What is the registry?

The Windows Registry is a database which stores settings for the operating system and other installed programs. It has the settings for different users, applications installed, hardware and system preferences for your computer. Its purpose is to allow information that might be needed later to be saved and retrieved. It plays such a critical role to the computers operating system and installed applications that the PC will not run without it.

When you change something on your computer chances are it will save the alteration in the registry. For example: If you change the desktop background, uninstall a program or play a game then certain information will be read and or written to the registry.

The Windows Registry was created by Microsoft to address the INI file problem. INI files are a type of text file used to store settings for Windows applications. Before the inception of the Windows Registry almost every program had its own INI file, this made it hard to manage the settings of programs as the INI files were scattered everywhere on the PC. So the Windows Registry was created to centralize application settings and INI files are now deprecated.

Why the registry should be cleaned?

As time goes on it gets bloated with information - a lot of this information is no longer needed, such as duplicate entries, settings for programs that were uninstalled years ago and, other various junk files. The redundant and useless information that has accumulated can slow down your computer and cause system errors. Even simple ordinary tasks like moving a folder from one location to another on your computer can cause registry entries to become discombobulated. When you remove the problematic entries from you system it can improve the performance of your computer.

How do I go about cleaning the Windows Registry?

I strongly discourage manually editing it using the built-in windows utility 'Registry Editor' because it's a complicated process to perform manually - even advanced PC users can come unstuck. Hopefully what I am about to say will scare you out of manually editing the registry. If you change or remove the wrong information you can cause more harm than good - worst case is your computer want start-up anymore - seriously!

When Windows struggles to keep the registry neat and tidy that's when a Registry Cleaner comes in handy. So to fix errors and improve the performance of your computer you will need to scan and repair the registry. I recommend Registry Easy or PC Tools Desktop Maestro. Just install a registry cleaner, click scan and the registry problems are found and fixed, it's pretty easy stuff.