Stuart, I can't let that pass!
Regular registry reconditioning is ESSENTIAL to the efficiency and good health of a computer system. It is more important than regular defragging. Fragmentation needs to be incredibly severe before it can do anything worse than cause your system to run more slowly. And with NTFS file systems, it takes a very long time for the effect to become noticeable.
The importance of registry reconditioning is not (as many mistakenly believe) that it removes registry bloat. Spurious registry entries seldom or never amount to more than 1% of the total, so bloat is not an issue. The importance is that some of the spurious entries are quite likely to be pathological.
You know those messages that pop up and show a little flashlight waving around while Windows searches for a file? Those error messages relating to a printer you uninstalled ages ago? That download manager you had trouble uninstalling, and which Windows still insists on trying to use? Remember those famous Win98SE shutdown problems? These are all symptomatic of pathological registry entries which any common-or-garden registry cleaner can fix. (Yes, they can have other causes too, but the registry is the first place to start).
Every registry cleaner seems to be written with slightly different operating parameters, and I usually run two, three, or even four to be sure of doing a thorough job. In my experience, the best are Glarysoft Registry Repair (freeware), Regseeker (freeware), the later versions of Ashampoo WinOptimizer (superseded versions free, current version dirt cheap), and WinASO Registry Optimiser (pay for). All of these can be safely trusted to repair whatever they find without the need to check anything first.
The LEAST effective, I'd say, is Registry Mechanic. It seems to have been going down steadily since RM for Win98. I don't bother with it any more.
