If you have such a bad attitude about it, why are you doing it for free? Personally, I repair computers for free only for family members and as far as I'm concerned, it's worth doing right for them. Anyone else will pay for it. If you're going to do it free, then you should still be willing to do what *should* be done or else charge.
Most issues involving the registry are related to the values within the registry. That means that if you replace the entire registry, you're just putting those same values right back in there. It's just a hack job that really accomplishes almost nothing.
