I just found a neat utility that is similar to System Mechanic, except that it is FREE instead of $60. It can clean the Registry (quite well; it found obsolete stuff that System Mechanic, Win Doctor, and RegClean didn’t find, and so far no adverse effects; it also has an undo feature). It can also find “Unnecessary files” (so far so good) and can find “duplicate files” which I have not tried (a long time ago I deleted “duplicate files” that were needed.) I think it’s worth a try. Get Easy Cleaner here

It finds a lot of entries about Windows. Would it be safe to delete them?

I've been using EasyCleaner (the reg feature only) for yonks on both W95 & W98 and never had any problem whatsoever by just going for Select All/Delete All. However, I have seen a posting on here which suggested it had an issue with refrences in the registry to files with a forward slash appended to them (it assumes they are invalid). I too had noticed this but, perhaps foolishly, not worried about them previously and got away with it! I am less happy with the other features:- 1. Duplicate Files are sometimes "necessary". 2. Unecessary Files listed one on my previous W95 which was essential for a DOS game. I know it has (or had) a problem with Windows ME fairly recently but in fairness it was probably never designed for WME. There was an MS "Q" report about it (which said run the undo).

I appreciate the info have downloaded it and will give it a try. Have you tried the one from below site JV16 regcleaner, which is about 546kb and covers 95/98/ME/2000/NT/XP. I have had no problems with it and it has been super. Would really like to find out which one is the most effective. http://www.vtoy.fi/jv16/shtml/regcleaner.shtml

It is my understanding that the best mothod is to use these two along with the MS Regclean because all three look at the registry in different ways providing different results. This is the second time I have tried EasyCleaner. I uninstalled it a second time because all of the modified dates were showing as the year of 1601. I figure if that info has anything to do with what it is finding in the 312 entries then I had better not trust it. (I definately did not even own a PC in 1601) :) Anyone else see this date discrepancy? Bryan

I like to use Clean Disk 2002. This is a nice and easy cleaning utility. It may not do some things the other programs can but along with using ad aware it seems plenty suffcient.

Toni (EasyCleaner writer) has always owned up to the 1601 bug which he has never cured. He says it happens on "some machines" but it's appeared on every machine I have run it on, W95, W98 and W98SE. It seems harmless though.