Registry cleaners were designed by people. People who have to try and predict how all the software that might be installed on your computer affects the Windows registry. When these people predict correctly, the cleaner does its job and cleans out irrelevant entries. When you have software on your computer that does not follow the standard practises of what goes where in the registry, these cleaners are of no help at all. So what I'm saying is that a typical registry cleaner program might clean 70% of the registry garbage. Or maybe 90%. If you're lucky, 100%. You can never know. So you have 2 options: 1. You can learn how to find and manually remove registry entries belonging to software you've uninstalled. 2. When the time is right, wipe the drive and reinstall Windows from scratch, thereby creating a clean, new, 100% problem-free registry. [edit] I also wanted to mention, then there's the situation where the registry cleaner does such an aggressive job on the computer, that it begins affecting software that is still installed. I have never used a registry cleaner on my PC. I have no issues with performance whatsoever.

well they work kinda of like putting a library back in order after a bunch of kids have had a field day of moving every thing around. I do know of one good use of a Nortons install Disc, Don't install but use the WinDR off of it, which is a registry repair program, it works great, each verison of Nortons has it. Other wise the one I recommend is from pcworld, which is a great site GLARYULITILIES DOWNLOAD GO TO www.pcworld.com 1. WHEN PAGE OPENS TYPE IN THE SEARCH BOX - REGISTRY REPAIR PROGRAMS - CLICK GO 2. LIST WILL OPEN, SELECT THE SECOND ONE - GLARY REGISTRY REPAIR (ITS FREE) CLICK IT 3. NEXT PAGE, YOU WILL SEE A RED ARROR AND DOWNLOAD NOW IN BLUE WORDS - CLICK 1.30MB 4. NEXT PAGE BLUE BOX DOWNLOAD FREE REGISTRY REPAIR NOW- YOU CAN CLICK HERE BUT REAL SLOW (works on 98, XP, ME, 2000, 2003, Vista) just not 64 bit supported 5. For a faster download click where it says - mirror here 6. NEXT PAGE IF IT DOES NOT START IN 5 SEC LOOK FOR A SECURITY BAR, WHICH IS LIGHT YELLOW AT TOP OF PAGE, CLICK THE OPTION TO ALLOW IF FOR SOME REASON IT STILL DOESN’T USE THIS OPTION: LOOK FOR THE LINE THAT READS CLICK HERE IF IT DOES NOT 7. BOX OPENS SAVE TO DESKTOP OR TO MY DOCUMENTS AND OPEN AND RUN FROM THERE

To be honest I think the best thing to do is to call the technical support for whatever brand computer you have.