Friday, January 15, 2010

Cleaning Up Your Windows Registry

Windows registry is a file that is used by your Windows Operating System to store a huge amount of information about your computer. It is an essential file for your system as it is the main storage about everything on your computer.

It keeps such information as where your programs are stored, the pointers for all of your shortcuts and so on. Everything you do in your Windows environment is probably stored in the registry somewhere. The problem being that windows does not effectively clean up after itself where an entry is no longer needed.

This is also caused by applications that do not remove their entries when uninstalled or even upgraded. The installer may even create a temporary entry to point to a location for the install and then not remove that entry, further making your registry bloated and slowing down your system.

You can do the work manually but why risk corrupting your registry and completely losing your system. If you delete or edit the wrong entry you can do just that. So you really should use a tool of some sort to accomplish this task for you.

A registry cleaner may or may not speed up your system. The current shape of your registry will be more of a factor in that than the fact of cleaning it. The more bloated it is and the more unneeded programs and other applications you have the slower your system will run. Obviously, the fewer the better it will run.

If you want to accomplish this yourself, it is a simple process to go to Start, Run, type regedit.exe and then enter. This built in editor will allow you to modify any information in the registry, but again you must be careful or you can make the system unusable.

A better solution is to use a third party application to do a registry cleanup. They automate the process. Checking for unused entries or questionable entries and if you want it can even request your input on any changes.

One thing you should always do before you make any changes to the registry, whether you accomplish it manually or automatically is to make a backup of the registry. If you really want to be safe of the whole system but some would consider that over kill.

You will be hard pressed to find a really good free registry cleaner. You best bet is to pay for one and look at the reviews before making your choice. What you choose will do the job but may have different options based on your computer experience level and the level of control you want to have in using the product.

Most cleaners will cover some basics of the registry. They will check for its integrity, the com/activex entries, font entries, the shared DLL's, the application paths, the help file information, the Windows startup items, and the file/path locations. Checking all for anything missing and removing that information.

Before allowing the program to make any changes you should double check that it is something you do not want or need, especially if you are more familiar with a computer. You can use a simple web search to determine what the registry entry or key is by using its key, name or value.

Once you are sure that your system has been backed up you will want to make sure you make another backup of your cleaned registry, allowing you to restore to it if anything happens in the near future.

Cleaning your registry is not easy but with the right tools and some basic research you can accomplish it on a regular basis to keep your Windows Operating System running smoothly.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mahfuza_Ferdausi_Urpa







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