If You Don't Cleanup Your Windows Registry Now, You'll Hate Yourself Later
The Windows registry is at the heart of your operating system. If anything goes wrong in the registry then your computer performance will suffer substantially. The registry is in charge of loading programs, their components, storing settings including the last state of your, well... windows. When you first install your Windows operating system you may find that it runs perfectly. When you first install Windows the full potential of your computer is realized from speed to efficiency, then over time you may notice that these both deteriorate substantially. This is directly affected by the registry becoming corrupt or being bogged down with too many dead entries.
Before we get into that, let's talk about a few other things you should check before the registry that can also cause these problems. With today's internet and the proliferation of ad-ware and viruses, it's always a good idea to have a good antivirus program (AVS) installed in your computer. If you have one installed and still your computer is running slowly, you may need to get a program to remove ad-ware, which a lot of the time slips in past the antivirus program's filters. You can use an anti-ad-ware program to do this.
Once you've done these two steps and scanned your computer thoroughly for viruses or ad/malware, the next step is to check the registry and make repairs if necessary. You can do this manually, however if you're not Microsoft certified or if you don't have knowledge of the registry, you will not know what is supposed to be there or not. The best way to deal with registry repairs, safely, is to get a windows registry cleanup program. Today's programs are phenomenal at very quickly finding all the problems and automatically fixing them for you. You get a chance to look at what it's going to delete first, but you can set it up to automatically fix windows registry problems that may occur during the course of using your computer.
The windows registry cleanup program essentially scans the registry for all entries then at the speed of light it traces the entry to the source file or program. If the program no longer exists or the entry is no longer valid it tags it for deletion. The program also looks for corrupt entries. Often when a program enters an entry into the registry it will not fully remove it, even leaving a single bit behind renders that registry spot useless and these over time become like a child's room where the toys are everywhere making it hard to run through the room without "crashing". This is often the reason for programs crashing and the computer slowing down substantially.
With todays windows registry cleanup programs you can maintain your computers registry and keep things running smoothly. Surprisingly this program is not built into windows but there are many great programs out there that can be installed very easily and are incredibly easy to use. Once set up you can completely automate it so it checks your computer on a schedule or even every time you start your computer (or shut it down). The small investment for this program will save you a lot of time and frustration in the future so it's well worth it.