Cleaning your Registry

Many people are not aware of the Windows Registry and why it is important to regularly clean it.

The Registry is Windows internal database which records an entry for every software you install and use. It even stores information of each user’s profile and hardware devices which is continuously reffered to by Windows.

If you are like me you will have a lot of unwanted entries in your registry by regularly installing and uninstalling different applications, which will affect the functioning of your PC.

There are many softwares that help you to keep your registry clean by removing these unwanted entries.

RegCleaner 4.3 is one such software that helps you with the task of cleaning your registry. You can download it from here.

RegCleaner has 7 tabs namely Software,Startup List,Uninstall Menu, File Types, New File, Shell Extensions and Backups.

The Software tab shows you the list of softwares you have installed on your system.

The Startup List tab lists the programs that are sheduled to start with Windows. The more programs that are listed here the more slower your system startup will be. So remove all the unwanted prorams from here. But be careful what you remove. Security programs need not be removed.

The Uninstall Menu lists the softwares that are installed on your system. Go to Options>Uninstall Menu>Show only hidden software to display hidden softwares that are not showed in Add/Remove Programs. Select the ones you don’t need and click ‘Uninstall’. Don’t click ‘Remove Selected’ as this will only remove the entry and not uninstall the software. This option is useful when you want to remove programs that display in Add/Remove Programs after being uninstalled.

The File Types tab will display all the file types registered to the Registry. Entries with description ‘N/A’ should be safe to delete.

The New File tab lists the new files that you can create with right-click>New. You can delete the entries you don’t need.

Shell Extensions tab displays the different kinds of file types. You can delete the ones you don’t need. But be careful which you delete.

And last the Backups tab. Well, this tab just backups everything you delete using the other tabs. You can restore entires from here.

Ok, now I have explained the different tabs available in RegCleaner and the use of each. But that’s not all, I have not explained how you can clean the registry with RegCleaner, read on…

Cleaning the Registry

Cleaning the Registry using RegCleaner is very easy. Just go to Tools> Registry Cleanup which will display four options - ‘OLE Cleaner’, ‘Orphan file reference finder’, ‘Automatic Registry Cleaner’ and ‘Do them all’.

All these options displays a list of invalid entries that you can select and remove. If you want to clean the entire Registry at one go, select ‘Do them All’. This option scans the registry for irrelevant entries and lists them out. You can now select them all, and then click ‘Remove Selected’. Make sure you have enabled ‘Create only one backup file’ before you remove entries without checking each one.

That’s it! Clean your registry often and your system will function in top condition. Make sure you also remove the unwanted entries from the ‘Startup List’ tab to speed up your system startup.