Slow performance and crashing down of hardware—these are two things you don’t want to happen to your computer. One of the culprits of poor computer performance is a corrupted Windows registry.

Simply defined, the Windows registry stores all the information about the computer as well as the configurations of the software and hardware components installed in the computer. Over time, the constant use of registry causes it to expand beyond its limit. Moreover, viruses and spyware can corrupt a computer’s registry. These situations lead to slow computer speeds. Worse, it can bug down your operating system, which in turn results in a crash. Even if you delete programs in your computer, some of them will not remove themselves completely from the registry. To keep your computer bug-free, you need to know how to clean registry.

You can clean your computer’s registry in two ways. The first way is to clean it manually using the Windows Registry Editor. Cleaning the registry manually should be done only by someone who has enough understanding of what the registry entries mean. If important registry entries are deleted, several software programs may not work properly. So it’s better to ask help from someone who is knowledgeable about computers.

How to clean registry? First, you have to make a registry backup and get rid of unnecessary files. Here’s how to do it:

1.      Click on the “Start” button at the lower left area of the desktop.

2.      Click “Run.” A window that runs commands will appear.

3.      Type regedit.

4.      Click OK.

5.      Click “File,” which can be found at the top of the window.

6.      Click “Export.”

7.      Create a name for the backup file.

8.      Click “Save.”

Once you’re done, your next step is to see how your computer is configured by going to the left panel of the registry editor window. To expand the sections there, click on the plus sign. A commonly used area for manually removing registry files and making registry changes is “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.”

If you‘re unsure about manually cleaning your computer’s registry by yourself, then your other option is to use a registry cleaning software. A lot of registry cleaning tools that can get rid of unwanted entries from your computer’s registry are available on the Internet nowadays.

Registry cleaning programs work by scanning the Windows registry and deleting errors in the registry entries. These programs give a list of results and specify which ones are safe or not safe to remove. Although most registry cleaners perform the same basic functions, not all of them are created equal. Some registry cleaning programs work best for your needs; others don’t.