Fix My Registry

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET Staff on November 07, 2008

While nothing may shake down your system like a good defrag, an occasional Registry checkup wont hurt if you're cautious. This utility cleans up your Registry, but it doesn't give the user much control over the process.

Fix My Registry has a small, nicely designed interface with three buttons Fix, Undo, and Close and a list of the items it tweaks: File associations; Com/ActiveX entries; Startup program list; Uninstall entries; and Temporary registry values. Unfortunately, this utility doesn't first scan and provide a preview of what it proposes to fix it simply went to work when we clicked Fix. It worked rapidly in our tests, but it didn't provide any graphic display of its progress. While we liked that it listed what it repaired, we were disappointed that the utility didn't include a means of saving the repairs as a log we could later review or simply save as a record.

While this free utility has no limits and worked quickly in our tests, we wish it offered a few more features to ease our concerns about monkeying with the Registry. Uninhibited Registry tweaking can create some real system problems, and adding a feature that provides a list of proposed changes before jumping in and making repairs would go a long way toward reducing user fears.