Monday, April 27, 2009

If you care for your Windows registry health?

What are Windows registry? Why are they so important for your operating system? What can you do to keep it reliable?

According to the Microsoft site, the register is "a central hierarchical database used in Microsoft Windows ... to store the information necessary to configure the system to one or more users, applications and hardware devices." You can add to these data regarding the types of files like this which is used to open them, what should be the display of icons for them and so on.

I will try to explain what is happening on 2 of most scenarios that run on your computer:

1. You get a new program (software or a game). You want to test, you install it. At that time, new data is written to the Windows registry. These data include program folder, associated files, various parameters that are used by the program, if it will run at startup (HKCU / Software / Microsoft / Windows / Current Version / Run /) or only during the first startup ( HKCU / Software / Microsoft / Windows / Current Version / RunOnce /).

No problem so far. But what happens if you decide to uninstall it? This is where things become difficult.
Even if you receive a "successful uninstall" message, pieces of data stays on your record. Of course, this is not true in all cases, but unfortunately it does in many of them.

In the worst case, if for instance files "*. abc" are included in an application that you removed and the entire process of registration has been removed from the register, you will get an error message when you try to run this kind of files. These registry entries invalid not bother you visibly all the time, but they will cause your computer to slow down or even blocking in some cases.

2. You install new hardware, as another network card or something. When you plug it in, Windows will detect and install the best drivers for it. Of course, a significant amount of data is written to the register. Again, no problem so far. When you shut down your computer and remove the device installed, the registry entries are not deleted. They just stay there. If you try, after a period of time, install a similar device, conflicts appear in May, because your computer may be confused. This is happening because of the former and perhaps corrupt registry entries.

A solution to avoid such problems is to create regular backups of your entire Windows registry. This way you can easily restore it at the moment, you feel something is not working right. But be careful, since a previous backup could cause your new program or device malfunction. Another way to solve problems is to use a tool that scans your registry registration and fix all invalid, missing or damaged entries he could find.

You can visit CoreDownload, a software archive of more than 23,000 programs, where you will find a wide variety of registry tools that can solve all your problems.

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