How To Maintain Your Windows Registry And Prevent PC Errors

It is surprising that a large number of computer users are not familiar with the Windows registry and its importance. The registry can be defined as the central database of your computer that contains vital information about the system such as configuration and settings information of operating system, other software and installed hardware. The registry is updated every time any new application or component is installed or uninstalled on your system. Every time something new is added, relevant entries are added to the registry to ensure its smooth functioning and similarly, every time an application is removed, the appropriate entries are removed from the registry. This extensive usage of the registry, incomplete uninstallations, and other such issues may leave behind unnecessary information in the registry causing it to bloat up to a very large size.

These issues may manifest in the form of different computer errors. While the information overload may slow down access to information in the registry thereby deteriorating the performance of your computer, the corrupt or irrelevant entries may cause several computer errors including common errors such as DLL and EXE errors. There are three main tasks that you can perform to maintain your registry:

1. Backup your Windows Registry: There could be some fatal errors that may cause a system crash or some irreversible damage to your registry. To counter this, it is always preferable that you backup your registry frequently. You can do this by using any of the following three methods:

• Make a manual backup of the registry through RegEdit, the Registry Editor tool, that comes along with your Windows Operating System.


• Use System Restore in Vista and XP computers to backup system files and the registry.


• Use any popular third-party registry cleaner to make a complete backup of your registry automatically and effortlessly.


2. Use registry tweaks to enhance system performance: Your system comes with registry entries that ensure a certain level of PC performance. You can always customize these registry entries to either enhance system performance as well as to stop unnecessary programs from running. There are several help sites on the internet that can educate you on this. If you are keen on registry tweaks, then it is always recommended that you take a complete backup of the registry before starting the tweaks so that you can undo any accidental damage that may happen to your registry during the process.



3. Scan, Repair and Clean your Registry: While most of you take good care of the hard disk, the registry is another critical component of your system that requires equal amount of care. To do this, you need to clean your registry on a regular basis. You have two options for cleaning your registry: manual and automatic. Manual method of cleaning registry, by using Find and Delete in Registry Editor (regedit), is best left to experts as amateurs can find it tedious to work through the manual editing of registry keys. Automatic registry cleanup using a reliable registry tool not only helps you get rid of computer errors, but it also helps you defragment the registry, thus, enhancing the speed of your computer. A good registry cleaner uses advanced algorithms to thoroughly scan your registry and cleans out any errors and repairs damaged files automatically.
   
   

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