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From the perspective of a computer repair tech, maintaining the Windows registry is no big deal. Because of my years of experience, I'm perfectly comfortable opening the regedit utility and making changes to improve the stability and overall performance of a PC. Sometimes I forget though, just how dicey it can be to make sweeping changes to the Windows Registry and as a rule, this type of maintenance should only be performed by an experienced computer professional. That being said, there are always a few adventurous types who like to tinker with their computer, and to those people I say "Atta Boy!" There is really nothing wrong with trying to improve your PC by making changes to the registry as long as you know beforehand that it can be risky and are willing to accept that risk. After all, the benefits gained from optimizing the registry can be significant if done properly (and carefully!)
For those of you who aren't familiar, the Windows registry is a special folder in the operating system that contains pretty much all of the information that Windows needs to run properly. All of this information is stored in a hierarchy of keys and values pertaining to different functions of Windows and all programs and settings on the computer. As a result, changing or deleting a registry key without knowing what you are doing can have very undesirable results up to and including making your computer unbootable. So for the sake of safety, I must give this disclaimer: WARNING! Making changes to the Windows registry can result in corruption of your operating system. NEVER, EVER make changes to the registry without making a registry backup first! Seriously! I really mean it! You can seriously screw up your PC if you make a mistake! Everyone got it?...OK then, let's move on.
One problem with windows is that it does a lousy job of housecleaning. What I mean by that statement is this: when you install a program on a windows system, entries pertaining to that program are entered into the registry. For some odd reason though, when you remove said program from your PC, the associated registry entries are not always completely removed. Go figure!.. Anyway, over time these invalid and orphaned registry entries pile up. Most just sit there collecting dust and aren't really a problem. Some though, can cause your computer to behave erratically and/or degrade overall system performance. A second problem is that these registry entries can be very cryptic and are scattered throughout the registry, so unless you happen to be a software engineer and are very familiar with the inner workings of the Windows operating system the rogue registry entries are virtually impossible to track down and eliminate.
For registry cleanup you definitely need a registry cleaning tool. I've never been a big fan of these applications for the simple reason that they often can do more harm than good, so the trade-off of benefit to risk just isn't worth it. There is only one program however, I use myself that I do recommend for this type of operation. It's called Registry First Aid and it's the ONLY registry cleaning software that I endorse. The reason that I recommend this software is that it takes a very cautious approach to cleaning the registry but at the same time it's very thorough. It is configured by default to automatically make a full registry backup before it makes any changes (That's a REALLY GOOD feature). It also groups the identified registry errors by "safety level" so that you can easily make wholesale changes to the "safe" items and take a more cautious approach to the entries that could damage windows if not handled properly. All in all, it's a very safe and effective tool for optimizing your PC as long (as it's used as directed). I highly recommend it! If you would like to try it for yourself you can visit the downloads section of my website and grab a free trial copy of the software. Anyway, the point that I'm trying to get across is this: You can make significant improvements in your computer's performance by maintaining and optimizing the system registry, but you have to be very careful. Just remember these points. (1) Manually editing the Windows registry can be very dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. (2) NEVER make changes to the registry without first making a registry backup and (3) to keep your PC running smoothly, get a (good quality) registry cleaning utility like Registry First Aid. If you will remember these simple things, you'll keep your computer running like new.
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