9 ms·

Windows Repair Toolbox

41 points by sacrosanct 3y ago

robertheadley 3y ago
Great tool. Good reminder I should update the apps on it.
femboy 3y ago
Ccleaner is that any good?
- smusamashah 3y ago
  CCleaner on Android is adware like other junk apps that claim to do the similar. Wouldn't trust it now.
- lumpysleep89 3y ago
  Ccleaner hasn't deserved trust for several years. It started bundling Avast and now runs Ads.
- briHass 3y ago
  It was always junk. 'Cleaning' the registry, which has always been snake oil at best and potentially break Windows at worst. Even Microsoft doesn't recommend registry cleaners. The only disk cleaning tools you need are provided in Windows by default.
  - johnnyworker 3y ago
    10+ years ago it was okay. Today, not so much. And while the registry "cleaning" might never have been "useful", I did use it on a "why not" basis and didn't have an issue, ever. Also noticed no positive effects. But either way, the Microsoft that makes random hardware demands for Windows 11 to turn computers into landfill isn't what I would take recommendations from. Or much anyone else, either. Just by using Revo Uninstaller I am just constantly amazed at how much stuff software leaves around in the registry and on disk. I recently uninstalled Keybase because I wasn't really using it but noticed it had accumulated 200MB of log files (for nothing, for running in the background basically), and after uninstalling it, RU found an additional 400+ MB of leftover files. And that just rubs me the wrong way, and even if it doesn't measurably slow down the use of the system, just having all sorts of orphaned and 100% useless data checked for changes every time a backup runs is reason enough for me to get rid of it. FWIW, my system doesn't seem to get slower over time, and I do attribute that to caring too much about and fiddling with things I'm not supposed to care about. I don't recommend it to others -- if you know enough and care enough to do it, you're doing it already -- but you can pry that from my cold, dead hands.
    - zamadatix 3y ago
      Systems don't really get slower over time because of used disk space. It used to be somewhat true when HDDs, and bad ones at that, were more common. Nowadays though what's left on your 2 TB <$70 2 GB/s SSD storage matters little so long as your drive isn't near completely out of space to the point it can't place things easily. Background apps/injections are another thing though. You can never uninstall an app for 10 years and your computer will be none the slower for it as long as you disable them from automatically starting up, loading 5 background services all the time, and having poorly written hooks into things like Explorer which constantly get loaded every time you open a file dialog. Tinkering for tinkering's sake can definitely be fun though and there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes poking at things, and sometimes breaking them, is a great way to learn new things or even just scratch a casual itch.
      - johnnyworker 3y ago
        Yeah I kinda conflated two things there. One thing is that do I do poke at things a lot, I regularly run Sysinternals autoruns just out of curiosity -- which also "can potentially break windows" (what can't?), poke around in Process Explorer or even run Process Monitor occasionally to just filter out everything for which I know the reason, to see what else is going on. I remove stuff from context menus I don't want there, you name it. All those little things do add up, even if it just reduces the number of things I have to scroll past when doing other things. But I admit that I mostly enjoy doing it. But while SSD changed everything obviously, in addition to daily partition-based backups I also make manual backups to my NAS with FreeFileSync, just so I don't have to restore full disks when I only want to pull a few files from the backup. While FFS is crazy fast checking for changed files, all those orphaned files are still not free... it's not about the size so much as about the number of files, doubly so when it goes over the network. I also rather often search my whole system for stuff, and there too, files and directories that don't exist are the quickest to search. I wouldn't want to keep them around in the same way I wouldn't want to run a script that puts 100k tiny files with random content all over the place. Because it's just a pointless waste. And since I enjoy the process, I don't count the time I am using on that, so in my mind, I'm being frugal in a weird, misguided sort of way... I know I could spend the time to make more money and then just buy another HD, but I don't wanna :P
- Saris 3y ago
  Nope, good news is windows has a built in disk cleanup tool, that's all you need.
  - Wistar 3y ago
    Microsoft’s new PC Manager tool seems to work well. I am actively using it on three Win 10 machines and haven’t had anything explode … yet. https://pcmanager-en.microsoft.com/ https://pcmanager-en.microsoft.com/
    - Saris 3y ago
      Hm. Looks like it's just giving you quick access to tools that already exist in windows.
- johnnyworker 3y ago
  No, but BleachBit is: https://www.bleachbit.org/ https://www.bleachbit.org/ Especially when you make your own cleaners [0][1], which you can also can selectively invoke via the command line (and of course do that via schedule / cron etc.) [0] https://docs.bleachbit.org/cml/cleanerml.html https://docs.bleachbit.org/cml/cleanerml.html [1] https://github.com/bleachbit/cleanerml/tree/master https://github.com/bleachbit/cleanerml/tree/master
NickInSF 3y ago
Is there anything to indicate this is a trustworthy application? This is a closed-source binary, which has carte blanche access once you click "Yes" on the UAC prompt.
- Tozen 3y ago
  Such a tool not being open source and from unknown parties, says a lot by itself.
  - veave 3y ago
    What does it say exactly? Is it not possible to release closed source freeware anymore without being scrutinised for no reason?
    - LorenDB 3y ago
      Basically, yes. I think we've all come to expect freeware to also be free (libre) software. I certainly am in favor of free software as well, but I think that we assume at this point that if you aren't making money from it and you aren't releasing the code, you have something to hide. However, the interesting thing is that back in the day, shareware was often closed source unless you paid to register it, in which case you got access to the code (depending on the publisher, obviously).
      - guestbest 3y ago
        I don’t recall any shareware back then having open source access to the dos,windows programs just floppy disk shared binaries. The reality was before the always on internet and broadband speeds, malware was very rare, but viruses were ubiquitous on shared floppies but more of nuisance. Floppies with shareware by named distributors we’re unlikely to have virus unlike online boards or floppies handed around student to student back in the day.
        LorenDB 3y ago
johnvanommen 3y ago
My favorite "Windows Repair Toolbox" is reinstalling Windows
- Wistar 3y ago
  I used to “burn it down and reinstall” without much worry but, sometime in the Win 8 to Win 10 transition era, I became very hesitant to doing it. Not sure why.
  - conception 3y ago
    You had more free time/valued your time less. It’s what? A day or more to get things back “rightish”?
    - Wistar 3y ago
      That may be it.
  - sixothree 3y ago
    Windows 8+ seems to last a lot longer between termite infestations make the place unstable.
  - johnvanommen 3y ago
    Ironically, Windows 10 and 11 easily have the smoothest install of any version of Windows ever. I'm in the same camp as you are, I don't reinstall as much now as I did 20 years ago. But a lot of that is because Windows had a habit of getting really bogged down, in 2003, but these days it's pretty solid. It's still a mystery to me why every other version of Windows is terrible. "Good Windows:" Windows 3.11, Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 10 "Bad Windows:" Windows 95, Windows ME, Windows Vista, Windows 8, Windows 11 I'm ready to rollback to Windows 10, Windows 11 just features dumb "features", like a new context menu that includes Skype but doesn't include "copy" or "paste" WHY WOULD I WANT SKYPE IN MY CONTEXT MENU??
    - rootw0rm 3y ago
_8j50 3y ago
Don't use this, it has a lot of riskware as part of the toolset. Win10/11 has ok-ish backup/restore with a nice UI. Better to use that than shove all this mess in there. FYI: if you insist, use MRT not any of these risky security softwares. But if you insist, malwarebytes is the only one i would ever get near. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=9905 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=990...
xmly 3y ago
Thought it is actual house windows repairing, which might be quite useful...

