Computer Tips for ‘Regular People’ — Are Registry Cleaners Necessary?
The main purpose of a “registry cleaner” is to delete keys or to repair broken pieces of registry information associated with software that you may have uninstalled. If your computer was messed up by trojan software or malware, a registry cleaner could be a useful tool in removing the keys associated with the malware. Once those keys are removed, the malware (or trojan) cannot keep reinstalling itself.
Net Framework Has Replaced the Registry
XP and Vista operating systems are based on Windows NT, so invalid keys in the registry are not that big of a deal. Every once in awhile, however, you might have a situation where your anti-virus and anti-malware program tells you that it cannot remove malware and that you have to remove it manually. When this happens, it will usually cite a registry key that has to be removed.
The Free Registry Edit
When you know a specific registry key that should be removed, you can delete it by using the “RegEdit” function that is part of your operating system. To access it, click START and then select Run:
CAPTION: To access the registry editor, click start and then run.
Type “regedit” in the pop-up that appears when “Run” is executed:
CAPTION: From the "run" interface, type in the word "regedit" and then click OK.
You then see the contents of your registry file. If you know exactly where the bad key is located, navigate to the appropriate folder, open it and then delete the bad key. If you are removing a key associated with malware, your security program (such as Norton, McAfee or AVG) should tell you the location of the bad registry key. You should also be able to find it in the security program log.
CAPTION: Here's a partial screenshot of what your registry files will look like.
If you’re not sure where the bad key is located, but know the filename of the key, you can search the registry files by clicking “Edit” and “Find.”
CAPTION: To find a specific item in your registry files, click "Edit", then "Find," and then follow the prompts.
If You Don’t Know What You’re Doing, Get a Reliable Registry Editor
Modifying the registry files can be intimidating, especially for a non-technical person. If you remove the wrong key, it is possible that one or more of your software programs will fail to load correct or work properly.
As tempting as “free” may be, downloading a free registry cleaner may create more problems then you bargained for because some of these have malware in them that will install without your knowledge.
I’ve used some registry cleaner programs that totally messed up my software programs, and some of these were paid programs that ended up having terrible customer support. After years of trial and error, the cleaner that I have found that best is to manually edit my registry file using the operating system’s registry edit function described above. This is followed by a software program published by ParetoLogic called RegCure (all links in this article to RegCure will take you to the free trial so you can test it out).
RegCure Software is a reliable registry cleaner.
What’s nice about RegCure is that you can manually update your registry, using the easy interface provided by the software program. You can also allow the program to clean up your registry automatically. RegCure has a full backup utility, enabling you to backup your registry PRIOR to making any changes. If something is messed up after the registry has been edited, simply click RESTORE and your backup will reinstall and you’re as good as new.
Conclusion
While the newer Windows operating systems rely on Windows NT, some software programs haven’t made the migration and you may encounter registry problems from time to time, making the software load slowly or not work properly. Cleaning your registry can enhance computer performance, but I don’t feel that registry cleaners are essential for XP or Vista users. They become essential if malware is installed and you’re not sure how to remove the malware keys from your registry.
If your computer is running sluggishly, you might want to (1) scan it for trojans, malware or spyware and if that comes up blank, (2) run your system defrag. It might be that almost all of your hard drive space is used up, in which case you might want to consider getting an external hard drive. If these options aren’t working, try cleaning your registry. RegCure (try the free trial) will do a good job in cleaning up unnecessary garbage out of your registry.
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