Filed under: Registry Cleaners
What is a registry? What is a registry cleaner? Do I need one?
March 16, 2010
12 thoughts on “What is a registry? What is a registry cleaner? Do I need one?”
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Clean Registry and Optimize PC
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If you are computer illiterate, the last thing I would do is to run a registry cleaner. The registry is the database where Windows and any programs you have store their settings. There are hundreds of thousands of entries in the registry, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, you could seriously screw up your computer.
With so many entries in the registry, cleaning out a few (even a few hundred) stray dlls or ActiveX entries is not going to translate into any noticeable performance gain. The odds of messing up your system are far greater then any benefit you’ll gain from running a registry cleaner. Here are two links. The first describes the Windows registry. The second offers good advice why you shouldn’t run a registry cleaner. Here’s my favorite quote from the second link:
"The Registry is an enormous database and all this “Cleaning” really doesn’t amount to much…I’ve said this before, but I liken it to “sweeping out one parking space in a parking lot the size of Montana” "
http://www.askdavetaylor.com/what_is_the_windows_registry_file.html
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000643.html
The only reason to clean your registry is if a corrupt entry is causing problems on your computer, and only then if you really know what your doing.
Trust me people who claim to see a huge performance gain from cleaning out a few entries simply don’t know what they’re talking about, and don’t realize the potential damage they’re doing to their
system. You’ll see a much bigger gain in performance if you simply run the XP Disk Defragmenter.
OK… riddle me this.
You own a ferrari of computers, a super processor machine, and you don’t want to become a racecar mechanic.
You have two choices:
1. Pay a real mechanic to tune it up, fix it right, every 3 to 6 months (just as is suggested in the Microsoft Service Bulletins!)
2. Do exactly as Microsoft has done for all their 45,000 computers at Hotmail.com (since 1997!), MSN.com, and Microsoft.com. Switch to maintenance free, virus proof, 50X faster, Linux!
http://pclinuxos.com comes with all the 5500 FREE programs, Office Suites, Chat and IM programs, Games, apps.
A registry is a BIG database (that is a really big list) of everything that is important on your computer. It keeps track of which programs to open when you click on an icon all the way down to the colors you see on the screen. Sometimes, when you install and uninstall many programs, it leaves behind some entries in the list that doesn’t matter anymore. After some time, junk like this may accumulate in your registry and as a result, your computer must search through thousands of useless entries just to find something it’s looking for. This can slow down the computer a lot. A registry cleaner (like CCleaner) cleans out this junk, and, as a result, your computer runs faster.
There plenty of registry cleaners out there for free. I’m not computer illiterate, but not a computer professional either. I wouldn’t suggest messing with your registry especially because you are unsure as to how to fix it if something goes wrong. I don’t see any reason you would need to clean your registry. Stick to using your antivirus software, download adaware by lavasoft to clean up spyware on your computer, and learn to use at least the disk cleanup, and disk defragment utilities within windows. If your computer is running fine, there is no need to mess with the registry.
It depends on what you do with your computer?
The registy is a file bus in Windows that stores your programes in a Digital "registy" a cleaner is used prettymuch only if you deleted a program and some of it is still showing up on your coputer, in somecases it can speed your computer up but other than that not much to say…yes there are free trials of software avalible from Download.com and others.
your registry is what is needed to run your computer it stores important information on how it runs.
i would not recommend you using a registry cleaner as they have caused problems for myself, rather than solving them. However, i’d recommend you using windows live onecare http://safety.live.com/site/en-gb/default.htm which does a clean of your computer (inc a registry cleaner, which seems to work for me; in terms of not causing problems).
N.b. i would recommend creating a system restore point before registry cleaning (good software should already do this before cleaning, as a fall back).
The registry is where Windows and all your programs store settings and configurations. If a registry cleaner program changes these your computer or software may not work correctly.
It is usually better to just leave the registry alone and not install the cleaners as they can sometimes do more harm than good.
The best free registry cleaner (that is most widely used) is CC Cleaner. It removes registry entries that are no longer needed.
A registry cleaner is a program for Microsoft Windows designed to remove redundant or unwanted items from the Windows registry. The cleaner program attempts to remove unneeded or unwanted items from the registry.
try CCleaner, the best around:
http://download.piriform.com/ccsetup136.exe
ccleaner is good u cna get it from http://100-downloads.com for free.
The registry is a gigantic file that holds all of the settings for every aspect of every program on your computer as well as leftovers from when a program is uninstalled. A registry cleaner is a program that will removed orphaned settings left behind when a program is uninstalled.
Since you say that you are computer illiterate, I would suggest that you leave the registry alone. You can do a great deal of damage if you change the wrong thing….and fixing it could cost quite a lot.