Vista - Confirm you should leave the Registry well alone

OK I have been reading the newsgroup for a while about five weeks and I have I read the FAQ and threads about the Registry .I need to know about the Vista Registry. I have Home Basic on a Lenovo. The Registry Cleaning on a scan is saying 400 critical errors. But computer works fine so I am just ignoring it for the moment have been doing a lot of downloading trying different software As I have read the posts you do not touch the Registry under any circumstances and that is want I want to confirm. If is works leave well alone is the old maxim. Can somebody confirm that on the Vista Registry you leave it alone as you can do irreparable harm if you play around with it. Thank for any help in advance.

Anonymous Sender wrote:
Yes, leave it alone, at least until you are sure the "Cleaner" is
reliable. Some like to make you think they are doing a good job by,
well, let's say by exaggerating the seriousness of problems.

Many keys are unused but are there "Just in case", many get left behind
after software is installed then removed etc. These don't do any harm at
all because the system never looks for them or uses them, like the pages
in a phone book - you need an electrician you only look for "E". Most of
the phone book will never be used but it is there in case you need it.

That is not to say there can't be problems, but when there are you will
find out (usually the hard way). Personally I think the risks of running
automated "Fix" utilities outweighs any miniscule "Speed" gains. Some
say they see a difference, I think that's wishful thinking

See what others say but I think most will say leave alone.

Anonymous Sender wrote:
Correct. "If it's not broken, don't fix it." Most especially don't
use a snake oil automated registry "cleaner." They do absolutely no
good, and carry a great potential for causing damage.


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Bruce Chambers

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> I need to know about the Vista Registry. The Registry Cleaning onMost of the Windows OSes get upset when required entries are removed
from the Registry. The tools you are likely using will not harm your
system. Just let the tool save a copy before it destroys the values
it wants to delete; that way you can undo any damage that might
result. The "don't touch the Registry" concept helps prevent those
that dn't know what they are doing from hurting their system.

David

All the replies are dead-on accurate in their assesments. Leave the Registry alone. If you yourself are not sure of how or why the registry works, how will you be sure that these so-called "Registry Cleaners" are in fact cleaning the right places?

In far too many cases I've encounterd, "Registry Cleaners" do nothing but take you to the cleaners, leaving you with a near dead system that needs a clean install to get working again.

Eagle wrote:
But if you "Knew what you were doing" you wouldn't need an automated
tool. so in essence their use is a self fulfilling prophecy. You can't
always undo damage, that is part of the problem.

Eagle wrote:The problem with that methodology is that the required registry entry may
not be discovered to be missing for some weeks or months. Then you're really
screwed.