[eye30]

WinUtilities Free makes it easy to keep your PC running smoothly by putting a host of useful tools in one place.

Fix your PC for free - BT

[CraigB]

I see so many people on a daily basis destroy their systems with this and similar tools, especially concerning the registry cleaning and registry defragmenting.

Always back up the registry first before doing any sort of cleaning in there and it's recommended to have a system image and repair disc on standby just in case the xxxx hits the fan, if people don't understand how the registry works then stay well away.

Another thing to mention is cleaning the registry has yet to be proven to give any benefit whatsoever and a much safer method I'd suggest is to use a good defragmenter once every couple of weeks and run a tool called " CCleaner " at the end of every days browsing before shutting down the system ( defrag and CCleaner should be all you'll ever need )

Note that CCleaner also has a registry cleaning option but it doesn't go very deep into the registry so it hasn't caused issues in my experience but it also gives the option to back up the registry first before running or simply don't use that feature if the registry is an unknown evil to you.

[eye30]

I use c cleaner and on the odd time i've used the registry cleaner.

 I take the save copy option and have a few copies which i delete the older ones but keep at least 3 copies once i know all is well.

Remember the IT section in work doing something to my work laptop once and deleted some files from the register.  They had it for a week until returned.  Never found out what they had deleted but i was told they had changed their processes after this..

[CraigB]

They probably had to re-install the whole OS from scratch

[asathorny]

I tend to use Revo uninstaller when removing anything because it does the usual uninstall thing then it does a deep search for all the orphaned registry entry and they usually run into hundreds.

I know, they're not a problem UNTILL there is some sort of conflict then what a bloody nightmare it can become.

I also use system mechanic.   Both programs I have used to quite a while and therfore trust.

Winutilities program I used once and, never again 

[CraigB]

The problem with Revo is it was made to be a one tool solves all it also likes to removed shared dlls which then trashes another program, best option for removal of programs is to go to the vendors website and use their legitimate removal tool that is made to remove only their product.

Iolo system mechanic - Iobit - winutilities are all as we say "Snake Oil".