Important Steps to Registry Cleanup

You should not do some things to your own computer unless you are extremely knowledgeable about the ramifications of such actions. One of these things is cleaning out your registry. You should first understand exactly what it is that the registry does for your computer before you take on such a task. Things your registry does for your computer include the following:

1. It keeps information about each user and their preferences
2. It holds the settings and options related to each user
3. It contains the path and locations of applications you have installed
4. It holds the property settings for your applications and folders
5. It holds all the path and location information for the hardware devices on your computer
6. It has the information on all the ports being used on your computer
7. It contains all the system policies on your computer
8. It has all of the file associations on your computer
9. It contains any changes you have made to your computer

To begin with, do you know about all of the above items; do you know what they do? If you do not then you should not be in your registry at all. If you are willing to risk the health and well-being of your computer, forge on my friend. Whenever you change anything on your computer, whether it is adding or removing software, or adding and removing hardware, in one way or another it is in the registry. Any changes you make to your computer go through the registry. If you go into the registry and do not know what you are doing, you are liable to cause your computer to crash or at the very least, mess your computer up so bad that you have to send it to the repair shop.

The registry holds information about your software and hardware and installed programs. You may have installed new programs or uninstalled programs. You may have installed or uninstalled new software or hardware. There will be left over traces of the software, hardware or programs still in your computer if you uninstalled them incorrectly. This means that they will still be in your registry. If you do not uninstall a program through add and remove programs, most likely there is still some remnant of it in your registry. Over time this will slow down your computer and it will not respond the way you want it to.

To clean up your registry, first go to Miscrosoft.com and go to Windows Live OneCare to get the clean up scanner and it will find and remove any invalid registry items. There is also a full-service safety scan by the Windows Live OneCare program. Click on Clean Up Scan in the Clean Up Center and it will check, locate and remove any items that can be removed safely. Do not go into the registry and try to clean it up yourself. Let the company that made the program clean it up. They know what they are doing and your computer will still run after it is done.