The windows registry is one of if not the most important component of your windows operating system(OS). Because of this it must be clean and free of errors for your PC to run smooth and error free.

In this article I will try and give you some best practices and guidelines to repairing the windows registry.

First thing you should know is that manually editing the registry is not for the average user, there are hundreds of  thousands of entries in the windows registry and changing or deleting the wrong one can cause your PC to stop booting forever, Yes I said STOP BOOTING FOREVER.

If you have manually edited the windows registry and now you cannot boot your only choice may be to re-install windows, if that does not work you may have to wipe your hard drive and start fresh, this can be a major pain trying to find all the drivers and support software for your system.

Assuming you have not manually edited your registry, the next thing you should know is that there are a ton of different registry repair software tittles available on the market.

This brings me to my own little rule for working any problem with windows, The rule of three, is my personal rule,. And it states that anything you want to do in windows you should have three different pieces of software to achieve. I have found that no matter how good the software or how many promises they make you, no one piece of software can do the job completely. To really get things done in windows requires a multi pronged approached. If I want to clean the adware or spyware off of my system I will use three different programs, Adaware, Spybot S&D, and Spyware blaster. Run them one at a time and then follow their instructions.

I use this same rule for the Registry Three different programs that all do the same thing but in different ways. The reason this is necessary is because windows is so complex and so is the registry, one piece of software may not find things another will, If after running the third piece of registry repair software it does not find anymore problems with your registry you can feel pretty good that your Windows registry of clean and error free.

Run the 1st piece of registry repair software, when it finds errors, and it will, select the fix option, or repair option, do NOT choose Delete. This forces the software to try to find solutions to the problems in your registry. Most Registry repair software will do the best it can to fix the problems and any it can’t fix, it will delete. Some will try to fix and then come back to the user with results of the repair/fix attempt and ask what to do with the errors it could not fix. At this point you would select delete.

Now run the second piece of registry repair software and do the same thing as before.

Now run the third registry repair software tittle and do the same thing as before.

At this point your registry is good to go and things should boot faster and have less errors.

One last thing, some Registry repair software has an option to do deep cleaning or aggressive search, I do not recommend these options as they may damage the registry, and we are trying to repair the registry.

This is a question that has become quite common as the number of cleaner brands offered commercially increases. Of course, if you’re looking for a registry utility tool, you want to choose the best one.

So which is best registry cleaner? Below, we discuss some of the things that an effective registry cleaner can do to your computer to help you select the best option.

1) Improve the performance of the computer. This is the primary purpose of a registry cleaner. Slow operations, computer freezing and system crashes are sometimes caused by redundant files present in your Windows registry database. Redundant files are those that are not being used anymore but still remain in the registry. They can also be from programs that have already been uninstalled but still occupy space in your computer. A registry cleaner’s job is to weed out these unwanted files and repair damaged ones or delete unnecessary files.

2) Eliminate the errors that cause the slowdown, freezing and system crash. Effective cleaners should be able to identify error files that affect the computer’s performance. Some poorly made cleaners just list error files and produce a huge number of errors. However, this is not an assurance that the errors identified really affect the performance of a computer.

A good registry cleaner should be able to pinpoint the files that cause the system to slowdown or freeze. Some files, although they appear in registry cleaner lists as errors, have very minimal effect on the system and removing them will not make much difference to the performance of the system.

3) Protect files that are still needed. Effective cleaners should have automatic backup and restore features. It is inevitable that some programs in your computer will be listed in the error files despite the fact that they are still needed by your system. A good registry utility tool should automatically create backups of files while it does its job and should have the ability to restore the ones that are still needed. It is inevitable that some of these needed files will be included in the list of errors, particularly those that are not being used as often as others.

4) Easy to use. A good Windows database utility tool should be easy to understand and easy to use. A computer user should be able to install and use the software cleaner easily so as to avoid confusion and further damage to the computer. Choose a cleaner that has easy to understand instructions and does not require too many steps to use.

Which is best registry cleaner? You will be able to answer this question if you consider the factors listed above. If a registry cleaner satisfies these criteria, then it should be able to make your computer run efficiently and protect it from system freezing and crashing.

For those who do not know, adware is a program which gets downloaded onto your computer, usually without your knowledge, downloads, plays, and displays all kinds of ads. This can happen when particular software is downloaded that has adware secretly installed.

Adware usually makes note of the sites you visit, then pops up related ads when the adware is packaged with software you have downloaded. AIM, Limewire, Kazaa, and DivX are just a few of the types of software which have adware attached.

Removal
If you want to remove adware, the first thing you need to do is quite simple. Uninstall and remove the software that hosts the adware. Things like Kazaa and Limeware aren’t necessary programs and your computer would run better without them anyhow.

Sometimes, however, you get a piece of malicious adware, which often simply won’t uninstall. It may instead be necessary to uninstall the adware manual, by going through the Control Panel, into Add/Remove Programs. That way, you can get rid of any of the programs you have.

Next, you want to run a scanner that will show you any adware you missed. Normal anti-virus software isn’t always enough and specific adware cleaners are available for purchase. They’ll come with an option to immunize your computer – to protect it in the future.

Once the scan is done, run it again after restarting your computer. You may need to scan your computer a few times to get rid of everything. Once the software returns a feedback of no adware, it’s job is finally complete.

When adware gets overloaded on your computer, the problem is out of your hands to solve. In some cases your web browsers won’t work properly and in others your computer will fail to boot altogether. At this point, you might need to see a professional computer technician to get your computer fixed.

Sometimes the adware is embedded in software you want to use readily. By removing the adware you’ll indirectly cause the software you enjoy to stop running. All too often, the adware has been attached to the software deliberately, by the companies that make it, so they can make a profit.

Fortunately, there are still ways to disable the adware. What this means is that the infected folders and files will be placed in a separate file to be deleted later. The program you normally use will still run but without the adware overload it’d normally contain.

It can be incredibly damaging, since it disrupts the way your programs and your computer itself are supposed to run. Remember, it can keep your computer from booting up at all.

You need to remove the problematic programs if any of this has happened to your computer. Ignoring it and just letting it go on running in the background is the worst thing you can do.

Why not run a scan on your computer as soon as possible?