Using Registry Cleaners are a Bad Idea (via S Anand). I agree — if your registry has enough flotsam in it to impair your system’s performance and you don’t know enough to hand-edit the registry, you’re probably better off restoring from backups (you do have backups, right?) than trusting random registry cleaners that promise a sparkly-fresh computer for $29.

If you’re concerned about easily restoring your system, you’d be better off with Windows System Restore or spending money buying Norton Ghost and backing up images of your system.