Registry?

Hi kids,
I was wondering about registry cleaning, I've come across this term, but have never really found out what this technic consists of. Can someone elaborate on it's usefulness?
(The more info. the better I guess)

Curiously yours, Dan

 

The registry is a database that holds configuration settings for the operating system and applications. When applications are installed registry keys are add/modified and sometimes deleted. When applications are uninstalled some registry settings are usually left behind. The registry is resident in RAM so removing unneeded registry entries will lower your overhead. This procedure will also improve reliability and stability. A utility such as Norton Windoctor (from Norton Utilities) is a recommended way to remove obsolete, non-existent and incorrect registry entries.

One of the most important rules for registry tweaking is to BACK your registry up before attempting any changes. A simple way to do this is to use regedit to save the entire registry which can then be re-read by regedit if things go wrong. Here is Microsoft's page on this topic: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;322756

 

Also, it is important to note that editing the registry changes it immeidately. There is no "save changes" or "undo". You might need to reboot for the changes to take effect, but the registry database file itself is altered immediately.

 

Wonder if it's worth it?

Thanks to you all, I backed up my registry. However, windows told me there where no errors found. I'm wondering if it's worth cleanning it out or not(with my luck, problemes would pop up right after). Anyways I'll think about it a little longer.

Thanks again everybody,

 

"No errors" means that the structure of the databse is sound. But you still might have keys that are unnecessary.

It's like saying that all the books in a library are in order and properly shelved, but not noting that some of them are worthless or redundant. Just like ScanDisk will tell you that you file system is OK, but can't tell you if you don't need given files anymore.

 

regclean works well for me plus it saves the changes to a reg import file which when dcliked on reinstalls them to registry.
you can also edit these saves prior to sending back to registry.