free registry cleaner

does windows have any free registry cleaning software

The Windows registry does not need cleaning. Programs that claim to do so are snake oil. They excel in reporting numerous registry "errors" that are in fact totally irrelevant. When you let them do whatever they want to do then if you're lucky you won't notice any difference. If you're unlucky then your machine will develop serious problems.

Leave the registry alone. It can take care of itself.

Hi,

I would advise against the use registry cleaning software.

You'll hear how Guy 1 has used for example CCleaner's registry cleaner for the 'past 5 years' and had no problems, and you'll hear how Guy 2 has used CCleaner's registry cleaner and it ruined his Windows installation. This is the same thing for cleaners other than CCleaner.

After being on various online communities for the amount of years I have been, and working with computers and being in IT and doing analysis, I can say for myself from my point of view that registry cleaners are very dangerous. It's simply never necessary whatsoever to go ahead and 'clean' the registry.

The risk vs the reward is simply 100% not worth it. Despite what you hear from whomever, having unused registry entries is not a performance killer and it's not the reason your OS is slow if that's what's going on, etc. The risk of a cleaner deleting a very important registry key that is needed vs deleting an unused entry that is not doing really any harm whatsoever regardless is way too high.

It also should be noted that the reason registry cleaners are around is because they don't always cause problems and they do their job (delete unused keys). But they are not perfect and they are known to delete important keys and do well more harm than good in most scenarios.

Regards,

Patrick

Read here:

<<http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=25513>>

<<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2563254>>.

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Registry cleaners will not improve performance, double the speed of a computer or any other spurious clams made.

Back in the days of Windows 9x, it was important to control the size of the registry, and for this purpose, Microsoft released their very own registry cleaner which only removed entries which were absolutely safe to remove.

BUT, that was back in the days of Windows 9x.

Windows NT and all of the operating systems spawned from NT do not handle the registry in the same way as Windows 9x did. Windows NT and higher have a much larger limit to the size and they ignore orphaned entries.

The Windows 7 registry can grow to 2gb before the OS falls over, and even a well used system is unlikely to have a registry over 250mb.

does windows have any free registry cleaning software

Registry cleaning programs are *all* snake oil. Cleaning of the registry isn't needed and is dangerous. Leave the registry alone and don't use any registry cleaner. Despite what many people think, and what vendors of registry cleaning software try to convince you of, having unused registry entries doesn't really hurt you.

The risk of a serious problem caused by a registry cleaner erroneously removing an entry you need is far greater than any potential benefit it may have.

Read http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html

and http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=28099

and also http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2005/10/02/registry-junk-a-windows-fact-of-life.aspx

You also might want to read the section on the CCleaner Registry Cleaner here:

http://www.howtogeek.com/113382/how-to-use-ccleaner-like-a-pro-9-tips-tricks/

Let me point out that neither I nor anyone else who warns against the use of registry cleaners has ever said that they always cause problems. If they always caused problems, they would disappear from the market almost immediately. Many people have used a registry cleaner and never had a problem with it.

Rather, the problem with a registry cleaner is that it carries with it the substantial *risk* of having a problem. And since there is no benefit to using a registry cleaner, running that risk is a very bad bargain.