N.C. Aditya’s Blog

Has your windows computer slowed down lately? Do some strange errors pop out of nowhere and cause your system to freeze? And does your computer start up after like ages? If you are experiencing any of these problems, this article is for you. All these problems are caused by too much clutter in the Windows registry. We will be seeing more about the Windows registry, its functions, the reason why it gets cluttered and ways to clean it and make your computer work faster than ever.

As the name itself suggests, the registry is a place where things get registered. In technical words, it is a database where references to all the files and folders, new programs and user settings get stored and used by the Windows operating system. When you install a new software application, the installer will register the new files in the registry. After all the files have been copied by the installer, you will see something like “Registering files”. In fact, software licensing i.e. keys/activation and trial/expiry also depend on the Windows registry. To put it in a few words, the registry does so many things and is very crucial for the operation system to function properly.

When you do a lot many things with your computer like copying/deleting files, installing/uninstalling new software, surfing the Internet, the registry gets filled with more references or “keys” as they are called. There will be many keys which will point nowhere, these are called orphaned keys. When this happens the physical size of the registry increases. As you may be aware, when a software gets bigger in size, it gets bloated and consumes more time and resources to work properly. This is when your computer will start slowing down. This effect is more prominent in systems with low amounts of RAM. For example, if your computer has only 256 MB, you can expect your computer to become much slower after moderate use.

How can you clean the Windows registry in your computer? There are many ways. You can do it manually (provided you are a SUPER GEEK and you know what you are doing!). I would firmly recommend you not to take the manual approach. It is not only difficult, but it is also risky. The registry is a crucial part of the operating system. If you delete the wrong keys, your system may become completely unusable and you can lose data. And besides, it is a time consuming process and you will have a tough time locating the dead keys.

In order to edit the registry, you will have to use the Windows registry editor. To start the registry editor, go to Start > Run and type REGEDIT. You will see a window as shown below:

There are many detailed tutorials available on how to edit the registry. And then there are books. For example: Mastering Windows XP Registry by Peter D. Hipson (Sybex). If you are serious about knowing more about the Windows registry, I would recommend buying that book. This book will provide plenty of information on how to modify the registry. Now that is all I will say about manually cleaning the registry.

The second way to clean up the registry is by using a software. There are many registry cleaners available on the Internet. Just run a search in Google or at Download.com and you will know what I am talking about. There are some freewares too and then most registry cleaners come with a certain trial period. Of all the registry cleaners out there, I believe that CCleaner [www.CCleaner.com] is the best. It is free and it does a lot more than just cleaning the registry. Download and install it your computer and you will know. As they say, seeing is believing.

On the commercial side, there two killer apps: TuneUp Utilities and System Mechanic. Both of them they come with a 30 day trial period. Certain registry cleaners will only clean the first 100 errors during the trial period. However, this is NOT the case with TuneUp utilities and System Mechanic: these two are fully functional copies with not restrictions. Like CCleaner, these come with many more features other than cleaning the registry. Download them and give a try.

If you were to ask me which of the three is the best, I would say CCleaner. First, because it is free. Next because, it doesn’t consume more system resources. Of course! The number of features offered by CCleaner is less than the other two, but it does its job well and so I rank it at the first place. The preference order would be:

CCleaner > Tune Utilities > System Mechanic

System Mechanic needs lots of RAM. If you have a system with less than 512 MB RAM, I wouldn’t recommend installing it in the first place. It will take ages to load and end up freezing the system. It is time the software developers did something about it. That is why I rank it in the last.

Download one of these software and run a check on your registry. I can bet you will be surprised at the number of errors you registry contains. I once broke the 1000+ error barrier on my old computer! (I should have tried for Guinness World Records!) Whatever be the number of errors, just run the cleaner and reboot your computer and you will see a much faster and responsive computer. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 6:37 am and is filed under Windows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.