How to Clean Your Windows Registry Files

What is a Registry Cleaner anyway?

A registry cleaner does just what it says, it cleans up your registry files. But what are registry files? And why should you be concerned with their hygiene?

Wikipedia defines registry files as:

“…a hierarchical database that stores configuration settings and options on Microsoft Windows operating system. It contains settings for low-level operating system components as well as the applications running on the platform…”

What does that tell us? Not much. All you really need to know is that sometimes, things get messed up in there.

Which is why you need a good registry cleaner. A registry cleaner is a program that maintains the overall cleanliness and health of your computer’s most important files, your Windows files. Of course, if your running a Mac then this entire post is useless. But many people use a Windows-based operating system which, unfortunately, requires regular maintenance. Here’s what can go wrong if you don’t maintain your Windows registry:

* Slow as molasses performance

* Timeouts on loading files

* Painfully slow Internet

* Errors and crashes

If you are skilled with computers you can clean your own registry files. Here are the basic steps:

WARNING! CLEANING YOUR OWN REGISTRY IS NOT WITHOUT RISKS! THIS IS A VERY SENSITIVE AREA OF YOUR COMPUTER!

1) Back it up: The first thing you will want to do is a complete backup of your entire Windows registry. The best way is to create a restore point. Different versions of Windows achieve this is different ways. Do what works best for you. In XP, select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore. Select Create a restore point, click Next and follow the wizard.

2) Save hypercritical data to an external drive. This is a great idea, just in case something goes wrong.

3) If you are really good with computers you can open regedit.exe by going to the Start menu and clicking on Run. This is a great shortcut, but you really have to know what you are looking for here. DO NOT just delete everything you see. Only select files will need deleting, and if you don’t know what these are I strongly suggest just staying out of here.

4) If you’ve skipped step 3, then at this point you should run your computer’s disk cleanup. Follow the directions. I do this at least once per week.

Run your computer’s disk defrag. Make sure you let it run all the way through. I do this at least once per week.

5) You can also go into the start menu and do a search for *.tmp which will find all of your computer’s temp files. You can pretty much delete all of these.

Doing just this should improve your computer’s performance greatly. If you run your disk cleanup and defrag at least once per week, the entire process takes only minutes. If you procrastinate, it can take up to several hours.

I’m pretty thorough. So, in addition to running disk cleanup and disk defrag (I don’t even mess with the others steps) I also run a good registry cleaner. I’ve found this to be the best way to avoid trouble. There are many good ones out there, and you can find good reviews on sites like ZDNet, CNET, PC World or PC Magazine. I use WiseFixer. It’s easy to use and it also includes a great security strategy to prevent backdoor trojans and viruses from worming their way into your computer. I suggest you do some research until you find the one that suits you.

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