Is there really a safe registry editor??

Hallo All,
I'm not really very good with computers, I go back to the days of FORTRAN, COBOL and ALGOL (?). At college, we mere mortals were not allowed anywhere near the"machine", but we were allowed to look through the window as it processed our punched cards. Then came BASIC, the only thing I could do was make an asterix plummet to the bottom of the screen and whistle! Along came DOS, too much for my organic chemist brain. Then, as elmo says Da Da Da DAAAA along came windows! Now I can cut, copy, delete, move files and all sorts of fun.
A few years ago, I was told by a computer boffin "Don't touch the registry" huh! what did he know? So, I touched it, result: Misery. I vowed never to touch the registry again! (after re-installing windows) then, I found MG, reg cleaners, mystery of reg explained, and all sorts of goodies to clean the registry,cleaned it;Misery, re-installed windows, "OK, this time I'll back up the registry, clean it then see what happens.:Misery, couldn't restore the back up(?) re-installed windows. Please note, each re-installation requires all the updates etc.
Now, a sadder and wiser man, but still not scared to have a go, (even if it means re-installing windows(98) IS there a truly safe reg editor??? (all the ones I've seen say "do it at your own risk, if it goes tits up, it's your problem)
thanks in advance

 

I use RegSeeker. It's free and works good.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download2579.html

 

You could say most of all the editors are safe

what is not safe is deleting registry entries that the editor shows