Free Registry Cleaner Software

I totally agree with ky331,

I've lost count of the posts I've read where people have used supposedly safe registry cleaners only to end up with an unusable system. Unless you know exactly what you're removing, I would steer clear, removing just one wrong entry can leave you with a very expensive ornament.

Take care.

while there is much heated debate on the subject of registry cleaners --- some swear by them, others swear at them --- i personally do not recommend the general public make "routine" use of registry cleaners.   you can find hundreds of "free" registry scanners (some of which purport to find "tons" of problems, only to then require you pay for the cleaning)... each one asserting it's "better" than competitors, because it can find more "problems".    the bottom line to me is this:

1) with the multi-gigahertz speed of modern processors, even if a registry cleaner were to find and "fix" hundreds (or even thousands) of so-called "obsolete" entries, you wouldn't even notice a nano-second's difference in your boot-up time [unless the entry is trying to access an empty floppy drive or something like that].  moreover,

2) a registry cleaner must be absolutely perfect in its algorithm/decisions:   removing even one "critical" registry key can render your pc totally unbootable.  

so is it really worth the risk (of killing your PC) when the reward (if successful) is essentially negligible??

again, that's my opinion, for what it's worth.

[Note:  emphasize here that i'm talking about "routine" registry cleaning, whose sole claim is to remove tons of entries in the hope of allegedly speeding up your system.   this must be contrasted from the rare, but occasional need, for "strategic" registry editing, when done under expert guidance [and when no automated alternative is readily available].

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if you don't want to accept my personal opinion, here's what the experts have to say (link courtesy of Joe53):

http://www.whatthetech.com/2007/11/25/do-i-need-a-registry-cleaner/

If you mess up in the registry to a point where you can't fix it, then you will have to reinstall windows from scratch or be lucky enough to have the Symantec Restore Utility still intact to go back to the date the system was shipped.

I use the one below to clean out some garbage that you might want to try out.  Never failed me yet.

Control Cookies and such ( CCleaner )

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

What it does below, and no, it has not messed up my system for over a year of having it.  No guarantees however.  Make a restore point prior to installing it.  Your system comes with a Symantec Restor Utility unless you lost the partition and that will take you back to the date the system was shipped to you if you ever need to do this, but you will loose all that you installed after the system arrived. 

Hope you back up everything you want to keep such as pictures, music, programs, email, etc just to be on the safe side.

Your computer will not be a paper weight if things ever go bad with the Registry.  You will however, have to reinstall windows if something majore goes wrong.

• Internet Explorer Cache, History, Cookies, Index.dat.
• Recycle Bin, Temporary files and Log files.
• Recently opened URLs and files.
• Third-party application temp files and recent file lists (MRUs).
  Including: Firefox, Opera, Media Player, eMule, Kazaa, Google Toolbar, Netscape, Office XP, Nero, Adobe Acrobat, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and more...
• Advanced Registry scanner and cleaner to remove unused and old entries.
  Including File Extensions, ActiveX Controls, ClassIDs, ProgIDs, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files, Application Paths, Icons, Invalid Shortcuts and more... Backup for registry clean.
• Windows Startup tool.

So this CCleaner, will it fix the registry or delete things and potentially ruin my PC?

I hope this problem is not the cause of CCleaner

http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=vista&thread.id=62094