Best registry cleaner?

March 22, 2005 9:08 AM

What's the best registry cleaner for windows?

There seem to be a lot of them, and it's a bit bewildering. Ideally, it would be (a) pretty thorough but (b) still reasonably safe and accessible for someone who doesn't know anything about the inner workings of the registry (though I realize those two criteria may be somewhat at odds).

posted by BigPicnic to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

This was recommended to me recently in Meta but I haven't tried it yet.
posted by peacay at 10:17 AM on March 22, 2005

I recommend Ace Utilities. I used to use System Mechanic but it once messed up my system so badly that I needed to reinstall the OS. Ace has never screwed anything up and seems to do the job well.
posted by gfrobe at 10:50 AM on March 22, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks
posted by BigPicnic at 11:03 AM on March 22, 2005

I think RegCleaner is the best free utility out there. But it's not updated any more, so if you're willing to spend money pick something else.
posted by Anonymous at 11:13 AM on March 22, 2005

Best answer: Ccleaner is not half bad. Although it focuses on overall performance, it will deal with the registry as follows (quoting):

Unused and old entries (includes backup).
Including File Extensions, ActiveX Controls, ClassIDs, ProgIDs, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files, Application Paths, Icons, Invalid Shortcuts and more...

And the price is right :-) It's freeware and devoid of spy/mal/etc ware.
posted by nj_subgenius at 2:36 PM on March 22, 2005