What is the BEST Registry Cleaner for Win 7 Ultimate or Pro 64 Bit version OS ?

"Windows 3 and 9x used to plough the registry at every boot, and if they found bad things, the OS invariably fell over, especially if the miniscule allowable size was in sight..."

I'm a newcomer myself - '04 and XP, but even then optimisation was everyone's mind, what with

128/MB RAM and 5-10GB HDD's.  Optimisation must have been all consuming earlier on.

"You might also remember the warning about having too many fonts installed. Win 9x used to have to check EVERY font before it would finally let you in. Hence the rash of font managers in those heady days. "

Sounds like fun - NOT....

I do recall seeing adds for font managers. Never new what they were for though.

All derivatives of the original Windows NT have ignored orphans, and the allowable size of the registry has grown to 2gb in Windows 7. That is a lot of orphaned entries (errors if you prefer to think of them as the enemy).

Windows 3 and 9x used to plough the registry at every boot, and if they found bad things, the OS invariably fell over, especially if the miniscule allowable size was in sight. Hence Regclean 4, which took out only the safest of 'errors'.

If you are wondering what happened to Reglean 1 through 3, I think they showed the same destructive tendencies as Regcure Pro and its mates..

You might also remember the warning about having too many fonts installed. Win 9x used to have to check EVERY font before it would finally let you in. Hence the rash of font managers in those heady days.

"it goes directly to them because it knows where they are... the seek time is exactly the same. That's why orphaned entries have little or no effect on performance.The only time it might have some effect is on boot up.... "

Interesting, and it makes sense that programs would not have to scan the whole registry, but

not something I'd considered.

That's why I like forums. Always learning something.

The part about boot up may explain why I have had error messages that relate to registry keys

that have been left behind after uninstalling a software that may have been in Startup.

This is very rare though,  and as with many error reports (such as for a service I may have disabled, etc.),

it does not really affect performance, because the error, in this instance, is a false positive.

I will say though, that my compulsive nature tends to want me to rid my machine of such errors

(because Windows has made a list two kilometres long for that one item), which has been known

to lead me to regedit to cast the Devil from my machine.

Still... I do this only because of my obsessive compulsive nature, not because I believe I am

improving performance.

.

Because we see time after time in these forums, people who have a problem with their system that's been caused by the blind use of a registry cleaner because some website has told them to use it.

 Look at it this way if you put client files into a file cabinet (registry) and you only remove part of that file when you no longer have that client. Over time you file cabinet becomes full. Now you have to get another file cabinet (registry expands). Over time you have a warehouse full of file cabinets, and need to find file on Mr. Smith. While you may know exactly where that cabinet is located, you still have to walk through that warehouse and then look through the files. Now imagine those old files (orphaned keys) were cleaned out once a month. You now have your files in a small room in back of your office. Do you think you could find it faster? Or better yet if you got 30 keys on a key ring and only one opens the door, do you leave them there because they are not hurting anything? Think about this. Those orphaned keys causes your PC to use more processing power, however small it may be, means increased load on CPU. Increased load on CPU shortens life expectancy. This in turn means buying new CPU, or whole new computer. Also it takes more electricity for more processing. Are the differences huge? Probably not, but then again a penny saved is a penny earned. So how can leaving unused registry entry's not have an impact? I am really curious to know.        

Sorry the filing cabinet analogy is wrong, When you start a program, it does NOT sort through the registry (aka filing cabinets) to find the appropriate keys - it goes directly to them because it knows where they are, so it doesn't matter whether you have 2 "filing cabinets" or sixty, the seek time is exactly the same. That's why orphaned entries have little or no effect on performance. The only time it might have some effect is on boot up, but the average user won't normally notice.