Free registry cleaner

[Eireann]

Is there such a thing as a registry cleaner that actually cleans up all the errors, without making you buy it once you've already downloaded it?

[Hawaiian Eskimo]

Registry cleaners really shouldn't be used, they have more potential to do harm than good.

CCleaner has a pretty decent one included with it though, if you still want to use one.

[tropicsgoddess]

CCleaner is free, what's good (for some builds of windows) is ComboFix..that's free and you can get it at majorgeeks.com.

[Jack]

I work in tech support. I'm always open to the possibility that I've simply missed this for several years, but I've never heard of mass "registry errors" that need detecting and fixing by special programs. If nothing is going wrong in the normal operation of the computer, there's nothing to fix. If something is going wrong, it's a specific problem with a specific resolution that does not involve "fixing" several hundred "registry errors". I've not seen one PC running RegCure or the like that hasn't been unstable and irritating to work with. I'm also fairly sure that large registry hives and defunct registry entries don't affect performance significantly, if at all.

[Fire_on_High]

I've used CCleaner to finish killing off old uninstalled drivers (references to things I haven't owned in 5+ years, yikes!) and neatly unmangle some issues with file types before. I'm not a huge fan of just going thru and mass cleaning the registry for no good reason, but if you need specific things cleaned up and know what to approve and what to uncheck, it's very handy.

[Der Cute]

Jack,

I'm sorry to disagree with you.
I've also been in tech support (still am).

Registry cleaners are a needed item, because of the installs/uninstalls leaving small registry keys behind. The leftover keys, depending on location, can cause slowdown in opening items.
Example: You install a media player. The media player then absorbs all media file extentions to be the main opener. You then decide to uninstall it. By bad programming/coding/defect, the key of file association .mp3 is still tied to UninstalledProggy.

If you try to open an .mp3, it will search for UninstalledProggy. And bang it's head against a wall, until finding a secondary program and starting up.

If you ran a registry cleaner AFTER the uninstall, it would remove that key.

For enterprise computers, it's not ALWAYS needed - because users there don't have the priv to install/uninstall. But it can be used - when a pc is handed over to new worker, and you have to uninstall a few things and install others.

Cutenoob

[Jack]

That's a perfectly reasonable example, but doesn't seem like an efficient solution. Considering that I've seen and heard of more damage caused by various reg cleaners than improvement, I'd rather merge a .reg to restore the file association (or reset it through the GUI, whichever). No experience with CCleaner here, personally, not approved at my co.

[plan9au]

Ive been and am again a Techie, and my usb is always equiped with a good reg cleaner (cc cleaner)...i find it useful to run after an uninstall to remove any left over reg keys that might interfere with the smooth runing of the PC, although most may agree that, that might be overkill. As suggested i would download CC Cleaner from pcworld.com.