Registry Cleaners

If your system is new, usually you will not notice the need to effect any changes to your registry.

In time, however, your Windows registry will grow exponetially as you add and remove software and hardware to your computer. For example, even creating new documents requires Windows to store entires within the registry including the path of the document, the file name, the file extension with which the document is to be opened, etc..

All these additions and deletions will cause your Windows registry to become fragmented, corrupted or full of errors.

Common errors include:

• Missing, orphaned, broken or bad application/Windows paths, shortcuts and links,
  
• Unwanted browser objects,
  
• Unused, obsolete Start Menu items,
  
• Missing or corrupt application IDs,
  
• Corrupt Active X/COM Objects,
  
• Residual and unused file and drivers,
  
• Unnecessary recent files list.
  
• Highly fragmented registry - this occurs because certain processes continually and incrementally modify the same values within the registry. This fragmentation, in certain cases, be excessive and eventually registry file sizes may exceed the Registry Size Limits imposed by Windows. This will cause any subsequent modifications to the registry to fail.

None of these problems are visible unless you access the registry directly. And even there the problems are rarely obvious. Registry fragmentation and errors will effect the performance of your computer and its stability and smooth operation.

The more frequent symptoms of registry problems include:

• Frequent error messages,
  
• Slow start-ups,
  
• Sluggishness,
  
• Declining performance,
  
• System stalls,
  
• Severe degradation in operating speed,
  
• Unstable and frequent application errors and crashes, and,
  
• At times, even an inability to start Windows.

Editing the Windows registry is a nightmare. I will post an article about how you can do this soon. At this stage suffice it to say even the most experienced of users find it extremely difficult to edit the Windows registry directly. And even they rely on registry cleaning tools.

Of course, not all tools are the same and some are better than others, while others still should be forceably removed from circulation since they wreak havoc to computer systems. One comment I read on a website only yesterday states that even HP technicians recommend their clients not to use certain products.