14 DAY TRIAL // A clean registry does not guarantee a snappier system, but it will contribute to better performance, even if in some cases in too small a percentage for the user to notice. The services offered by RegistryBooster 2011 are easily revealed by its name, but besides eliminating registry junk the application can also defragment the area for even quicker access to the data.
The cost of the application is $29.95 and during the evaluation period you will be able to partially test it, as the limitations imposed to this edition allow you to fix only 15 of the detected issues. Also, the built-in registry defragmenter is available only for paying customers.
If you have dealt with other Uniblue products before, the looks of RegistryBooster should be familiar as the frame of the interface is similar to SpeedUpMyPC and DriveScanner.
The four sections the application window is split into provide details on the current state of the computer and the program, let you evaluate the status of the registry and clean it of junk entries or restore the registry to a previous state. Configuration panel in RegistryBooster’s lets you select the working language, or customize the action of the “close” and “minimize” buttons.
Scanning the system is not a long lasting process and covers three distinct categories: system-related errors, user related errors and issues affecting third party installations on the PC. You can choose which of these should be included in the verification procedure.
Once the scan completes the app presents a damage level for each of the registry sections it assessed. The three-level scale shows the performance loss degree the errors cause to the system. “Registry Scan” menu is the richest are in the program as it stores not only the scan results, but also gives access to the ignore list, logs of previous registry cleaning sessions and the defragmentation feature.
RegistryBooster 2011 can show all the details about the errors it found on the system, such as their type, registry key and related path. It is recommended for you to view all the entries before deleting them as the application might come up with a false positive and disrupt the well running of your system.
If this happens the handiest choice is to appeal to “Restore” menu and revert the configuration of the registry to the previous state. Reviewing the results might reveal the mistake and you can add the entry to an ignore list, so that future scans avoids said registry key.
During our tests the set of errors uncovered by RegistryBooster 2011 was huge, 350 to be more exact. We could not find any false positives and many of the entries we verified turned out to be stored in the registry with absolutely no purpose. These were either left-overs from previous software installations or invalid paths to files that no longer existed.
However, we recommend using an additional registry cleaner for better job as Uniblue’s product left behind obsolete keys and entries for unused file extensions. These are not affecting the performance of the system, but nor are they beneficial.
We encountered some problems with the detailed view as the error type description switched its position to the right part of the screen, making the reading a bit confusing.
Given that the registry is an extremely sensitive area in Windows, the application performs a partial backup before making any change. It will store all the entries sentenced to deletion so that you can recover them in case something goes wrong. Each backup is available in the “Restore” section, accompanied by date and time it was create, for better identification.
Built-in registry defragmentation feature aims at further improving the performance of your computer. Unfortunately there is no assessment of the current state as available even in free software providing the same registry defragmentation services.
Our test results were not too encouraging as far as making registry data contiguous. We recorded a 5% registry fragmentation. After running RegistryBooster 2011’s defragger we saw some improvement as the value shrunk to 3%. However, checking again after restarting the computer (required action to complete the defragmentation) the number went up to 4%, making the improvement less significant.
Configuration options in the application allow you to enable RegistryBooster to start with Windows and also launch a registry scan as well as set up the frequency of the scans. Additional settings include setting up the behavior of “close” and “minimize” buttons.
You are given access to the logs of every registry repair the program performs. Support for creating an ignore list allows you to avoid the inclusion of false positives during the scans. Defragmentation procedure did not reduce the size of the registry by much. Also, you are not given an assessment of the state of Windows Registry so that you can witness the improvement. The backup it makes before modifying the registry is the compulsory safety net all such programs should feature and it comes in handy when you are not content with the cleaning results. Although the performance boost it generates in the system is not noticeable, it does help with faster access of the registry zone.
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