To remove every little trace!

Well i most of the time i go into the appdata folder after uninstalling software to get the little traces gone, and there are some other places i also go to get all the traces gone, and as for the registry i thought ccleaner would find the registry in which the program is no longer installed and remove it, it does but i just went into regedit(windows xp) and I'm finding aol reg's there and ccleaner tells me there is not more to be cleaned.My question is if it is like aol something is it safe to delete that reg? I won't do things i don't know but the obvious one's.i know it can be very dangerous, but i really want to remove it, because i don't want to fully erase my hd and reinstall xp.

thanks in advance:major

 

This is a good checklist to be sure you got the major parts of AOL.
For XP:

1. Click the Start button and select Control Panel
2. In the Control Panel window double-click the Add/Remove Programs icon
3. In the list of programs, look for anything that includes "America Online" or "AOL"
4. For each AOL-related item, select the item by clicking it and then click Remove or Change/Remove
5. Follow the instructions on your screen to remove the AOL program
6. Restart your computer.
7. Right click My Network Places
8. Click Properties
9. Right click Local Area Connection
10. Click Properties
11. Look for "AOL Adapter" and anything including "AOL" or "America Online"
12. Select this AOL item(s) (by clicking it), then click Uninstall.
13. Restart your computer again.

For Vista:

1. Click the Start button and select Control Panel
2. Select Uninstall a Program
3. Select program to uninstall
4. Click Uninstall
5. Click continue if needed
6. Follow prompts
7. Restart is asked

I uninstalled AOL following this and then used a reg cleaner set to find all AOL. You have to be careful and look at each entry it finds to be sure it IS AOL.
Always set a restore point first, before editing the registry.
The app I used was RegSeeker. It has the "Find in Regisry" option.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/RegSeeker_d2579.html