Think the Windows operating system is expensive? Wait till you heap on the additional costs for the third party software required to secure it, including virus scanners, spyware checkers and firewall managers.

If you still have something left in your budget, you may want to shell out for registry cleaners… or not, if you can get them for free.

Just to prove it can be done, Email Battles set out on a shopping spree for top-notch registry cleaners. Maximum allowable price: Zero. No demos or shareware.

RegSeeker Registry Scrubber

[Email Battles: RegSeeker screenshot]

As many network managers must feed the whole family of Windows systems, we insisted that the registry cleaners must run on Windows 98, ME, XP, NT and 2000.

Two products, CCleaner and RegSeeker, met our criteria. And each brings something special to the table.

CCleaner is better known and nicely polished. It deletes unused or obsolete application paths, applications, ActiveX controls, classes, desktop shortcuts, file extensions, fonts, help files, installers, missing shared dlls, MUI cache, software, and Start Menu shortcuts.

It’s a no-brainer to use. (Has a lot of other features, too, like cleaning out your Internet cache and cookies.) And it’s really fast.

CCleaner’s registry checking speed is achieved by foregoing a thorough directory scan. That’s where RegSeeker comes in. It takes much longer because RegSeeker scans both the directory and registry, then compares them. That’s why it digs up more trash.

We ran both products on a shopworn Windows XP and a beat-up Millennium desktop. On the XP, we ran RegSeeker first, while CCleaner took the opening slot on the ME. Results were similar on each system. RegSeeker cleaned around 900 entries. CCleaner netted 30 to 40. Each product picked up trash the other missed. (fyi: A well-known commercial product, Registry Mechanic, found just 300 bogies.)

In both cases, we blindly deleted everything the scrubbers recommended.

Results: On reboot, everything worked, and both machines ran markedly faster.

CCleaner is unambiguously freeware. On the other hand, RegSeeker’s licensing is a bit tougher to figure out. While the vendor says RegSeeker is free for personal use only, the banner on Hoover Desk’s online store says “We regret to let you know that our site is currently closed.”

We’ve dropped a line to the vendor. We’ll let you know what we find out.

Until then, we’re going to continue playing with both.

Oh. Once you’re done scrubbing a registry, you’ll want to compact it. Try WinASO RegDefrag. It physically defragments the Windows registry file to further speed up your system. Price is right, too, i.e. free.

Have a favorite reg cleaner? Let us know what you like and why.