41 points by sacrosanct 3y ago

robertheadley 3y ago

Great tool. Good reminder I should update the apps on it.

femboy 3y ago

Ccleaner is that any good?

smusamashah 3y ago
CCleaner on Android is adware like other junk apps that claim to do the similar. Wouldn't trust it now.
lumpysleep89 3y ago
Ccleaner hasn't deserved trust for several years. It started bundling Avast and now runs Ads.
briHass 3y ago
It was always junk. 'Cleaning' the registry, which has always been snake oil at best and potentially break Windows at worst. Even Microsoft doesn't recommend registry cleaners. The only disk cleaning tools you need are provided in Windows by default.
- johnnyworker 3y ago
  10+ years ago it was okay. Today, not so much. And while the registry "cleaning" might never have been "useful", I did use it on a "why not" basis and didn't have an issue, ever. Also noticed no positive effects. But either way, the Microsoft that makes random hardware demands for Windows 11 to turn computers into landfill isn't what I would take recommendations from. Or much anyone else, either. Just by using Revo Uninstaller I am just constantly amazed at how much stuff software leaves around in the registry and on disk. I recently uninstalled Keybase because I wasn't really using it but noticed it had accumulated 200MB of log files (for nothing, for running in the background basically), and after uninstalling it, RU found an additional 400+ MB of leftover files. And that just rubs me the wrong way, and even if it doesn't measurably slow down the use of the system, just having all sorts of orphaned and 100% useless data checked for changes every time a backup runs is reason enough for me to get rid of it. FWIW, my system doesn't seem to get slower over time, and I do attribute that to caring too much about and fiddling with things I'm not supposed to care about. I don't recommend it to others -- if you know enough and care enough to do it, you're doing it already -- but you can pry that from my cold, dead hands.
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    Systems don't really get slower over time because of used disk space. It used to be somewhat true when HDDs, and bad ones at that, were more common. Nowadays though what's left on your 2 TB <$70 2 GB/s SSD storage matters little so long as your drive isn't near completely out of space to the point it can't place things easily. Background apps/injections are another thing though. You can never uninstall an app for 10 years and your computer will be none the slower for it as long as you disable them from automatically starting up, loading 5 background services all the time, and having poorly written hooks into things like Explorer which constantly get loaded every time you open a file dialog. Tinkering for tinkering's sake can definitely be fun though and there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes poking at things, and sometimes breaking them, is a great way to learn new things or even just scratch a casual itch.
    - johnnyworker 3y ago
      Yeah I kinda conflated two things there. One thing is that do I do poke at things a lot, I regularly run Sysinternals autoruns just out of curiosity -- which also "can potentially break windows" (what can't?), poke around in Process Explorer or even run Process Monitor occasionally to just filter out everything for which I know the reason, to see what else is going on. I remove stuff from context menus I don't want there, you name it. All those little things do add up, even if it just reduces the number of things I have to scroll past when doing other things. But I admit that I mostly enjoy doing it. But while SSD changed everything obviously, in addition to daily partition-based backups I also make manual backups to my NAS with FreeFileSync, just so I don't have to restore full disks when I only want to pull a few files from the backup. While FFS is crazy fast checking for changed files, all those orphaned files are still not free... it's not about the size so much as about the number of files, doubly so when it goes over the network. I also rather often search my whole system for stuff, and there too, files and directories that don't exist are the quickest to search. I wouldn't want to keep them around in the same way I wouldn't want to run a script that puts 100k tiny files with random content all over the place. Because it's just a pointless waste. And since I enjoy the process, I don't count the time I am using on that, so in my mind, I'm being frugal in a weird, misguided sort of way... I know I could spend the time to make more money and then just buy another HD, but I don't wanna :P
Saris 3y ago
Nope, good news is windows has a built in disk cleanup tool, that's all you need.
- Wistar 3y ago
  Microsoft’s new PC Manager tool seems to work well. I am actively using it on three Win 10 machines and haven’t had anything explode … yet. https://pcmanager-en.microsoft.com/ https://pcmanager-en.microsoft.com/
  - Saris 3y ago
    Hm. Looks like it's just giving you quick access to tools that already exist in windows.
johnnyworker 3y ago
No, but BleachBit is: https://www.bleachbit.org/ https://www.bleachbit.org/ Especially when you make your own cleaners [0][1], which you can also can selectively invoke via the command line (and of course do that via schedule / cron etc.) [0] https://docs.bleachbit.org/cml/cleanerml.html https://docs.bleachbit.org/cml/cleanerml.html [1] https://github.com/bleachbit/cleanerml/tree/master https://github.com/bleachbit/cleanerml/tree/master

