Sorry, Dew, but I have to disagree with this one.
Every software instillation puts entries in the registry. Installing,many of these entries left over.
As an example, a share ware program time out after 30 days, you try to re-install it and it says trial has ended. That';s because they leave something behind in the registry to block the user from re-installing
I can almost guarantee you that if you go the the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE you will find names of programs you removed long ago.
You tell of one story about a bad recipiency with "reg cleaners"
I use Registry Mechanic on every single person' machine that I work on. PC Tools Registry has great reviews as wee.
I've been working with the registry since 1995, and that's one of the reason PC Tools hired me for tech support.
Granted, I will say that some registry cleaners on the market are junk. They remove the same things as CCleaner does to make their numbers look impressive.
Not cleaning your registry is like never cleaning out your tempoary files, temp files from IE, history,etc
That's my story & I'm sticking to it!
BTW, reghakr means registry hacker