Wendell & Logan - Registry Optimizers & Meeting People

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Hey guys,

My first question is mostly for Wendell, about Registry Optimizer programs such as Advanced System Care by IObit. Most of these programs advertise that they can help with the symptoms of "WinRot" and help keep your computer running quickly over time. I've heard a lot of great things about these types of programs, but I've also heard a lot of negative things.

What exactly are these programs doing when "optimizing" your computer/registry/internet? Do they cause more harm than good? I know quite a few of them are designed to spit out that you have tens-of-thousands of errors, which can only be fixed by paying a subscription fee. But lets assume a full version of the software.

Advanced System Care

My second question is for Logan. I recently accepted a job as a Software Engineer and I am going to be travelling around the U.S. working at different client locations for anywhere from a few months to a few years. When moving to a new place where you know nobody, what is a good strategy for finding like-minded people/gamers/hardware enthusiasts? Are there any websites dedicated to this that you might recommend?

Thanks a lot, keep up the great work!

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The "winrot" stuff is really interesting, though I don't believe in most "optimizer" programs. ProcessExplorer is a cool program for troubleshooting some of the more bizzare programs. I don't know why, since the registry is db like, it can't be transactional. I would like to atomically audit what programs are doing, and store it in a database. I don't know why "audit" and "cleanup" programs worth their salt don't do this.

Check this out: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/WCA-B306#fbid= Mark Russinovich is *the* windows internals guru. His techniques for troubleshooting and understanding windows are top notch. Do that and you can diagnose 50% of the "winrot" pretty easily. The other 50% are Bad Things that Bad Programs do to your machine (I'm looking at you, ubisosft, sony, EA and others). 

Where are you? There are probably folks on the site you can be friends with locally. I'm not much of a people person.