How do I clean the registry on my computer?

As a computer owner you might experience the problem of it becoming slower and slower over time. Your applications take longer to load; games might become slow, sometimes even become unplayable. In addition, you might experience the dreaded "blue screens", error messages and unexplainable crashes.

You are at the point where you know that you need to clean the registry of your computer.

What is the registry? A Windows computer's registry is a big, central database where each and any data related to your programs and games are stored. It is a crucial part of your computer. The registry is also constantly being read and written to. Over time, the registry database is becoming bloated. The computer needs more time to read through all the data. In addition, the registry can contain faulty data which cause errors and crashes. Each program you ever installed or removed will add and delete entries in the registry, and soon you will reach a point where you need to perform maintenance. You need to clean the registry from the old remains and to fix the erroneous entries left behind.

To clean the registry of a computer you will use software called a registry cleaner.

How does it work? The registry cleaner will scan through your registry and check all its references to your currently existing programs and data. It will alert you if something is not right, and it will also automatically fix those problems. For example, possible problems would be data referring to programs you removed already, or corrupted entries pointing to the wrong system files. Those faulty files can cause crashes or slowdowns.

The registry cleaner tool can do all those checks automatically and you don't need to worry about the internals of your computer. Good registry cleaners should come with options to perform various levels of cleaning and error checking. Some cleaners come with additional features for error diagnosis and repair, and most of them have the option to backup and restore your registry database.

There are many registry cleaners on the market and most of them claim to be up to the task, but some do a better job cleaning the registry of a computer than others.

Now you already know how to clean the registry of your computer, it's about time to choose the best registry cleaner for your computer. I suggest, RegEasy Cleaner! For more info about the product, browse to this site: http://registryfixcleaner.org/

A good place to start is Ccleaner. It's a free program and it also has a portable version. However they are two schools of thought when it comes to cleaning your registry. Some people the idea, claiming it will speed up your computer. Other people say it is unneeded.

Something to keep in mind... deleting the wrong lines from your registry may harm some programs so they will not work properly. Or in extreme cases may cause your computer not to boot. ALWAYS set a restore point and if possible back up your registry before cleaning. There is a free program called Erunt for this. It was made for Windows NT but will work with XP. I'n not sure about Vista or Win 7.