How To Maintain the Windows Registry

Maintain the Windows Registry

by Michael E. Callahan aka Dr. File Finder

The Dawn of Clutter

You get a new computer fresh from the manufacturer and it's a lean, mean, computing machine. It has a hard drive, DVD player, modem, maybe a TV card, and more. It has nearly a gigabyte of software installed on it. And from the moment it was created, from the time the Windows operating system was installed, the Windows Registry became active. You might ask, "What is the Registry?" Good question.

In simple terms the Registry is the keeper of all the information in, on, or about your computer. If a program is installed it places listings in the Registry. When you download a file there are entries in the Registry. If you install a printer, a scanner, a modem, a VoIP phone, or anything else, it add things to the Registry.

The Registry is kind of like a table of contents, index, and catalog of everything about your computer. Windows can't run without the Registry. Over time, however, the Registry becomes bloated and has many useless entries. Almost like a hard drive it becomes fragmented. This slows down your computer and leads to system crashes and bad performance. Not a good situation. Fortunately for you and me there are a number of programs that are designed to clean and repair the Registry. These programs remove the junk and that helps make your computer faster again.

Registry Mechanic

Registry Mechanic, by PC Tools, is a full-featured program that cleans your Windows Registry and more. Registry Mechanic makes it easy to clean and repair the Windows Registry. It also has a feature that will optimize the Registry by compacting it. By optimizing the Registry your computer runs better and you'll have far fewer crashes.

Registry Mechanic removes the clutter from the Registry and then optimizes it. It makes backups of the Registry and you can always restore any changes that were made. One very cool feature is the Registry Monitor which can sit in your system tray and constantly monitor the Registry. Nicely done. Registry Mechanic has won many awards throughout the industry. Look for a full review of it coming soon.

Registry First Aid

Another program you might want to try is Registry First Aid. This is another award-winning program that does a great job of cleaning the Registry. It also backs up the entire Registry so you can always do a total restore if necessary. To be honest I've never had to restore the Registry because of any changes made by Registry-cleaning programs. Generally if you follow the recommendations of the program you'll be in good shape.

Registry First Aid also lets you defragment Registry which helps to remove useless entries and make the Registry more efficient. The program also lets you search the Registry which can be a very handy feature. I often use it to find entries for programs I'm trying to totally remove. If you look at the screen shot you'll notice an button for Manage Registry and that's a unique function.

What it does is give you direct access, via the Registry, to certain Windows functions. For example the screen shot above is showing the programs that start automatically with Windows. Right from within Registry First Aid Platinum I can enable or disable any of these entries. So it's a handy extra feature.

RegistryBooster2 is very easy-to-use and intuitive. It also scans your system Registry and looks for errors, conflicts, and junk entries. It not only optimizes the Registry but it can also defragment it. Defragmenting the Registry increases the efficiency. It also makes your system more stable.

This product from Uniblue Systems works quickly and efficiently to make your system more stable. Using it on a regular basis will result in fewer system crashes and conflicts. I'll be doing an in-depth review soon so stay tuned.

Summing It Up

To keep your car running smoothly you have your oil changed at regular intervals. To keep your Registry functioning as it should you should clean and defragment it on a regular basis. Check out these programs or do a search on registry.

• Check out Registry Mechanic NOW!
• Check out Registry First Aid NOW!
• Check out RegistryBooster2 NOW!

If you have a question on how to do something on the computer you can submit it via email by clicking HERE You will not receive a reply, but all topics will be considered.