pc clean

digisel,

it is a common misconception to think that tools you have to pay for are automatically better than free ones. On the contrary: a lot of software that costs good money is worse and less secure than the best free tools out there.

This said, you will not find a better tool for what you want to do than CCleaner (www.ccleaner.com).
It is free, easy to use, amply recommended here on E-E and used by many experts themselves.

If you reread again what nobus has said, he did not advise against using this tool, he advised against running it on automatic, i.e. letting it automatically fix whatever issues found.
This advise is a precaution; it counts valid not only for CCleaner, but for all tools of this kind, no matter what they cost, and in general for all so-called "system tune-up utilities".

In the case of CCleaner, this precautious behaviour is not really necessary. Because before applying any changes to your registry, it will make a backup of your registry with the best registry backup tool. Read here to know how easy it will be to restore your registry, if things don't work out well with cleaning:
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/erunt.txt
(Scroll down to "Restoring the registry with ERDNT" - you could also print out the whole text file)

When running first, CCleaner will find hundreds if not thousands of repairable issues with your registry. Nobody, not even an expert can review and check all of them. That's why I usually let CCleaner automatically fix. So far, this never caused a problem.


So I repeat: if the question is: "Which is the best free registry cleaner around?", there is no need to search any further, take CCleaner.
If, however, you say you do not know what you are doing, then maybe the question should be: "Why do you think that you need to clean your registry?" When runn ing into problems with your OS, there may be better and more effective ways to fix them than cleaning the registry.

torimar is spot on with recommending CCleaner.  

There is only one thing I don't like about CCleaner - its default is to clean (files, not registry) for the currently logged on user.  You can manually select folders from other user profiles to clean and it will work just fine.  However, when I have a workstation that has multiple user profiles and I'm looking for a quick way to clean all the profiles, I've found Cleanup (http://www.stevengould.org/index.php?Itemid=69&id=15&option=com_content&task=view) works very well.  Its default is to clean all user profiles on the workstation.  I've found it quicker than adding folders under CCleaner.

what do you want to clean? careful as alot of cleaners do MORE damage then good, cccleaner has been top notch for years now

The real answer to this depends on what you're trying to do. For what it does, ccleaner is a good tool. Are you trying to clean up your system after a virus infection? Have you removed programs that have left files and folders behind? Do you have user profiles leftover from folks who are no longer using the machine? There is no "One Size Fits All" answer to your question.

CleanUp! is good for cleaning machines that have multiple user profiles.

http://www.stevengould.org/index.php?Itemid=69&id=15&option=com_content&task=view

If you're having problems removing software, Revo Uninstaller is a good fit.

http://www.revouninstaller.com/

It is a common myth that the best and only way to clean up a PC that is no longer performing properly is to go in and clean up the registry. Registry manipulation comes with a huge caveat. Done incorrectly, it will downgrade your slow but functional PC into a barely functional doorstop. That is to say, don't do it unless you know what you're doing.

If you can tell us more about what you're trying to accomplish, we can likely offer more help.