Ways to Fix Registry Errors

Cleanup and Defragment the Registry for an Extra Performance Boost

Have you ever heard of the Windows registry? Most computer users are familiar with the word “registry” simply because there are tons of registry cleaner adverts scattered all over the Internet. These adverts try to scare people into buying their registry cleaners by saying that they have thousands of errors in the Windows registry and that their tool is the magical cure for all known and unknown computer problems. Naturally, all these ads are no more than scareware, so don’t panic and pay a hefty sum for a dubious piece of software. But there is some truth in these ads – the Windows registry does need to be kept clean and healthy if you want your Windows to run fast and error-free.

Before we start dealing with registry cleanup and defragmentation, let’s learn a bit more about the Windows registry and what it does.

What exactly is the Windows registry?

It’s no secret that Windows is a very complicated system that is capable of managing a huge number of operations at once. Like all complicated systems, it needs a central management database to make all these operations possible. And that’s exactly what the Windows registry is – the core database within Windows that stores all the settings for every single bit of your hardware, software, and user profiles. No matter what happens on your computer, you can be sure that it gets recorded in the registry. Change your wallpaper – the registry gets updated, change your browser homepage – the registry reflects the change, install a new program – it writes its settings to the registry, uninstall it later on – the registry gets modified again.

The registry has a tree-like structure with its main branches called hives and small.branches called keys and leaves called values.