subject: How Do You Clean Your Windows Registry and Speed Up Your PC? [print this page] How Do You Clean Your Windows Registry and Speed Up Your PC?
"Windows Registry" Are you of the opinion that: "Messing with it is risky."? If you guessed YES, you pass. Even though fooling around with your Windows Registry really does entail some associated risk, cleaning it out can have an effect on your PC's overall performance.
The Windows Registry is an crucial system file that contains a massive collection of details about your computer system -- where programs are stored, which helper programs (known as DLLs) are shared between your diverse software, listings of all your Start-menu shortcuts, and pointers to the programs that fire up when you click on an icon. And that's just the beginning point.
Essentially almost everything you do in Windows is saved somewhere in the Registry. For instance, the URL for this article probably has an entry now. The trails to the previous dozen or so graphics or docs you opened are there, too, as are the particulars of the programs you most recently installed or uninstalled.
If you open the Registry, you can probably find it about as jumbled as a teenager's room. That's because Windows doesn't effectively clean up after itself as it goes about its regular business. It frequently creates new entries, but seldom--if ever--removes them after they're no longer needed.
Compounding that problem are apps that are too inefficient to un-install all of the Registry records they create; far too often, program upgrades and installers leave unwanted pointers in the Registry. So the Registry becomes fat with unneeded entries, slowing down your system.
Registry Cleaners: Boon or Boondoggle?
A huge question is whether a Registry cleaner might speed up your PC, making it boot much more swiftly and work faster. The answer? I can say, undoubtedly and positively, uh, potentially. That's right, a huge, fat maybe -- since everything is dependent on the condition of your Registry.
What's needed is to discover which Registry cleaner gets the most problems, is the most secure and simplest to use, and creates the fewest headaches. You need to test the most popular Registry cleaners and defraggers. Many come recommended by PC World readers. You need to examine some free products and some professional ones. After all that testing, choose what you deem the ideal one, run it, run another one, then do each one, one by one, and see if the last one catches any error in the Registry. Also keep track of which one catches the most errors. Your Registry should now be squeaky clean.
Keep all the programs and one them one my one over time to determine which one will be the best one at getting all the errors. You might even have to utilize two to do the best registry cleaner job possible.
