My laptop has been running slow for several months now. I read in a magazine that using a registry cleaner/booster can speed up performance. I found Uniblue RegistryBooster 2010 (says it is free) but after the scan it can only fix 15 problems for free. However, for $30 it will fix 950 Registry errors (with a 30 day money back guarantee). On their "About" screen they have "Microsoft Gold Certified Partner". After I saw that it wasn't free after all I did some searches and several (included some on Microsoft) said DO NOT use registry cleaners. My question is this: Is it safe to use this program? If so, should I create a restore point before using it in case there are problems afterwards? Thank you for your help.5 people need an answerI do too

To put it lightly, registry cleaners are of dubious value. To be more blunt, they are a waste of time and money. Mark Russinovich, now a Technical Fellow with Microsoft, and the author of Windows Internals and the Sysinternals tools, wrote (10/7/2005 9:41:00 AM): I haven't and never will implement a Registry cleaner since it's of little practical use on anything other than Win2K terminal servers and developing one that's both safe and effective requires a huge amount of application-specific knowledge.

What you have downloaded is very close to being a rogue. I will agree that cleaning the registry using most software will do more harm than good. I will also agree that it does little toward enhancing the performance of your computer. However, I have seen many occasions in which Ccleaner has resolved various software issues when used to clean the registry. This is especially true after removing malware infections. I would recommend you not use the program and uninstalling as fast as you can. If you are set on cleaning the registry, which I do weekly to mine, I would recommend you use Ccleaner, Glary Utility and/or OneCareLive clean-up utility. OneCareLive clean-up is a web based clean-up utility offered by Microsoft and therefore requires no software downlaod. It does, however, require the download of a few files small in size. When using Ccleaner you will be prompted to back-up the invalid entries detected. Always choose yes to this option saving the back-up for a few days until you are convinced all software is operating correctly. It can then be deleted. CCleaner - Home Glary Utilities | Glarysoft Clean Up Center - Windows Live OneCare safety scanner Regards, JoelSometimes deciding which battle to fight is the toughest battle of all.. Please visit my website @ http://repairbotsonline.weebly.com/ If I can take the time to answer you can take the time to vote to enable others to find solutions easier.