I’m not sure if you completely understood what was being said. The programs mentioned above are not what is being deemed as “useless.” They are specifically referring to the “Registry Cleaning” aspects of said software. Many of the other tools that they come with can be incredibly handy & beneficial. Especially a solid system cleaner (such as CCleaner – just stay away from the Registry Cleaner portion).

For optimal system performance, just make sure that you only install programs that you need. Never keep junk and/or bloatware lying around. Under our Windows Customization settings, make sure you have it “set to best performance” and stay away from all of the “eye candy” settings & features, as these can knock a pretty big chunk out of your performance rating. Run “msconfig” and check your ‘Startup’ tab. Make sure you uncheck any & everything except the items that you absolutely MUST need to run immediately as your PC boots up. Keep a top-tier Anti-Virus (Avast, BitDefender, etc) and a top-tier Malware Fighter (Malwarebytes, Emsisoft, etc) around to make sure your system stays disinfected. Aside from that, there isn’t much else you can do – as, unfortunately, there are no top-secret programs or tweaks that can make a slow machine turn into a fast one. Your optimal speeds are both determined and limited by your specific hardware. If you want to get fancy and squeeze every last drop out of your system, search google for “Services to stop to increase performance.” Just be sure to pay close attention to what you will be turning off, as fiddling with the wrong services can quickly put an end to your fun…. as well as your entire operating system. In other words, only turn off the services that: 1) You have seen on a list of services that are known to be safe to turn off & disable, and 2) You know you do not and will not need in the future. With that being said – disabling some of the benign + resource heavy services can most definitely improve your system’s performance.

That’s all I can think of for now. If I come up with anything else I feel would help you, I’ll be sure to come back and update this thread. I hope I was able to provide you with some helpful information. Have a wonderful day, Lisa.

So, if they are useless, what is available in 2016 to speed up this mess? Can you recommend an alternative? I’m not a big fan of a cleaner unless you have a virus, you can manually scrub, you know where it’s hiding, and have no other choice. My computer is slow as molasses however, and short of buying a new one, I’d like to know what I can do. Thanks for any shared advice :-) -Lisa