It's been suggested to me to use a PC registry cleaner regularly on my computer. Search engine links seem to point me to all kinds of supposed "unbiased reviews" that seem to imply there's only one good cleaner and the rest are garbage.

 

Any recommendations?

CCleaner is free and excellent.

Another satisfied CCleaner user here. Been using it since it was called CrapCleaner. They dropped rap when it was taken over by another company.

CCleaner is free and excellent.

+1

 

 Just make sure when it ask you to backup your registry you say YES.  And read each entry to make sure it doesn't want to remove any FSX entires by mistake. I had some RXP entires for some reason it wanted to remove, but I unclicked those and everything works great. G

Tuneup utilities... very good

Serge

I would avoid them unless you absolutely know what they are doing to your registry.  It is true that the registry does get big and messy over time and many products don't uninstall correctly leaving many entries in the registry that should be cleaned up.  

 

Some freeware registry cleaners are actually root kit viruses, so be very careful and make sure you scan with whatever anti-virus software you have.

 

Unless you are running an older OS, the registry has no size limit.

 

The actual registry files are located here: C:\Windows\System32\config

COMPONENTS

DEFAULT

SAM

SECURITY

SOFTWARE

SYSTEM

 

Individual user profiles here: C:\Users\Rob

NTUSER.DAT

 

I've got 3 versions of Visual Studio installed, 2 Version of SQL Server Installed, Office, and many many many other products over the past few years and I've not need to cleanup my registry.

 

The only time I've gone into the registry for cleanup is when I've needed to manually clean out something that I know I've removed and it's left a footprint behind preventing re-install or causing issues during a re-install (and yes that includes P3D V2.x).

 

If you must go with a registry cleaner, I'd recommend you use one that doesn't automatically keep scanning your registry and one that does NOT work during startup and one that allows you to select the items you want to remove on a case by case basis.

 

Cheers, Rob.

I've been using CCleaner for years and never opt for a backup. It's never let me down. It does err on the side of safety and for that reason I would recommend it 100%.

 

Just don't select any options that are deselected by default. Those are there to protect you.

Like Ray, I too use CCleaner and have been doing so for years too, but have since found a better one from Wise Registry Cleaner, and it's freeware too. Cuts the mustard for me.

Thanks, everyone, for your input!

I now use something far better than CCleaner. It's called Wise Registry Cleaner, and it's freeware. CCleaner does not have a defrag the Registry option, this does. Was recommended by Computer Active.

Will look into both of these