The Windows Registry is one of the most misunderstood and neglected pieces of the Windows operating system. Long periods of neglect can lead to a registry that is overloaded with orphaned and invalid registry keys, resulting in slow system performance and delayed boot-up times. Once the registry is corrupted, there are few options you can take to fix it.
By far, the BEST option is to use RegCure to clean your registry. RegCure earned our best rating in a head-to-head shootout with several other leading registry cleaning applications. Take a moment to check out our full RegCure review and see why it's earned top honors.
Why RegCure? RegCure is an automated software application that cleans your registry quickly, easily, safely, and efficiently. It's been developed to utilize the most current technology in registry cleaning and is the most advanced maintenance tool currently available. RegCure is powerful enough for advanced users yet simple enough for novices. RegCure runs a scan against your registry and traverses its complex structure to find invalid, broken, and orphaned registry keys. Once located, RegCure will remove invalid entries while fixing broken ones. The end result? A clean and efficient registry in seconds without any labor intensive effort on your part!
We cannot say enough good things about RegCure. Give RegCure a spin and scan your computer for free to see why it's the best way to clean your registry. Once you read through the other options available, you'll see why RegCure is the best solution currently available.
Unless you're a seasoned IT veteran, you may want to think twice before attempting to edit your registry manually. The registry is a very important component of the Windows operating system, recording relationships between hardware and memory space. It contains system settings for users, hardware, software, and personal preferences. Inadvertently changing or deleting a system-critical key can result in loss of data, applications failing to run, hardware failure, or a complete failure of the Windows operating system. Words of warning... do NOT attempt to edit your registry manually unless you feel comfortable with the registry structure!
Editing your registry is best done through a registry editing tool. Microsoft ships with RegEdit, a GUI tool that allows traversing registry hives to find and edit key and value pairs. For a complete guide on the registry structure see our Anatomy of a Windows Registry guide.
Before you dive in, there is one question to ask yourself. "Which registry keys are corrupt and orphaned and where do I find it?" Ahh! That's the million dollar question! Truth is, you really don't know. You may be able to find a few keys to fix, but there may be thousands of invalid and corrupt keys clogging up your registry. Unless you’re into self torture, manually editing your registry is a non-option for mass cleaning.
For most, this isn't an option at all. However, formatting your computer and re-installing your operating system will give you a clean slate. The biggest down-side is that it's labor intensive. First, you'll have to backup all of your vital files, a task that could take hours and test your patience. If you haven't been keeping an organized folder structure on your system, finding the locations where you have files saved can be maddening. Once you've identified the files you need to back up, you'll need to burn them to a DVD or transfer them to a non-primary hard drive.
Once you've backed-up your data, you'll need to initiate the formatting of the drive. Formatting times can vary depending on the size of the drive, but anticipate about 30 minutes for a full-format. Once the formatting is done, you need to re-install your Windows operating system. Sound easy? Well, unless you've done it before you may be in for a surprise. You'll most likely have to enter your system BIOS (usually by pressing F1 when your computer boots) and change your logical drive boot order. Most systems default to drive C:\ for the first boot location. Since your system no longer has an OS (operating system) on it, it's no longer bootable. You'll need to change your CD or DVD drive to be the first bootable drive, save your changes, and exit your bios. From there you restart your computer with the Windows OS disk in the CD or DVD drive and it will boot from there. From this point on you'll follow the on-screen instructions and continue installation... which could take as long as an hour to complete. The final steps will be to re-install and restore all of your applications and backed-up data.
Whew!!! You're finally done! Is it worth all that hassle? For some yes, for most no.
RegCure is your savior when it comes to your Windows registry. There really isn't a better solution to cleaning your registry and brining your system back to peak performance. Go ahead and try the RegCure free scan. You may be very surprised by how clogged and corrupt your registry is. Whatever option you choose, you'll certainly gain by fixing your corrupt registry files.