DavidR
9
In the hands of a novice, manually deleting registry keys can be every bit as harmful to the OS as any cleaner that you mention.
But simply leaving them there is not an option as this will simply regenerate malware. It’s about using the right tools for the job and in this case it is HiJackThis to remove harmful registry entries (which may be a branch of a registry key and not necessarily the whole key).
Registry cleaners are not the correct tool for the job (malware removal), but they do - for the most part - have a backup/restore function, manual deletion may not.
Following the information on Eddy’s site should make this a relatively painless journey.