Do You Really Need A Registry Cleaner?

Where Did The Registry Come From?

In an effort to make a PC more secure, Microsoft has changed the way the operating system interacts with the user and the computer programs that run on it. For many years, the Windows operating system has used a “registry” to keep track of all kinds of important and behind-the-scenes interactions and details that most users are unaware of.

In earlier versions of Windows, the registry – which is spoken of as a single file – was really a collection of three very important .dat files. Every element of the operating system, the user profile, and the appearance (and operation) of the computer were controlled in some way by the data stored in these three files. Collectively, they formed “the registry.”

Housing so much data (some registry files can balloon to hundreds of megabytes) in so few files was a bit of a threat, so more modern versions of the Windows registry consist of a small army of files, stored in multiple locations around the computer. The registry is more dispersed now, and it’s a little more elegant when it comes to loading information into the computer, but the registry can still get crammed with all kinds of fluff and leftover entries that do nothing but slow the computer down and increase the potential of a conflict.

The Need For A Registry Cleaner

In older versions of Windows, a registry cleaner is an absolute requirement. As you add files and applications to your computer, or make configuration changes, your registry grows. Uninstalling programs (or worse, just deleting program files) doesn’t always clean up the hundreds of registry entries that a single program can make or leave behind. The computer must read and load these abandoned registry entries each time it boots up, or tries to run an application. Imagine what happens when the computer reads and loads information for a program that no longer exists on the computer!

Malware and spyware can also foul up the registry. Anti-spywayre and anti-virus software can miss these useless entries in the registry, allowing the same kinds of delays and conflicts to arise. Don’t waste your time waiting for your computer to time out, and don’t let leftover malware entries cause problems for you and your computer. Instead, apply a highly rated registry cleaner like RegCure to the problem.

Photo Credit: Timothy Valentine