the way I put it to people who want to edit their registry manually is this -
I can do this. I know how to do this. there are tools to do this, like control
panel for one. Every setting almost, is in that registry and programs do it
cleanly and nicely without error most of the time. I do not WANT to use
regedit.exe, it is a last resort.

So I am not afraid of it, but I know to stay away from it unless there is good
reason. Think of it as exploratory surgery.


Generally true.

You're usually safe yanking out stuff clearly related to a specific piece of
software. Other than that, you might be taking a chance.