The System Registry has been called the most important part of any Windows PC operating system (OS), but you probably didnt even know it exists. There is a good reason for that. Microsoft doesnt want you messing with it. Like so many other features in Windows, Microsoft chose to hide information considered too powerful to be left in the hands of mere mortals. Only the wisest of gurus can be entrusted with such knowledge. Unlike silly decisions like automatically hiding the 3-character extension of filenames, however, this is one area where Microsoft had a good reason to keep the registry on the top shelf out of reach. The registry controls everything and a single mistake can have devastating consequences on the entire OS. Installed programs and applications will write important data into the registry. User defined data and configurations are also stored. The data is tracked through a tree of folders called keys that branch off the registry nodes. Each key can have subkeys nested in multiple levels. Critical pieces of data known as values are stored in the keys and subkeys. Groups of related keys, subkeys and values are known as hives. Applications can modify the keys by changing the values, adding new keys or deleting existing ones. More recent versions of Windows will back up the registry and in the event of a problem, will ask you if you want to use the Last known good configuration. This was an option that began in the old Windows NT days. If you ever see this option, the correct proper response will most likely be yes, but that may also mean that recently installed programs will no longer operate unless reinstalled. The good news is that such configuration issues related to the registry will not affect your important data: documents, photos, etc. The bad news is that many times the problem that caused the crash in the first place may also be saved in the backup versions of the registry. More than one person has been in the unfortunate position of having to completely reinstall their Windows OS, with many a prayer to the computer gods that the file and data associations will be restored as well. It is not a bad idea to make your own back up onto a flash drive or make copies on the C: drive. Of course, if you backup your registry to the C: drive and your disk fails the backup will be unavailable. If you backup to a flash drive but your computer fails to recognize the drive upon boot without the OS running, that wont help either. Be sure to consult the documentation of your computer and OS. Or, just be sure to actually backup your computer regularly and have the backups always handy. With the size and speed of USB flash drives, you might want to consider saving all your data to a removable disk. Before you have an issue, you should consider all your options. The best suggestion is to try to prevent such problems with proper maintenance of your Windows Registry. Many software programs exist to examine registry the keys and make any necessary repairs. These programs can even check your registry for unused keys that clog your system. Removing these keys can significantly improve performance. For more information on the Windows Registry, check out the articles at Answer Registry Reviews. There are reviews of popular registry cleaning software products and you can even use links on the site to download and purchase highly effective registry cleaning software. About the Author:| welcome to loan (http://www.yloan.com/) | Powered by Discuz! 5.5.0 |