Avast is telling me there's over 2,000 errors with my registry

f14tomcat said:

Short answer.... there are dependencies. Like a tree level. First pass thru, it will detect level 3, for example. 2nd pass, since unused level 3 are gone, now level 2 is unused, and so on. Has to be checked bottom up, not top down.
I'm giving an explanation of the "why", not a recommendation to do it.

Thanks, F14. That makes sense to me. A manual check of registry issue findings does confirm that programs can easily leave behind "garbage" entries that causes registry bloat. Seems Microsoft even does this. For instance, SilverLight. I still had it installed, but there was a bunch of garbage entries for an older version.

What utility would you recommend for registry "cleanup" and integrity check?

LMiller7 said:

There was a time when Microsoft had a registry cleaner available for download. It was last updated in 1998. It was later removed because it caused problems with some popular Microsoft software. Microsoft learned their error and don't expect it to be repeated.
There really isn't anything wrong with registry cleaning - if it could be done reliably. The problem is that it can't. There is nothing about a registry entry that reliably associates it with a particular application. Applications use the registry in some very unusual ways so it is impossible to determine with certainty if an entry is in error. As a result a registry cleaner must make frequent guesses. Usually they will be right, but sometimes not. Just one mistake and an important application may not run at all or behave in unpredictable ways.
The benefits of regular registry cleaning are found primarily in the ads for registry cleaners. In the real world they remain as elusive as ever. There are no reliable studies that confirm it's value. But there is more than ample evidence that it can cause serious problems.

Yes, I remember that, Microsoft's registry cleaner. It generally worked most of the time, but yeah... it did end up creating problems. Rather astonishing. But today, the registry structure has evolved quite a bit since 1998. I would expect that internal management is "cleaner" and that any kind of correction required would be cleaning up after other programs. And given how the windows system is pretty much protected now, it should be possible to deal with those entries without disturbing system functions.

The thing is, aren't programs these days generally "intelligent" enough to correct or add registry entries if they find they're not correct or missing when running?

I guess the better thing is to use a 3rd party uninstaller like Revo or Ashampoo to help make sure everything is properly cleaned when uninstalling programs.

I have a lot of utilities that I manually update, most are all portable with examples of CPU-Z, GPU-z, Ccleaner, many system internals, etc.
Now one way to maintain these w/o or a minimum of registry edits is when you setup the unpacked root folder for the utility, don't use xxx app name with a version # folder(example ccsetup558.zip). , use a generic folder name and exe name. This will save a lot of application paths in the reg over time. Now if your the type not to use a lot of exe's or reinstall OS then don't even bother with this.

Q; What harm takes place if you never use a registry cleaner and never use a third-party uninstaller?
A: Nothing.