today I’m going to give a little warning about programs that claim to “clean” your Windows registry, or people or products that tell you that you “need” to clean your Windows registry.

But first, a little story. The other day I happened to speak to someone who was having some computer problems – some very strange computer problems, in fact.

A little bit of questioning the user revealed the  problem. This person had recently had some so-called “computer experts” come and take a look at his computer. They apparently told him that he “needed” to “clean” his Windows registry, because it was “full of junk” and that was slowing his computer down.

This brings me to the moral of the story, which is basically that all “registry cleaners” are bunk.

Back in the old days (the Windows 9x days), a “registry cleaner” might have made some sense. Back then, you had to keep your registry small due to memory constraints, etc. A “registry cleaner” could remove some invalid entries and basically clean things up a bit to make the registry smaller. If it did this in a very limited manner, it was generally helpful and safe.

However, things have changed a lot since those days.

First off, there’s no longer any real need to worry about the size of your registry, but another thing to keep in mind is that registry cleaners were originally meant to help reduce the size of your registry. Now, how do you think they did that?

That’s right, they just deleted entries from the registry. And more or less, that’s all that registry “cleaners” do to this day – they aren’t really “cleaners” per se, they are “deleters.” And many of these programs don’t even give you the option to backup the entries they are about to delete – they just go ahead and delete them.

This is akin to trying to “clean up” your Windows installation by just going in and randomly deleting files from your Windows directory. Yeah, it’ll “clean it up” in the sense that it’ll take up less disk space – but more than likely you’ll also end up completely boning your Windows installation to the point where it doesn’t work anymore.

Regularly cleaning your Windows registry (which is something that many users of “registry cleaning” software say you have to do) of invalid/unused entries (say, file associations for programs that don’t exist anymore) isn’t going to make your computer any faster. The registry is already optimized for fast loading (that’s the whole reason there is a registry in the first place, instead of slow INI files), and a few extra entries aren’t going to slow anything down.

In fact, regularly cleaning your registry will end up “fragmenting” the files on disk that hold the registry data itself, and as time goes on, those “gaps” that were “cleaned” will be filled with new data, resulting in a registry that’s all out of order (at least on disk). This will actually slow down access to the registry (or, at least, slow down the initial paging of the registry into main memory).

Realistically, if your registry really does need to be “cleaned,” then you are going to have to do it by hand, because no “registry cleaner” program is going to be able to fix it auto-magically. It’s a bit like expecting a gasoline additive for your car to fix the dent in your bumper or your broken radio – it’s just not going to happen.

There’s another reason to be wary of so-called “registry cleaners” as well, and that’s the fact that if you search for a “registry cleaner” program, you are more likely to end up downloading spyware that’s just pretending to be a registry cleaner. Finding a registry cleaner that isn’t actually some sort of spyware/malware in disguise is, to put it simply, really hard, even for an expert.

The bottom line here is that registry “cleaners” actually have no benefit  at best, and at worst can actually slow down or even royally screw up your computer.

So if someone tells you that you need to “run a registry cleaner” or that you should “clean your registry regularly” or you’re about to download a program that claims to “clean” or “optimize” your registry… just say NO!

Colored blocks icon courtesy of the Crystal Icon Set.

Ah, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It’s hard to say anything about this series that hasn’t already been said elsewhere – this is a very well-known anime (and manga) series. It’s also rather… different… from most other series. To say that it’s “unique” would be putting it mildly!

The plot is simple on the surface (high school story) but complicated underneath (involving, of all things, time travelers, aliens, and “espers” – that is, people with ESP/psychic powers). Oh yeah, and also a girl named Haruhi Suzumiya who sometimes has bouts of melancholy – with unexpected results (to say the least).

Nevertheless, the animation is very well done and the voice acting is top-notch, so this is a series that is a pleasure to watch. This is a series that is equally likely to make you laugh, make you stop and think about the nature of life in the universe, or just make you squirm with embarrassment.

Unfortunately, the English version of this anime seems to be a bit… sporadic. Although the first season box set is available, I have yet to see anything from the 2nd season available in English thus far – and it’s been quite a while since both the 1st and even the 2nd season came out (in Japan, of course). So if you end up liking this series (as I did) you may find yourself in agony waiting for the next episode to come out on DVD.

Still, this is a lovely anime, and well worth watching – highly recommended for anyone who enjoys anime.

I had promised in the previous installment of Desktop Madness to post any further wallpapers in the same style as that last one – and sure enough, I found another one, this time featuring Tsuruya (and Kyon’s little sister)!

(As always, click on the image above to get the full-sized wallpaper image.)

As far as I can tell, that’s it for this “series.” I haven’t been able to find any more in this style beyond the ones I’ve already posted.

Today’s desktop madness features Haruhi herself – drawn, I believe, in the style of the manga, rather than the anime series. (As always, click the thumbnail below to get the full-sized wallpaper image.)

Apparently it turns out that there is a series of these wallpapers for various characters, and I seem to have some of them already posted: here’s one for Mikuru, and here’s one for Yuki.

In the spirit of “gotta collect them all,” I will keep my eyes open for any others in this series and post them here on Desktop Madness as I get them!

This is an anime for anyone who wants a break from the “usual” anime fare.

Azumanga Daioh is, in general, about a small group of high-school girls, telling the stories of their daily lives throughout high school. While that might sound a bit boring at first (and, arguably, it is) the beauty of this series is in its execution.

If this series was about “normal” girls, it would be pretty boring – thankfully, the characters in this series are anything but “normal.”

From Chio-chan the child genius to Osaka the… ummm… Osakan “idiot,” the cast of Azumanga Daioh is as colorful as the series itself.  Each character has their own unique quirks, and the combination of them all is likely to leave you in stitches from laughing so hard.

Some of the humor comes from over-the-top exaggeration, while other bits come from subtle non-sequiturs that may have you doing double-takes. From wacky dream sequences to a teacher who is a little too honest about why he became a high-school teacher, Azumanga Daioh is a series that is full of fun little stories that almost anyone can enjoy.

Because of the nature of the story (high school) the series is naturally limited – once the characters graduate high school, the story is basically over. So it’s not one of those super-long winded series that just goes on and on and on without any sort of end in sight. Another advantage of this shorter run (just 24 episodes) is that you can get the entire series in just 1 DVD box set (reasonably priced) and can even pick up the entire 4-volume manga set in one single large omnibus volume (although I recommend the individual books, since the omnibus version, by its very nature, shrinks the page art a little bit).

Overall, I highly recommend this series – as well as the manga on which it is based.