This is proving a lot harder than I thought. Or I'm not looking in the right places? I need a registry cleaner that will either:- A-Clean an imported/saved registry. B-Clean a registry on another partition. Basically I have a multiboot computer and I need to be able to clean a reigistry from another partition. I do not want to install a reg cleaner on each OS/partition. Thought I'd found one with 'registry smoker'. But even though it says it will scan other partitions it does not actually find anything. I tested this by scanning one of my partitions,smoker found no probs. I then booted to said partition and installed smoker,it found nearly 100 errors. Anyone know of a registry cleaner that will do this? Tt Lanfire MSI K8N Diamond X2 4600+@234x12=2.8ghz 1:1 1GB PC3200/4400 OCZ Powerstream 520w 6600GT WDCaviar 160gb sata x2

>> I do not want to install a reg cleaner on each OS/partition << Its the only way to do it. The registry is part of the OS. An active OS just sees non-active OS's as ordinary data files and will not be able to find the registry. Even if it could it would be a highly dangerous thing to do as it would have no way of knowing which were genuine entries and which were crap as it would compare it with the currently running OS. It won't be able to work out what is what in the idle OS. Stuart

Disagree - all they need to do is program the ability to access other Partitons (i do not know of registry cleaning software that does this) - at that point they can point the necessary reg hives (system, software, security, user.sam)(C:\windows\system32\config is the location of your registry hives) you can edit a nonbooted windows OS registry through these files and having that HD hooked up as slave on another computer (and the ability to be accessed of course) - forget the cleaners - load your hives in regedit under the proper hkey's, make your changes, unload hives and put HD back into original machine - yup!

"Basically I have a multiboot computer and I need to be able to clean a reigistry from another partition. I do not want to install a reg cleaner on each OS/partition." You will have to install a reg cleaner on each Windows partition. The registry is not one file, it is a blend of at least two. It only becomes what you see as a registry when Windows is running on the same partition. You can't clean the registry on other Windows installations that are not running at the time.

"You can't clean the registry on other Windows installations that are not running at the time" Yes you can. yup!

Josh, Manually editing a registry is one thing, which in itself is dangerous if you don't know what you are doing. Have a reg cleaner do it automatically is something completely different which is what the question is about. Stuart

Reg cleaners are not perfect, i have had multiple machines in because registry cleaners broke windows - I would rather manually edit myself (at least i know what i removed then) (but that is not for everyone) - number two I disagreed with THIS part of your statement "An active OS just sees non-active OS's as ordinary data files and will not be able to find the registry" That is untrue - A slave HD with winxp installed can have its registry accessed by a master HD running winxp using regedit, going to file, then load hive - and navigating to the location above - To All: Always remember BACKUP REGISTRY before doing anything, whether it be manual or reg cleaning utilities. yup!