[RobAlex]

It does take some care. I used to use SystemSuite and after using their registry cleaner, some of my program, especially Office, had to be reinstalled before they would work again. Registry Booster 2 has done pretty well for me, allowing my computer to boot after it refused to do so. (I'd get into safe mode, run Registry Booster and then boot normally.)

[coastie65]

I use the registry thing in CCleaner from time to time, but you have to go through it and see what it has pulled up and not just indiscrimanately go with it. You could end up in trouble if you do.

[geo14618]

I should have said don't mess with the registery unless you know what you are doing. I build computers and I am very used to poking around the registery.

Registery Mechanic is a good program and it backs up the registery before it makes any changes. Remember there is no program that is perfect and probably never will be.

George

[Burrhead]

The best registry cleaner I have ever found and I have expierence back to before Windows ver. 1 is Ubuntu. Do a complete whole disk partition, format, and install and you are done with registry cleaning forever. You knew there would have to be one didn't you.

[number6]

Burrhead,

That's a lot of extra trouble don't you think?

[Burrhead]

Not when you can stop all hassles with the registry and the changes that occur there without your permission for often strange and mysterious reasons forever and it only takes about 2 hours if you have a slow computer.

[dizzydale]

Some of these programs do not work with 64 bit Vista or XP. I use to use PC Tools Registry Mechanic with the 32 bit XP, and loved it. But since, I moved to Vista X64 over a year ago, I had to change to CCleaner, which has done and excellent job for me both on my 32bit XP machines and my 64bit Vista machine.
I also, use Easycleaner on My 32bit XP machines, and it works well also. I am waiting to see if PC TOOLS will ever upgrade Registry Mechanic to work with the 64 bit version of windows.
It would be nice if articles which talk about software, would mention whether or not the work with the 64bit versions of windows, or only the 32bit versions.

[DOUGLAS666]

dlauber,

I have RegistryBooster2 as well. How often can I run the program and the reg defrag without causing any problems? Is once a month too often? Thanks for your time.

[samirgood]

I have recently installed 'Auslogic Registry Defrag '. I have also 'Ccleaner' and 'Advanced Windows Care'.

I found that Last two cleaners are good.

The first one I have installed recenly and it is not a cleaner but a defragmentor. I need some time to decide

on the quality of the product. But my initial 'run' has been satisfactory. However, it slows down P C. a lot

initially. This aspect should be borene in mind while using the product .

[trwkid]

CCleaner works great. But in all honesty guys cleaning up yuour registry rarely makes a performance difference in how your PC runs. Many of the errors those programs remove aren't really errors at all.

[bobengel]

I see no mention of Registry First Aid which is now in a new beta release. See http://www.rosecitys...e.com/reg1aid/.

[Buddha3]

CCleaner is extremely safe, but I feel not that thorough.

I use Eusing Free Registry Cleaner which is a little better and also EasyCleaner 2.0 which is really good, but it half-freezes when you use it for unnecessary file deletion. Both Eusing and Easy Cleaner create backups automatically.

Glary Utilities has a new version (2.8), but I haven't tried it since the old version reg clean got me in trouble. But it is super fast on unecessary files.

[coastie65]

Yeah, those reg. cleaners can cause real problems if you are not careful. I usually tell people if you don't know what you are looking at, then don't do anything in the registry for that reason. coastie65

[Jcstewsr]

Even with four registry cleaners, if you manually check the registry, after an uninstall you will find that remnants still exist throughout the registry.

After all is said and done, you can't get rid of every erroneous entry unless you know what you are doing.

[Geoff1924]

I have been using Toni Helenius' Easy Cleaner for seven or eight years. He was in high school in Finland when he first developed it. The only time I had a problem was when i used it on a friend's machine immediately after takeing some entries out of his startup file. It turned out that these entries were needed to make his video display work properly, and i had quite a time finding out how to get them back.

The moral is not to make morethan one change at a time.

[noname]

I used registry mechanic and it messed up my PC, could not get rid of the program even though I uninstalled it from ADD/REMOVE, it was a nightmare for me.

Had to do a full system restore to get rid of it, but perhaps that was just my bad luck.