NickInSF 3y ago

Is there anything to indicate this is a trustworthy application? This is a closed-source binary, which has carte blanche access once you click "Yes" on the UAC prompt.

Tozen 3y ago
Such a tool not being open source and from unknown parties, says a lot by itself.
- veave 3y ago
  What does it say exactly? Is it not possible to release closed source freeware anymore without being scrutinised for no reason?
  - LorenDB 3y ago
    Basically, yes. I think we've all come to expect freeware to also be free (libre) software. I certainly am in favor of free software as well, but I think that we assume at this point that if you aren't making money from it and you aren't releasing the code, you have something to hide. However, the interesting thing is that back in the day, shareware was often closed source unless you paid to register it, in which case you got access to the code (depending on the publisher, obviously).
    - guestbest 3y ago
      I don’t recall any shareware back then having open source access to the dos,windows programs just floppy disk shared binaries. The reality was before the always on internet and broadband speeds, malware was very rare, but viruses were ubiquitous on shared floppies but more of nuisance. Floppies with shareware by named distributors we’re unlikely to have virus unlike online boards or floppies handed around student to student back in the day.
      - LorenDB 3y ago

johnvanommen 3y ago

My favorite "Windows Repair Toolbox" is reinstalling Windows

Wistar 3y ago
I used to “burn it down and reinstall” without much worry but, sometime in the Win 8 to Win 10 transition era, I became very hesitant to doing it. Not sure why.
- conception 3y ago
  You had more free time/valued your time less. It’s what? A day or more to get things back “rightish”?
  - Wistar 3y ago
    That may be it.
- sixothree 3y ago
  Windows 8+ seems to last a lot longer between termite infestations make the place unstable.
- johnvanommen 3y ago
  Ironically, Windows 10 and 11 easily have the smoothest install of any version of Windows ever. I'm in the same camp as you are, I don't reinstall as much now as I did 20 years ago. But a lot of that is because Windows had a habit of getting really bogged down, in 2003, but these days it's pretty solid. It's still a mystery to me why every other version of Windows is terrible. "Good Windows:" Windows 3.11, Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 10 "Bad Windows:" Windows 95, Windows ME, Windows Vista, Windows 8, Windows 11 I'm ready to rollback to Windows 10, Windows 11 just features dumb "features", like a new context menu that includes Skype but doesn't include "copy" or "paste" WHY WOULD I WANT SKYPE IN MY CONTEXT MENU??
  - rootw0rm 3y ago

_8j50 3y ago

Don't use this, it has a lot of riskware as part of the toolset. Win10/11 has ok-ish backup/restore with a nice UI. Better to use that than shove all this mess in there. FYI: if you insist, use MRT not any of these risky security softwares. But if you insist, malwarebytes is the only one i would ever get near. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=9905 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=990...

xmly 3y ago

Thought it is actual house windows repairing, which might be quite useful...