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smuldowney

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Is Registry Cleaner XP good software or a scam?

Hello,

I was working a  friends computer who said she had 41 errors on her machine. When I went to look at what she was talking about she had a program called "registry cleaner xp" on that said there was 41 errors in the registry. I asked where she got this program from and she was not sure. Of course the program is saying you must buy it to fix the issues. She wants to buy it and fix the issues I thinks the program is a scam. DOes anyone have any knowledge of this software?  
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scottdorsey
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smuldowney

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thanks for the info
One model for "try before you buy" software is to offer a demo with limited functionality. Some products will, for example, do full system scans and provide reports on what's wrong with the system, supposedly to show you what the program is capable of, in the hopes that you're so impressed that you'll shell out the bucks for a fully functional version of the program. Of course, if you pay for it, it *should* work. Another example is a program for recovering lost passwords that gives a teaser of the first two or three characters, and will disclose the entire password *after* you've paid for the full version.

So, as far as that goes, Registry Cleaner XP (most likely this one: http://www.registrycleanerxp.com/) is probably a legitimate program that is using a "try before you buy" model. However, as scottdorsey indicated, there are a lot of good freeware programs that will do the same thing.

The ones he linked are specific to malware. Here are a couple of registry cleaners:

Regcleaner

http://www.webmasterfree.com/RegCleaner_d7625.html

CCleaner

http://www.ccleaner.com/
Microsoft and the Washington attorney general just filed a lawsuit against the publishers of this piece of scareware.