Although some people would have you believe otherwise, Microsoft has actually heard the complaints about slow operating system performance. Building speed into the product is difficult because Windows is a general purpose operating system. Different users have different needs, and it’s tough to find one path that works for everyone.

Performance Monitor Can Trace Problems Over Time

In terms of performance, Microsoft has a set of tools, one of which I discussed last week, the Event Viewer. The Event Viewer isn’t the only performance monitoring tool in Windows Vista, however. You can also get valuable information on the state of your OS through the Reliability and Performance Monitor – also included with Windows Vista.

The Reliability and Performance Monitor skims data from system logs, as well as real-time monitoring, to determine whether a computer is having difficulty. The Reliability and Performance monitor isn’t foolproof, but it will provide additional, up-to-date information on performance issues that may be developing, or that your computer is experiencing consistently.

To run the Reliability and Performance Monitor, enter perfmon into the Run box in Windows Vista. Once the application loads, it will provide Resource View, a performance display that tracks the current operational state of the computer. You can look individually at the Performance Monitor or the Reliability Monitor and set up checkpoints that will help you track your computer’s performance over time.

In general terms, performance measures the speed at which the computer operates. Reliability measures the computer’s ability to perform as it is configured to. Reliability Monitor also keeps track of the stability of the operating system, and keeps track of specific events that could affect the way your computer operates. Reliability Monitor is a good resource to use if you begin to experience problems.

The Reliability Monitor also creates a numerical score for the computer, which can change over time. A decline in the reliability score could indicate that the computer is experiencing problems with recent system updates, application installations or removals, and even problems that might arise from the computer’s hardware. Since Reliability Monitor tracks by date, you can quickly determine when problems started to occur and what events took place immediately before and after specific changes you’ve made.

Performance Monitor and Reliability Monitor enable you to create reports and even provide report templates to help you track the information that’s most important to you. Combined with other monitoring tools available in Windows Vista, the Performance Monitor can help you keep your computer in top condition.

One area in which you may notice slow performance from your computer is during the shutdown routine. Some users leave their computers on all the time. Personally, I don’t recommend this. I always shut down my computer at the end of the day. When you shut down and restart your computer, not only do you save electricity, you also give the operating system a fresh start.

Shutdown Problems Can Be Temporary

In theory, once a process is running, it should run normally. Sometimes, however, things go wrong. A process doesn’t shut down properly or gets hung up. Some programs that are not designed properly may have “memory leaks.” These “zombie” processes and memory leaks can take up valuable CPU cycles or consume a continuously growing amount of your computer’s available memory. Both of these things can slow system performance to a crawl or can hang your computer completely.

Even when you shut your computer down regularly, you may notice delays in the shutdown process. Some shutdown slowdowns are absolutely normal. Windows Vista and older versions of the Windows operating systems download and install updates at shutdown, and during this process, a slow shutdown is to be expected.

Slow shutdowns can also occur as the result of hung applications and other processes that cannot shut down normally. These problems are usually temporary and often resolve on their own. The computer may issue an error message asking for help when it gets stuck. If an application routinely crashes on shutdown, however, this could be a symptom of a larger problem.

Driver issues can also cause slow shutdown problems. Check often for driver updates and install updated drivers when you find them. Driver Detective can keep track of your drivers and download updates automatically.

If your shutdowns are chronically slow, check the Event Viewer to see what your computer is running. You may be surprised by what you find! To run the Event Viewer, choose the Run command and enter eventvwr.msc in the box.

When the Event Viewer is running, choose Applications and Services > Microsoft > Windows > Diagnostics – Performance > Operational. The Event Viewer will show a list of critical events and warnings that are issued at various points during the computer’s operation, and will specifically identify troublesome events that occur at shutdown. Take a close look at these Shutdown Performance Monitoring events. The warning information will often identify the processes that are causing shutdown delays. A little extra detective work on these slow spots will help you resolve these issues.

Photo Credit: Cindy Siegle

Backing up the registry in Windows Vista is never a bad idea. It’s easy to start making changes to your computer without backing up the files you’re working on, but that’s a little bit like walking a tightrope without a net. Whenever you make changes to a sensitive area of the computer, like the registry, you should always make a backup. Even if you haven’t made any obvious changes, backing up the registry periodically is an excellent idea.

No Matter What Else You Do, Back Up Your Registry

If you’re adventurous enough to edit your computer’s Registry file, you’ll want to make a backup before you start any heavy lifting. You can make a backup of the Registry’s state at any time using RegEdit. To make a backup copy of the registry, open RegEdit via the search box in the Start menu.

Once RegEdit is open, select “computer” from the left pane of the user interface. Choose File > Export. Select a location in your file system to place the registry’s export file. If you want to be very safe, export the registry file to an external location like a thumb drive. You could also write your registry file to a writeable CD and store it in a safe location, preferably away from the computer.

