PC Matic

PC Matic Removes Registry Cleaning Tool From Default Programming

Registry Cleaning Tool Removed From PC Matic Default

Effective immediately, PC Matic will be removing the registry cleaning from the default version of its security software.  The option will remain within PC Matic; however, in order to use it, subscribers will need to enable the feature.  Step-by-step instructions on how to do so, are provided at the end of this article.

It is still encouraged users clean their registries for the following reasons:

  • The registry holds details about every piece of your computer.
  • Things are added to the registry daily.  Unfortunately outdated things are rarely, if ever removed.  That is unless the user does it themselves.
  • It’s good PC maintenance.

Why Remove It?

PC Matic CEO, Rob Cheng, states,

“PC Pitstop’s first product was Optimize and it included many Windows optimization features, including registry optimization.  It is these features that were wrapped into PC Matic, which over a decade later performs maintenance on millions of computers.

There is a lingering question in the software industry.  How important is registry cleaning?  I have personally fixed hundreds of computers using PC Matic.  In certain instances the computer behaved remarkably better, and the only thing I could attribute the improvement to was registry cleaning.    Since Optimize was introduced in 2004, our products have cleaned tens of billions of registry entries and keys.  My view has always been that there is some marginal, though at times unquantifiable benefit, to registry cleaning and best we can tell there is no downside to the customer.

Recently, Bleeping Computer when analyzing the quality of our security also included a concern about our continued use of registry cleaning.  Part of the Malwarebytes’ justification for PC Matic’s PUA categorization was registry cleaning.  For these reasons, we have decided to remove default registry cleaning in PC Matic and PC Matic Pro.  The reason is that registry cleaning is distracting our message of superior security made in America.  From our humble roots of a simple registry cleaner, we have evolved into an industry leading security solution.”

Impact on Current Customers

For current customers, any scans moving forward will not have the registry cleaning feature implemented.  If you would like your registry to be cleaned, you will need to enable the tool.  To do so, you will need to open PC Matic, and click on “Master Scheduler” as shown below.

If you’re using your PC Matic license for multiple PCs, you will want to select which you’d like to enable this feature for.  Or you may “Select All” on the top right.  Then click “Schedule” on the bottom right of the screen.

The registry clean option defaults to “Off”.  To turn it on, you will need to click on the drop down arrow by “Clean Registry”.  By turning the feature on you will have the registry cleaning feature enabled again.

If you do not see the “Clean Registry” option, you will need to close PC Matic and open Internet Explorer (IE).  Once IE is open, clear your cache.  You can do so by pushing Ctrl+Shift+Delete.  Once this is done, open PC Matic and follow the instructions above.  Now when you access the screen below, you should see the registry cleaning option.

Be sure to click “Save” to ensure any edits made are saved for future scans.

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