A good naming strategy is something like RegBackup200904301. Each time you make a backup of the registry, name the file and include the full date and a simple serial number with the file. That way, if you make more than one backup of the file in a day, you can increment the last number and keep your backup versions easily identified.

If you ever have to restore the Registry using a backup file, open RegEdit and choose File > Import and select the backup file.

RegCure always backs up the registry before making any changes to it. This allows you to revert back to the system state you had prior to the changes RegCure makes. You always have the opportunity to reject suggested changes as well, so you don’t have to give up control of your system when you work with RegCure.

Your registry is a work in progress, and over time, many changes accumulate. Developing a regular backup routine for the Registry is a good idea. You may want to back up your registry every month or quarter, and before loading new software on your computer. If you back up your registry before installing new software, you can more easily recover your system if the new software causes problems. It may also help you clan up after a virus, spyware or adware mishap.

Photo Credit: Alexaner Muse

In the last entry, I talked about how RegCure scans and fixes registry problems. More accurately, I talked about what RegCure scans. Today I’ll talk about what you can expect when RegCure fixes the problems it finds.

Managing A RegCure Scan

When you set up RegCure to scan your computer, you can choose which types of problems RegCure looks for. If there are certain types of problems that you don’t want RegCure to scan for, you can customize the scan to select only those areas of the registry you want to examine. RegCure will leave all other areas of the registry alone.

Once you have RegCure set up to scan your registry, start the scan. RegCure will track the errors it finds and make a log of potential problems it spots. RegCure will show you an easy-to-follow progress indicator and specify the areas of the registry in which potential problems were found.

Once the scan is complete, there’s still more to do. You can examine each problem area and decide how RegCure should handle the error. RegCure may identify some problems that really aren’t problems at all.

For example, it’s not unusual for applications to create temporary files while they’re running and remove these files when they close. A path may exist that points to the location of the temporary file, even though no file exists t at the moment RegCure is scanning. This really isn’t an error, since the only time a temporary file would exist is when the application that creates it is actually running.

RegCure gives you the option of removing or not removing these entries, so you have control over what RegCure does at all times. You can also mark these items in a special way to indicate that RegCure should ignore these files in future scans. You can also manage the Ignore list, and indicate that items that had been ignored at one time should now be scanned and removed or corrected.

Aside from scanning and repairing or removing broken registry entries, you can also use RegCure to flag applications that should start automatically when Windows starts. This will allow you to keep track of applications that are starting when the computer starts but perhaps don’t need to. This “startup application overload” can cause performance problems when too many applications startup and remain running when your computer is turned on. Certain applications, like anti-virus and anti-spyware applications should remain in your startup items list.

Before making any changes, RegCure makes a complete backup of your registry, so you can always revert to your previous state if something goes amiss. This kind of security and peace of mind means that you can manage your registry like a pro, even if you’re new to computers!

Photo Credit: Kristen Brenemen

There’s a lot of debate over registry cleaners and whether or not it’s really necessary to use one on your computer. I thought it would be valuable to cover exactly what RegCure looks for when it scans your registry.

What’s In A Registry Scan?

Errors in the registry file can wreak all kinds of havoc, so finding and fixing these errors is a critical component of what RegCure does. Among the COM/ActiveX entries, for example, errors can cause application failures, freezes, crashes and other malfunctions, like problems when opening documents. RegCure locates errors in this section of the registry file and eliminates them and the problems they cause.

Lots of errors can be found in the Uninstall Entries section of the registry. As you know, uninstallers don’t always work correctly. This section of the registry can contain entries that point to missing files and folders, or other registry entries that have been removed. RegCure locates and removes these invalid entries that can otherwise slow the performance of your computer.

RegCure checks the Font Entries section of the registry, looking for pointers to missing files. These pointers can cause problems with font-dependent applications like word processors. Removing them will improve the performance of your computer and of your font-dependent applications.

If you’ve worked with Windows for awhile, you know that DLLs can cause a lot of problems. To confuse things, some applications share DLLs, and other DLLs compete with each other for system resources. DLL conflicts can cause system performance problems, application crashes and other similar problem. RegCure hunts these problems down and removes them to improve the performance of a slow computer and prevent application and system crashes.

Help files aren’t very helpful when they don’t work properly. The Help Files Information section of the registry can contain invalid entries that will cause help files to open incorrectly or not at all. RegCure locates and corrects these invalid entries to help you take advantage of the help files on your computer.

The Windows Startup Items section of the registry can be filled with invalid entries that can cause applications not to start up properly when the computer boots. In addition, the registry can contain bad path or file name information that will slow the performance of the computer. Broken program shortcuts and invalid registry keys can also slow the performance of your computer and cause problems with your applications.

Next time, I’ll cover what you can expect from a scan and repair and removal options that RegCure provides.

Photo Credit: Athena Workman